Instead, I was in a hospital with Captain Morgan standing next to me.
“Wipe that bitch look off your face, kid,” Captain Morgan drawled. “If you’re not careful, it’ll freeze that way.”
I rolled my eyes at that tired excuse of a joke.
“So, what happened to have all those kids rushing the compound?” I rumbled my question.
A nurse led us back to a room that was off to the side of all the other rooms, then left with a promise that she would be sending a doctor in a little later to look at my wounds.
“Yao arrested some punk kid at the high school,” Captain Morgan said. “All the kids followed his ass from class.”
I cringed.
“And the adults?” I asked.
He pulled out a glove from the dispenser above the sink and blew it up like a child, tying it off and tossing it at me before answering.
“Just kids who want to start shit,” he said. “Some of them were from school and came along with him when he was arrested. The rest were from the local college. Lawyers… or wannabes, anyway.”
I looked at the balloon that was in my hands now, then tossed it back.
Captain Morgan and I did that, bopping it back and forth to each other, before someone finally came in.
And that someone made my heart fucking sing.
“Frankie,” I said, sounding like a total douche.
Frankie’s head snapped up and her mouth dropped open.
“Malachi!” she cried out. “You were the one hurt?”
I shrugged. “I was.”
She growled under her breath, and I decided it was the cutest thing I’d ever seen—at least from what I could remember.
“What happened?” she asked.
I went on to explain, in detail, exactly what happened.
First, I didn’t see the point in lying. At least not about this. And secondly, she’d likely see the entire fucking thing on the internet.
Shit like that was popular on the internet nowadays.
I already had to see my ugly mug on the face of newspapers, online news outlets, and at the damn grocery store on gossip mags—yes, I apparently was that popular. Apparently, I used to be beautiful. I used to be a pretty face. A pretty face that had rich parents who were oil tycoons that had been making the paper for their entire lives.
Me having a tragic war story now was gold.
At least to them.
“The someone that was arrested was a high-school student,” Captain Morgan muttered, answering Frankie’s earlier question. “He was brought in and the students followed him from school to the station.”
Frankie sighed.
“I remember being pretty dumb and stubborn in high school,” she said. “Always thinking that it was my way or the highway.”
I smiled at that.
I doubted that she was anything less than an angel in high school.
She then leaned forward and looked at the elbow that was closest to her, putting her body slightly closer to mine.
That was when I saw it.
I couldn’t express the rage that rocketed through me at seeing a ring on her finger.
At knowing that she was engaged to another man.
A man that, supposedly, had been my friend, but another man none the less.
“Hey, you okay, Malachi?” Frankie asked softly.
It took me a long moment to realize that she was addressing me.
Malachi.
The name still didn’t sound right.
She paused. “Riel. Are you okay, Riel?”
My mouth twitched.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I admitted.
Or, at least, I should be.
I wasn’t.
But she didn’t need to know that.
She hadn’t been wearing that ring when I’d seen her the other day.
I wanted to pull it off her finger and throw it into the nearest trashcan.
Instead, I forced myself to sit still and stop being a bitch.
“Is this it?” she asked, moving her gaze to the spots of black that was all over my lower back.
“Some road rash on the opposite side,” I finally admitted.
“You need to take the shirt off so I can see the area affected,” Frankie said, sounding professional.
I’d rather slit my own throat.
But, when Captain Morgan shot me a glare, I could do nothing else but what he asked.
I’d originally been intending not to go to the hospital at all. I was going to go home and pretend like today never happened. Treat my wounds and go on about my business.
But then Captain Morgan had heard that I was hurt from Jonah, and he’d forced me to be seen.
According to company policy, I didn’t have a choice.
Liabilities, or some bullshit.
I pulled the uniform shirt off with quick jerks, hoping beyond hope that she wouldn’t see the state of my body and immediately become disgusted.
That was a naïve hope, though.
She’d take one look and I’d see the pity start to fill her eyes.
Alas, I did what I was asked to do and removed my shirt, Kevlar vest, and my undershirt.
When I was sitting there, topless and exposed, I could feel the weight of the stares on my body.
I didn’t flinch, though.
Instead, I stayed there, still as a statue, and let them all get their fill.
“Are we going to clean it up or what?” I snapped when the silence went on too long.
Captain Morgan looked away as if he’d been burned.
Frankie jumped as if I’d just electrocuted her.
“Oh, yes,” she said as she walked around the back of the gurney.
I knew the moment that she saw.
The jagged, torn and ruggedly healed flesh.
There were slashes. Shallow cuts. Indentations. Raised pieces. You name it, it was there.
Lucky that it was just the skin and fatty tissue affected. Your muscles and bones were not affected in the least.
I fucking hated with a passion hearing that doctor say how fucking lucky I was.
“Road rash,” she said. “It’s not too bad. Gonna hurt tomorrow, though.”
