by A. E. Fisher
“Hey, spunky.” Charon’s eye crinkled as he looked down at me, savoring the way I was being slowly crushed to death by a corpse with my knife in its throat as gunfire rained down around him. “Red looks good on you.”
“Charon?” I choked, unable to comprehend the molten gold eyes staring back at me with amusement. “Am I dead?”
Charon laughed before finally reaching to grab the dead Black Jack by the shoulder and roll him off me. The relief of his weight from off my chest sent my head spiraling as my body jolted upward, my stomach heaving across the floor, vomit mixing with the blood into a new vile combination as I was reminded of the reason my stomach was so upset in the first place.
That’s when the adrenaline faded away and panic and clarity sank in. “Doctor,” I gasped, fighting my need to dry heave again as I heard the gunfire silencing around me. My hand pressed against my stomach as it throbbed painfully, my body wanting to double over as my head swam.
I became aware of Jax rushing to my side from the other side of the room.
“I need a doctor! Now!” I repeated, trying to stagger to my feet before dropping back down to my knees.
Charon reached for me, but Jax growled when he got even a step closer.
He scooped me up, wincing at my yelp of pain from my bruised fucking everything. I waited for his warmth to cocoon me, but it never did. A freezing cold ate away at my skin as I knew I was going into a form of shock or panic attack. Jax squeezed his arms ever so slightly tighter around me in an attempt to fight the shivers wracking my body.
“Jax,” I rasped, my teeth chattering as he began moving across the compound, his feet following Charon’s dark figure as it leaped over bodies littering the floor.
“Don’t worry, Anna,” Jax whispered. “You’re going to be fine, darlin’.”
I hoped that was true.
Chapter Thirty-One
Wolf
A mistake.
It was the one thing as a president I could not afford to make. Not when making one could cost lives. I wasn’t God; I shouldn’t get to decide who dies and who lives, but as I pulled onto the compound, brothers behind me, the ambient noise like a blurred, static fog surrounding me, I realized that playing God was exactly what I had done.
I had chosen who lived and who died. I had played with people’s lives in my hands and decided that the one would outweigh the others. And then, just as I had made the deal, I had gotten greedy and decided to go for them all. To save them all.
And this was the outcome.
“Brother.” A hand touched my shoulder, and the static around me snapped like an elastic band, throwing me back into the real world, startling me as I turned on the person, realizing I had long since parked in the compound.
It took me a second to recognize the messy black hair, tattooed skin, and dark eyes through the red drenching his clothes, skin, and hair. “Jax?”
My heart sank in my chest, looking to his body covered head to toe in splatters of blood and dirt. “Wha—”
“It’s the club. It was attacked.”
No.
“No,” I breathed, launching up and off my bike as I whirled toward the clubhouse, now noticing where the door was hanging off its hinges. All my other brothers had spun around to me, eyes wide as they locked at Jax.
No.
No.
No.
“What do you mean, it was attacked?” Polo roared, stepping forward to grab Jax’s arm off me and drag him toward him.
“I mean it was fucking attacked! Those Black Jack bastards double-crossed us!” Jax yelled, breaking Polo’s hold on him as he shoved him away.
“You were supposed to be bloody looking after it!” Polo lunged forward, but before he could connect, Lamb stepped between them, Jasper grabbing a hold of Polo.
“I did fucking look after it!” Jax bellowed, and Lamb stepped forward to hold him back. “We protected them as best as we could, but they outnumbered us! It was a fucking bloodbath.”
I heard Polo continue to snap back at Jax, but I wasn’t listening. My boots were moving, propelling me forward through the air as dense as water as I headed toward the open door.
I could see the bullet holes next to the hinges on the door, the black stains from explosives, and the splatters of blood along the side and floor before I even made it inside.
“Anna!” I yelled, my voice a sonic boom as I burst through the broken club doors.
