Exposed_Fury Riders MC

by Sophia Gray

  She tried to move to her side, but the tangle of wires wrapped around her body impeded her, keeping her pinned in place. Abby let out a breath of frustration, and she felt a little surprised that she was even able to breathe that deeply anymore. In the back of her mind, a tiny voice popped up, telling her to stop whining. It’s not so bad, she tried to say to herself as she shifted in her bed, trying to get into a more comfortable position. You’ve been through so much worse.

  And that was it, wasn’t it? Through her stupid decision-making, she’d landed herself in her least favorite place on the planet, at the wrong side of a hospital room, stuck in a bed like an invalid, yet again. It was the worst feeling in the world, as far as Abby was concerned. She’d never felt so trapped in her life as she did when she was here as a teenager, wasting away slowly, watching herself become less and less of a person with each passing day. Not this time, she swore to herself. I’m not going to stay here. I’m going home as soon as I can.

  What home? Abby’s other inner voice asked. It made a good point. She had no apartment, no friends she could stay with, no money to pay for a hotel room, let alone the ridiculous hospital fees that this situation must be incurring. She couldn’t exactly stay with Jagger, now that his house had been targeted, and the compound wasn’t an option either. She couldn’t stay with him anymore. It was obvious. They were done. Finished, for good. She couldn’t afford to keep putting herself in situations like this. He’d distrusted her so much that he locked her up in a house with no way of getting out, without even telling her about it, allowing the arsonist to nearly kill her.

  What a fucking arrogant prick. What a thoughtless, piece of shit, asshole, Abby thought, chewing on her bottom lip to quell the guilt that automatically sprang up in her stomach whenever she thought bad thoughts about somebody that didn’t deserve it.

  But he does deserve it! Abby argued back to herself as she struggled to lay on her side. He put me in danger. He almost got me killed. He—

  She finally succeeded in flipping her body over without untangling any of the wires that wound their way across her body. Jagger was there in front of her, sleeping in the chair next to her bed, a frown on his face as he dreamed. Abby didn’t know what to feel about him being there. It was an entirely new situation for her, waking up in a hospital room to find somebody sleeping next to her. She was more accustomed to it being the other way around. As a teenager, before the cancer set in, she used to sit all night in the hospital, watching over her mother while her dad was out drinking. Her mother hadn’t survived, but Abby had. That was her talent, living through terrible things. She just wouldn’t die. She wasn’t good at giving up.

  Maybe Jagger wasn’t either, she thought, staring at him as his brow furrowed in his sleep. Maybe he was addicted to saving people, to the point where he put them in danger instead. It wasn’t a good trait. It didn’t make her feel warm and fuzzy, thinking about Jagger worrying about her. He’d put her in a ridiculous amount of danger, and she didn’t even know if he was sorry about it. But… nobody had ever slept in the hospital for her before, even though she’d spent over eighteen months in the cancer ward when she was a teenager. Nobody had ever even tried. Her dad never had, always leaving at the first opportunity, sickened by the sight of his daughter gripped by the same illness that had claimed his wife.

  As if alerted to the fact that Abby was thinking about him, Jagger suddenly twitched himself awake, all at once, like a cat startled by a loud noise. He straightened up in his chair, gripping onto the arms of it with his large hands like he was bracing himself for a storm. “Hey. Hey. Are you…. okay?” he stuttered out a moment later.

  Abby didn’t say anything at first, instead just staring at Jagger, blinking slowly to keep her eyes from burning the way they’d been doing the past several hours since the fire.

  Jagger sighed deeply, dragging a hand through his thick dark hair. “Look, I—I know you have every right to be pissed at me. I fucked up. I really, really, fucked up. I—I’m sorry.” It took several moments before Abby even comprehended the words, they felt so alien and strange coming out of Jagger’s mouth. His face was wide and vulnerable, a glint of desperation in his eyes. He looked like he had been cracked open, like all his external masks were torn away, leaving his bare flesh visible to Abby for the first time.

  “I—okay,” she finally whispered, unsure what she was even trying to say. She was at a complete loss for words. She just felt confused, the contents of her stomach swimming around like they were trying to escape her body.

  On the one hand, she wasn’t sure she had ever felt this angry in her entire life. She was enraged, honestly, that Jagger had put her in such a life-threatening situation. On the other hand, he seemed genuinely apologetic for his actions. Abby could only shift around uncomfortably, trying to get the sore spots on her skin to stop rubbing up against the rough fabric of the bed sheets beneath her body.

  “Do you want me to go?” Jagger asked, his voice coming out barely audible above the noise of the heater working overtime to fill the cold hospital room with warmth.

  Before Abby could answer, a painful spasm overtook her body, her ribs painfully contracting as coughs forced their way up her throat. Jagger was on his feet in a second, reaching over her body to put a hand on her chest. “Breathe. It’s okay. Breathe with me. It’s okay, Abby. It’ll be okay. Inhale…. exhale. Inhale…. exhale.” For a second Abby just glared at him through her watery eyes, annoyed that he was patronizing her even now, but then as the coughs kept coming her annoyance subsided, replaced instead only by the overpowering desire to breathe, the instinct that overcame all else. “Inhale… exhale. Inhale… exhale. Inhale… exhale,” Jagger kept saying, rubbing the side of her head soothingly.