I didn’t doubt it.
But it wouldn’t be worse than the pain on the rest of my body.
Temporary pain I could deal with.
The pain that I lived with on a daily basis thanks to whatever fucked up hell hole I’d stayed in? Yeah, that was a much different kind of pain.
“So, what happened to have the kid arrested?” Frankie asked, sounding engrossed in what she was doing.
At first, I thought she was asking about my scars, but then she gently dabbed at the road rash around my right kidney with a piece of gauze.
“A man was arrested,” I said, remembering what I’d heard Yao talking about when I’d come inside to wash off my arms. “He was shot a few days ago, and they brought him in for questioning.”
Frankie’s eyes met mine, and she knew instantly what I wasn’t saying.
Yes, it was the same man that she’d reported on just the day before.
Her eyes flicked to an older doctor who was watching Frankie work with a frown on his face, then back to me.
The older doctor, who I assumed was Dr. Cromwell, had been watching her from the nurses’ station since Frankie had walked into the room.
I would’ve closed the door had I thought it would keep him out.
“That’s no good,” Frankie finally said, her eyes intense and weirdly focused on me. “Let me go grab the supplies and get this cleaned up. See what we’re working with.”
I didn’t protest her sudden departure.
Nor did I protest when Cromwell turned and crowded Frankie when she got to a door that said ‘supplies’ on it.
I did clench my teeth when they both disappeared behind the door.
“What was that about?” Captain Morgan asked.
I flicked my gaze to him. “What was what about?”
“The hesitation to take your shirt off,” he said.
I rolled my eyes.
“The hesitation is that I’m scarred, and I don’t enjoy getting pitying looks from beautiful women,” I finally said. “What’s it to you?”
Captain Morgan grinned at me. “Once upon a time, I knew you.”
I blinked.
“You did?” I asked.
He nodded once. “I did. You grew up in the house next door to me. One I used to share with my wife.”
I looked down at his bare wedding ring finger and frowned.
“We’re divorced,” he answered my silent question. “Have been for about ten years now.”
“That sucks,” I admitted.
Captain Morgan tilted his head and stared at me for a few long moments.
“I’m not upset about it,” he finally admitted. “My wife and I were best friends. Still are, in fact. We just realized that we were no longer in love with each other.”
An amicable divorce.
Those were rare.
“Anyway,” Captain Morgan said. “Belle and I used to watch you growing up. Wishing we had a kid like you for a kid of our own. We saw how your parents treated you. How you were more of a commodity to them than an actual child.” He grinned. “I think you were over at my house more when you were a kid than you were at your own. Always wanting to know how to do this or that. How to mow a lawn or ride a bike. How to fix a car. Shit. There was this one time you asked Belle how to bake a cake for your mother for her birthday. Y’all spent three hours in the kitchen baking this cake, and you presented it to your mother only for her to tell you that she didn’t eat cake because it made her ass fat.”
I winced.
“Yeah,” he said. “Exactly.”
“So, you felt sorry for me?” I asked. “That’s why you hired me?”
He shrugged. “You were qualified. Oh, and I didn’t want to see you floundering. You were a kid, but I still cared a lot about you. When y’all moved, I think that’s what set Belle and I back. When we realized that we were just skating through life together and not living it like we were supposed to.”
Belle sounded like someone that I wanted to know again.
“And Belle?” I asked. “Where’s she?”
Captain Morgan grinned.
“She used to be a cop,” he said. “Used to see her all day every day. And she still picks up the odd shift or two. But, saying that, she now owns a CrossFit gym and exercise facility. All the cops go out there and workout. You probably got a membership letter for there about a week after you started the job,” he said. “You should go. See her. Belle misses the hell out of you.”
I would.
I’d go.
Belle sounded like a good person.
And, even though I didn’t remember her at all, I was more than willing to be friends.
I couldn’t have enough of those.
“I’m back!” Frankie breezed in.
That ring, the tiny, miniscule rock, joke of a ring, winked on her finger.
I narrowed my eyes and wished I could rip it off.
But I knew if I did anything like that, she would be devastated. And there were a lot of things I was okay with in this world, but hurting Frankie wasn’t one of them.
“Yay,” I said dryly.
“With your injuries, this would normally be a nurse’s job. However, you’re in luck and got the second-year resident to do you,” she chirped.
“Second-year resident?” I asked. “What’s that?”
“A resident is me,” she said. “I went through four years of college. Then four years of medical school. Now I’m in my second year of residency. You have to do three years of that total in this particular program.”
I looked at her skeptically. “You’re a child.”
She rolled her eyes.
“We’re the same age, bozo,” she countered. “And I graduated high school early. College early. Medical school early. You get the picture, right?”
“You’re a Brainiac,” I said. “Got it.”