I found my rampage stuttered as I was forced to face the clubroom. Everything wasn’t anywhere near broken; the entire room had been fucking obliterated. Holes filled the walls from floor to ceiling so much so I could hardly believe they were still standing. The pool table had a hundred pockets too many. Couches torn into like a rabid pack of dogs had mistaken it for prey. The wooden floors were in pieces as entire planks of floorboards had been ripped up and splintered into a thousand tiny pieces. The bar couldn’t even be called a bar anymore; every single bottle of alcohol was broken, spilling across the shelves, floor, and walls.
“Wolf.” Jax’s voice caught me off guard, and I turned, spinning toward where my brother stood, red dripping through a hole in his shirt, now noticing the deep wound as his form cut through the afternoon, light sinking in through the doorway.
He moved toward me, slightly out of breath as he fought the anemia from his wound exaggerated by his quick sprint after me, but he didn’t make it as a hand clamped down on his good shoulder and spun him around.
“Mallory?” Hunter’s hoarse voice cut faster than mine as his chest panted in heavy, panicked breaths, eyes wide and dilated as they hung on Jax’s every movement.
“She’s fine, brother,” Jax said, gripping his best friend tightly on the arm as he reassured him. “Few bruises, but she’s good. She’s with Charon’s doctor guy. The first room in the back with Anna.”
With Anna.
His slight comment made me almost buckle with relief as the warm heat burst through the apathetic cold that I hadn’t realized had completely taken me over since the second I saw Jax.
“Jax.” Ripper stepped ahead of me, grabbing Jax by the shoulder opposite his wound so he could examine the hole. “You all right, man?”
“It’s fine. It was through and through,” he said, pushing Hunter aside, not breaking eye contact with me for a second.
I couldn’t help the churning feeling in my stomach. The longer his dark eyes searched my face, the longer his mouth opened and shut for words, the longer his body stood rigid as he looked at me. “Listen, about Anna—”
“Jax!” Anna’s voice cracked like a whip across the room.
I spun, turning to see a figure of red as Anna was dripping head to toe in blood, staining her skin, clothes, and hair a thick, ruby red. I was brought back to the night she was stabbed, and my heart nearly stopped beating in my chest as the sheer volume of blood covering her told me it couldn’t possibly be all hers.
Her blue eyes cutting starkly through the smudge color on her skin made me immediately on edge.
Her red boots clicked slowly, one by one across the floor. Pools of blood on the floor and a few stains were the only things left to suggest any bodies once lay there. She didn’t bother to move her hair as the strands weighted in the dry blood fell in front of her face and eyes as she stared at each one of the brothers behind me, one by one, counting the numbers.
I saw the moment she knew the numbers didn’t add up, because whatever little spark in her eyes that was left shut down, and I saw the steel walls I had just managed to knock down go slamming back up.
My heart dropped, punctuated by each of Kay’s words as they replayed in my head.
It makes it difficult for her to open her heart, and she’s opened it up to you. Don’t abuse that, Wolf, because you won’t get a second chance.
You won’t get a second chance.
It was like watching my nightmare come true, a flood of fear and panic taking over my chest as I realized the horrible, horrible mistake I had made.
“Anna—what are you doing?” I breathed, my voice sounding hollow in comparison to her next words.
“Hunter told me everything.” Her voice was quiet but firm.
I watched as she slowly slid down the cuffs of her property jacket, pressing her shoulders back as she slipped the material off them, down her arms, and into her reddened hands.
“Anna,” I pleaded as she held it out in her hands.
She turned to Jax, holding open her hand, and at first, he was confused, but as she gestured to the gun I recognized as Jax’s on the floor beside him, he reached down, wincing as he went to move his primary shoulder before changing arms as he picked up the weapon, frowned, and handed it to her.
“It’s jam—”
With one, long strike, she slammed the gun down against the edge of the table. The noise rang through the room as the bullet stuck in the chamber was dislodged and fell out the barrel of the gun, clinking as the crumpled shell bounced on the damaged wood and rolled before dropping through a hole in the floor.