  Abby eventually relented, sucking in air when Jagger told her to and blowing it out a few moments after that, finally overcoming the coughing fit through sheer force of will.

  “That’s it, that’s it, good girl,” Jagger said before reaching over to the side table to pour her a glass of water. “Here, drink.”

  Abby sucked the water down as best as she could, splattering some on her chin in the process before collapsing like she’d just run a marathon a second after the liquid coursed its way down her throat. “Jesus,” she muttered, more to herself than to Jagger, curling her limbs up as she settled into the fetal position.

  “Just sleep, baby. You need it,” Jagger whispered, leaning in to drop a sweet gentle kiss on her forehead. If Abby had more energy, she might have shoved him away, told him not to touch her; but as it was, she was simply grateful to feel something other than the slick burn of flames against her skin.

  She shut her eyes, staring out at the darkness of her eyelids, but her mind pictured Jagger, listening to his still, even breathing until she slipped off into sleep.

  When she awoke however many hours later, she first became aware of female voices. Nurses, must be, she thought, but then they kept building on top of each other, one after another. Her room was filled with them.

  It was a struggle to pry her eyes open, taking several moments to force all her energy into the action, but finally, she blinked them open. She noticed that tears had collected in her eyelashes, crusting on her cheeks. She must have cried in her sleep. That was weird. She had never done that before. Abby quickly wiped at her face, scratching at the dried tears until they fell off, before turning to look at the people that surrounded her bed.

  “Hey, look, she’s awake!” a high-pitched female voice near the back of the room said. Abby couldn’t identify the source right away, as there were at least fifteen people crowded in the room. Most of them were women in tight leather clothing, with bold red lipstick spread over their lips. There were a few men, tall and quiet-looking, near the back of the room. Bikers, Abby realized. Blazes. She recognized them from the compound.

  “Abby. It’s Abby, isn’t it? We haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Lucy,” the woman nearest to Abby’s bed said, sticking out her hand. Abby just stared
down at it, her brain not functioning quickly enough to realize that she was supposed to accept it and shake it up and down like a normal human would.

  Abby licked her dried and cracked lips, trying and failing to clear her throat before croaking out, “Um, hi,” as a response.

  “We heard about what happened. I’m so sorry, honey,” Lucy said, leaning in to brush some random strands of hair back from Abby’s forehead. Abby almost cringed in response, but she had enough awareness to stop herself from flinching. She wasn’t used to being touched like this, especially not from strangers.

  “Thank you,” Abby whispered hoarsely, staying as still as possible while Lucy kept stroking the top of her head and smiling sadly at her.

  “Do you need anything, honey? Water, a snack?” Lucy asked. Abby was keenly aware that the rest of the room was awkwardly silent, all the other women and men just standing there, staring at her.

  Abby’s instinctive response was to say no, she didn’t need anything, but somehow what came out of her mouth instead was, “A Coke? Can I get a Coke? It, um, it makes my stomach feel better sometimes.”

  Lucy nodded and smiled warmly down at her before turning around and barking at one of the men. “Go to the vending machine! The one on the second floor.”

  Two of the men hurried out of the room as if they’d heard gunshots. Abby figured that Lucy was the boss. She wondered if everybody answered to Lucy or just the men and women in the room. “Are you… um… Did Jagger…?”

  “I sent him home to shower,” Lucy said. “But don’t worry, honey, he’ll be back.” Abby wasn’t sure what to think about that. Did she even want Jagger to come back? It was his fault that she was there in the first place. She couldn’t help but stare at the empty chair where he slept hours before. Even when she tried to tear her eyes away from it and focus on Lucy or one of the other biker women, her gaze kept slipping back to it, imagining Jagger’s missing silhouette. What is wrong with me? I should hate him. I should be spitting on his memory. I should never want to see him again.

  A few moments later, the bikers returned with a couple of Coke bottles bundled up in their arms and handed them off to Lucy, who placed them on the table next to Abby’s bed. She opened one and placed it in Abby’s still-trembling hand. Abby brought it to her mouth, drinking deep, burning her over sensitive throat in the process. She drained a quarter of the bottle in one go, panting hard as she pulled the bottle away from her mouth, keeping the cold container between her shaking hands. “Thank you,” Abby mumbled, staring down at her lap. For some reason, she felt weirdly embarrassed at having this number of people come to see her. In all the time she’d spent in hospitals as a teenager, she’d never had more than one or two visitors at a time. She honestly didn’t know how to react to this.

  “Would you like us to leave, let you get some rest?” Lucy asked with maternal concern written all over her face as she stared worriedly down at Abby.

  Abby looked around first, observing everyone in the room for at least a few seconds, seeing how the women smiled encouragingly at her and the men fidgeted awkwardly with their hands, unsure of what else to do. “I, uh, I don’t know,” she said honestly. Abby took another gulp from her soda before looking up into Lucy’s eyes. “Um, you can stay, I think?”