She snorted. “You always were a wiseass. You and Luca.” She went suddenly quiet. “I’m glad that you still have that going for you.”
A wiseass.
Right.
“I don’t remember who I was before,” I admitted.
“Nothing?” she asked, pausing in ripping open packages.
“Nothing,” I confirmed. “The only reason I knew my name was because I had my dog tags still.”
She swallowed.
“You don’t remember any of how this happened?” She indicated my scarring.
She sat down on the doctor’s chair behind me, then got started on cleaning the wound on my back.
I tried not to flinch.
I didn’t like people at my back. Even her.
But mainly, I didn’t like having her so close to the worst part of me.
My scars I could handle.
But my back? It wasn’t something that I wanted anyone to see. Ever.
Luckily, she didn’t ask questions.
Unluckily, I knew that the only reason that she didn’t was because of Captain Morgan standing across the room staring at the two of us.
“No,” I admitted. “I don’t remember anything beyond waking up in the hospital. I was told my name. Where I was from. Who my parents were. Who my best friend was.”
I paused, wincing at that.
But Frankie didn’t pause in her cleaning of my wound.
She didn’t lean forward and inspect my wounds more closely.
She just cleaned, bandaged, and then moved on to my forearms.
When she was finished, she clapped her hands and then removed her gloves.
“All done,” she chirped.
But she wouldn’t look me in the eyes.
Mother. Fucker.
“I’m going to go get the nurse to get your discharge paperwork…” And without another word, she was out of the room and disappearing into the nurses’ station.
I felt like someone took a sledgehammer to my gut.
“Don’t go there, boy.”
I looked over to see Morgan staring at me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied.
“Yeah, you do,” he confirmed. “And she’s mourning. You’re a living, breathing reminder of what she no longer has.”
I had nothing to say to that.
Not a damn thing.
So, I shut my trap, waited for my discharge paperwork, then took my leave.
Luckily, Morgan had allowed me to drive myself over here, meaning I didn’t have to wait to be taken back to the station.
Giving him a chin tilt as I left, I made my way to my bike, then further to my empty house.
The ride was short.
The destination was shit.
But I went inside anyway.
I unlocked the door, walked into my apartment filled with shit that meant nothing to me, and walked straight to the bathroom.
There, I took a shower, being careful not to get my bandages wet, avoided looking at myself in the mirror, then went to my room to slip into a pair of boxers.
Boxers that I fucking hated.
I wasn’t sure why I owned so many goddamn pairs, but I honestly needed to go to the store and find something else more comfortable.
Especially now that they were expecting me to wear spandex pants from hell.
I got on my phone and pulled up my new Netflix account, found my favorite show, and pressed play.
I sat there for all of three seconds before I jackknifed out of my seat and stomped into the bathroom.
Once there, I walked straight to the vanity, then looked up at the goddamn mirror.
Just like I did every fucking night.
I stared at myself, long and hard, trying to figure out who I was.
Wha
t everybody said made sense.
Malachi Stokes. Six foot three. Black hair, olive skin tone. Type O+ blood.
But the eyes? Those didn’t make sense.
On my medical files, I was labeled as having hazel eyes.
My eyes now were not hazel.
They were a colorless gray that had specks of color throughout. Blue, if I had to guess. But the colors were so few and far between, that there really wasn’t a way to verify if it was, in fact, blue.
My eyes were the only thing on my face that wasn’t damaged.
Though, when I was first brought in, I did have a corneal abrasion that had nearly cost me my eyesight.
Luckily my eye healed.
The rest of me, though?
Not so much.
I was a living, breathing dead person.
That’s literally what I felt when I looked at myself in the mirror.
Dead.
At least, I should’ve been dead.
When I saw all the scars, all the things that had once been done to me… I just felt… lost.
Lost, and alone, and curious why I was even left alive.
Why was I the lucky one that made it out?
Why was I here, and Luca wasn’t?
Luca with the fiancée.
Luca with the family that actually cared.
Luca with the life that he never should’ve left.
I was still curious as fuck as to why he’d up and left such a perfect life.
Then again, I really didn’t know my reasons for joining either.
But if my parents now were anything like my parents when I’d enlisted? Yeah, there was a high possibility that there was a damn good reason for me leaving, and it had a lot to do with the people that had raised me.
Or not raised me, according to what Morgan had to say today.
I blew out a breath and studied my face. Drawing the line of scars with my gaze.
I strained to remember something. Anything.
But it was just… nonexistent.
Gone.
Never fucking coming back ever.
I cursed and slammed my hand down on the vanity, causing my cup and toothbrush to be knocked over with the move.
I hated not knowing.
I hated seeing the results, but not knowing what made them happen.
Even more, seeing the woman that had obviously played a role in my life, and feeling something other than friendship spark inside of me, pissed me off.
If You Say So (KPD Motorcycle Patrol Book 6) Page 4