Jax looked at Anna and me as fear dawned on his face.
Anna lifted both her arms, her cut in one and the gun in the other, the barrel pointed straight at me.
“Anna,” I pleaded. “Jax!” I snapped the second I saw his body move to step into the way. “Don’t.”
Jax looked conflicted as he and the rest of the brothers looked between Anna and me.
Anna dropped the cut on the floor. She clicked back the hammer.
And then she fired.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
Continuously without stopping, bullet after bullet tore into the leather, ripping hole after hole in the jacket over and over and over again. I felt each one in the depth of my chest as I watched in sick, dead silence.
When the click of the empty magazine put an end to her firing, the room was completely silent. Not even the creak of the broken door could be heard as a small line of smoke from the barrel of the gun drifted into the air.
Anna dropped the gun into the shredded leather, and it clattered to the floor.
She turned and looked to me.
And that was the final blow.
Because the fire in her eyes, the spark of desire, rebellion, and affection she always showed was gone. Her eyes were empty as she looked at me. Emotionless.
She was done.
And then she walked past me in silence, heading to the door, and walked straight out of my life.
For good.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Anna
I shivered as the chilled wind hit my bare arms, my stomach, for once, not jerking in surprise at anything that had caught me off guard, however slight, as it had been doing for the last two weeks. I clutched the small bag of vitamins and even smaller envelope to my chest, tucking my arms close as I made my way across the lot and toward my little red Beetle, regretting that I hadn’t brought a jacket the entire time.
When I spotted my car, I breathed a sigh of relief and tugged my purse in front of me as I dug through it for my keys.
“Anna.” The voice next to me made me startle, causing me to drop my keys, bag, and envelope across the tarmac as Jax threw his hands up in front of him in surrender.
“Jax?” I gasped, my hand over my heart as I tried to breathe through the sudden wave of nausea Jax had incurred.
I placed my hand against the car, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth. “You bastard,” I hissed as the feeling subsided. “You almost made me throw up all over you.”
Jax let out a soft chuckle as he dropped down to his haunches, picking up my stuff before handing it to me. “You heading home?”
“No,” I said softly, “just putting some stuff in my car.”
He nodded, stepping aside as I navigated around him to my door, throwing the envelope and bag on the side before pulling out the jacket I had in the back and shutting the door behind me. We didn’t say anything as I locked my car and began to walk to the other department of the hospital, away from the gynecologist department toward the main hospital, Jax falling into step next to me.
He waited until we were inside, away from the bitter cold, when we were heading down the heated hallways towards Petersburg ward before he broached the subject he was here for. “Wolf wants to see you.”
I didn’t reply.
“Anna, it’s been three weeks,” Jax pleaded, his voice becoming desperate. “You need to let him explain.”
“Explain what?” I replied, my voice apathetic as I forced my eyes to the door at the very end of the long corridor, picking out sounds of trollies wheeling by, nurses gossiping, and pagers going off all around me.
“About what happened with Ash,” Jax said softly, stepping ahead of me as he tried to meet my eyes.
We passed the canteen, and I turned away from his face to see someone filling up his coffee, the dull tone of the machine I was familiar with pouring lukewarm, watery coffee into a crappy Styrofoam cup. I wanted to warn him that the cup would burn his hands if he didn’t wrap a napkin around it first, but I just kept walking, not caring when I heard the man’s startled gasp, followed by the cup hitting the floor, coffee splashing everywhere as we left the waiting room behind us.
“What’s there to explain?” I asked, counting down the numbers as one by one they dwindled down until room 81-B was before us. “He made his choice.”
Jax hesitated as I reached for the door handle and swung open the door.