  Lucy smiled down at her again before settling into the chair that Jagger occupied the night before. “Are you comfortable? Do you need me to adjust the pillows or anything?”

  Abby automatically said, “No, I’m fine,” then as she actually considered the question, she opened her mouth again and murmured, “Um, actually, could… Could somebody stick a pillow under my knees? I think I need to elevate them because they hurt, but I can’t reach…”

  Lucy immediately turned and pointed at two of the girls that were leaning against the back wall, waving her hand impatiently until they walked forward, grabbing a pillow off one of the chairs next to the window to slip under Abby’s knees. Lucy reached over and placed one hand gingerly on top of Abby’s kneecap, tapping her skin lightly, gently, soothingly. Abby was nervous for a second, feeling a little weird, like some invisible boundary had been crossed, but then a second later she focused on the sensation itself and felt the tension start to leave from her body, little by little with each passing second.

  “You want to watch some television, darling?” Lucy asked, grabbing the remote off the bedside table and pointing it at the TV. “What do you like?”

  “Um, I haven’t watched television in a long time,” Abby admitted. “I haven’t had time. I work too much.”

  “Jagger mentioned you were a nurse. Long hours at the hospital?” Lucy asked, a sympathetic look on her face.

  “Yeah, and at patients’ houses,” Abby said without thinking. She usually didn’t like to complain about her jobs, at least not to strangers. It was important that the public trust nurses rather than worry about them. She wanted everybody to think of her as a superhuman force of nature, some caregiving superhero that never felt weak.

  “You got two jobs, hun?” Lucy asked, her brows furrowing up together.

  “Oh, yeah, for a while now,” Abby said with a shrug, stretching her legs out to prevent cramps.

  “Why’s that?” Lucy asked. Abby wondered why she was so curious, but ultimately it was irrelevant. For whatever reason Abby felt like complaining right now, and she had an audience that was either being held captive by obligation or genuinely interested in getting to know her. So, fuck it.

  “My ex-boyfriend maxed out my credit cards and cleaned out my bank account,” she said nonchalantly, even though it was the first time she’d ever said the words out loud.

  “What?” one of the other women on the opposite side of the room said. “What the fuck? Really?”

  Abby nodded. “Yeah. Kinda fucked me over. This was before the whole arson shit started happening, too.”

  “Oh, honey, honey, no! That’s so awful,” Lucy said, dragging her chair up closer to Abby’s bed so she could take her hand. “Oh, you poor thing.”

  In another time, another life, maybe, Abby would have taken offense to receiving anybody’s pity. For now, it felt good, comfortable, like easing into a warm bath. It felt like exactly what she needed, at least for the moment.

  “Yeah, um, I started to rebuild my savings this month, you know, between paying off the credit cards and paying my rent and everything. But then my apartment burned down, and I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “Yes, you do,” the woman on the other side of the room said. “You can stay at the compound. There’s tons of room.”

  “I—” Abby swallowed again, trying to remove the bothersome lump that popped up in her throat. “I don’t know if I should. It feels like everywhere I go, bad shit happens. I don’t want to do that to you guys.”

  “Oh, honey, it doesn’t work like that,” Lucy said, squeezing her hand more tightly. “We’re used to trouble. We’ve got tons of our own. You couldn’t do anything to hurt us, darling.”

  Abby felt suspicious. They seemed so eager to help, so eager for Abby to stay with them, yet they barely knew her at all. All they knew was that she was a hardworking nurse with tremendously bad luck, bad luck that Jagger happened to be contributing to lately. Jagger… Maybe that was it. Maybe they wanted Jagger paired off with somebody who’d take care of him. Maybe it wasn’t as selfless as it looked.

  “Listen,” Abby began, shifting in bed until her hand slipped out of Lucy’s. She worried that Lucy would get offended, but if she was, it didn’t show on her face. “Listen, um, Jagger and I… We aren’t together or anything,” she said. It wasn’t technically true, maybe, but as far as Abby was concerned, it had to become true sooner or later. She and Jagger weren’t together. They had no plans of become a real couple, even if they did fuck again in the future. It would be a bad idea for them to do so anyway. If she hadn’t fucked Jagger again in the first place she wouldn’t be in this position, right?

  Lucy just nodded at her. “I understand that. He’s a handful.
Lord knows he hasn’t been able to hold on to any girl before you longer than a few months. That’s not what this is about. He fucked up. He hurt you, but we’re here to help, however you need it. No strings, honey.”

  Abby was silent for a long moment, letting the words sink in. Maybe Lucy wasn’t being honest. Maybe she had a secret motivation that she wasn’t sharing with Abby. As far as Abby could tell, even as cynical as she was, there was no ulterior motive at play here. Lucy was the type of person that seemed to give off an aura of kindness and warmth, a grandmotherly type of lady that looked like she gave great hugs. Abby found herself reaching out and grabbing her hand again, just to feel the heat of human connection.