He held off following me in, pausing as I slid off my jacket and laid it out on the soft, cotton chair that had been placed by the side of the bed. I reached up and checked all the numbers on the machine, not understanding any of what they meant but still being able to tell that none of them had changed. Which meant nothing had happened in the hour or so I’d been gone on the other side of the hospital.
When I finally heard the boots enter the room behind me, I turned and saw Jax, his big, tanned and tattooed body dressed in only a tight white shirt, jeans, and boots, hovering in the doorway. “You can come in,” I said, lowering myself into the chair next to the bed. “It’s not like she’s going to bite you.”
Jax frowned at me, his eyes full of sympathy as he forced his eyes up from the white floors until they hit the bed. I watched as they moved slowly up over the blue blanket over the end of the bed, up higher until he could see her hands by her side, machines attached to her fingers and an IV in her arm, and then higher and higher until he could see her peaceful, sleeping face, brown hair fanned out over her pillow, eyes closed and skin pale.
He could barely hold them there for thirty seconds before his eyes fell back down to the floor in shame.
“It’s not your fault, Jax,” I said softly, gesturing to one of the standard hospital chairs next to me.
Jax looked up, his eyes flicking to Ash before they jumped back to me. “I should have stopped him before he went through with any of it. We should have. We’re all at fault.”
“You’re right,” I said, reaching out my hand to touch his. “But my deal was between me and Wolf only.”
“Ha,” Jax scoffed, turning over my tiny hand compared to his large, calloused one, and started to play with my small fingers, his eyes heavy on my hands. “You make me feel like my parents are getting a divorce.”
“I wouldn’t give birth to such a big baby.” I chuckled, squeezing his hand. It didn’t do anything to improve his mood, but when he squeezed my hand back, I felt a little reassured myself.
We were quiet for a few moments, the sound of beeping and distant noise beyond the door filling the room; the clatter of dropped clipboards, opened and closed doors, and crying family and friends of patients.
“Was the envelope...?” Jax left the question hanging, and I had to think what he was referring to until I remembered what it was he had seen me putting into the car. He’d had his suspicions that morning a few weeks ago, and after everything went down, I had no choice but to confide in Jax.
“Yeah,” I said softly
, thinking about the heavy weight of the photographs in my hands when the nurse had passed them to me. Putting them in my car had put them out of mind until now.
Jax nodded again, creating yet another wall of silence. I watched him as he sat there, his eyes boring into the floor. He frowned, his mouth opened and then closed as he tried to broach the subject. I waited, letting him take his time to word it before he picked up the courage to ask me.
“Are you going to tell him?” Jax’s soft, southern voice finally asked me.
I was glad it filled the room. The emptiness was almost overbearing when I was on my own, but with the concern across his face, I couldn’t take much pleasure in it.
“You make it sound like I wouldn’t tell him at all.” I sounded lighthearted, triggering the frown on Jax’s beautifully sharp face to deepen. “I’ll tell him,” I answered, looking away from the brown eyes that saw too much as his attention clung to my every word. I had been kidding earlier, but Jax really did look like the lost child caught up in a parents’ fight. Jax and the rest of the brothers were dear to me, and I knew they cared about me, too. Half of them had respected my distance, while the other half that had the courage to come see me, all looked at me with the slight unease that their stubborn faces tried, and failed, to hide.
I knew what caused their unease, nearly all of them a witness to the last time I saw Wolf, ending with my “Property of” cut, and our relationship, torn to shreds on the floor. I knew I had to meet him, to talk about everything, but when Hunter had rushed in to see Mallory and only moments later told me about what had happened, I just felt as if the ice under my feet had broken, and under the water I fell.
Everything felt surreal. Even looking at Ash now, the wires and tubes. I never thought I’d be able to be in a room with her and not be annoyed at her little remarks or quotes. Not yell at her or want to smack her for winding me up for fun. I had come so close to not being able to be near her at all, not after her heart had stopped from the shock of being shot. I had barely managed to thank Lamb after the doctor’s told me he was responsible for restarting her heart.