Angel's Halo: Forever Angel

by Terri Anne Browning

  But it was her face that kept me going.

  And it was her face that I wanted to see when I finally let go.

  Jos.

  Fuck, I miss her.

  Too late to remember it was my fault she hadn’t been by my side the past two years. I pushed her away after letting her get too damn close. I was such a fuckup, and her dad didn’t want her to be a part of the MC life. She deserved more than what I could give her.

  Goddamn, I wish I could kiss her one last time.

  “Tanner.” Matt was speaking again, and I had to focus on the words leaving his mouth. “Hold on, brother. Hold on. We’re going to get you to the hospital. You’re going to be okay.”

  I barely noticed how his voice cracked, how his hands shook as he and Bash—Bash was here too? Hell yeah! We were going to have a party before I kicked the bucket—lifted me carefully.

  The breath hissed out of me as the flesh on my back protested, and I blinked in surprise. The pain was just as miserable as always, yet my brother and cousin didn’t disappear or glitch before me.

  Wait.

  “Are you really here?” I asked Matt, my voice so weak I barely heard myself.

  “Stop talking,” Bash commanded, but his voice cracked just like my little brother’s. “Save all your energy. I swear, you’re going to be okay. I don’t care what we have to do to save you.”

  “I’m too far gone—” I tried to protest, wishing they would just let me rot.

  “Shut up, Tanner!” Bash wasn’t my cousin now, but my MC president barking orders. “You’re going to be fine.”

  Sighing, I closed my eyes, craving the sight of Jos again. When the image of her under me filled my mind, I focused on her and only half paid attention to what was going on around me.

  “Get the door,” Matt’s voice boomed. “Get the fuck out of the way.”

  Jos’s soft hands touched my cheek just as I was laid out on something cushiony. Matt’s voice kept telling me to hold on as he lifted my head and put it in his lap. I heard tires squealing before the vehicle they’d just put me in jerked forward. That floating feeling filled me as Jos told me she loved me—but that wasn’t a memory.

  Just another hallucination.

  She’d never said those words, but her eyes had always confessed her feelings for me.

  I felt my heart begin to beat a little slower than it already was. Jos’s face began to glitch behind my lids, and I felt a tear spill from my eyes.

  “I love you too,” I gasped, unsure if I said the words aloud. “I miss you.”

  “Drive faster!” Matt roared. “He’s fading.”

  Really wish he would stop screaming in my ear.

  My breaths became shallower, and it was taking everything I had just to draw another one. I knew the end was close. I’d felt the Angel of Death breathing down my neck for a while. He was clouding my vision now, his dark, hooded figure blocking out everything.

  Jos’s face began to fade completely.

  No!

  Her beautiful face flashed across my closed lids again.

  “Don’t leave me,” I begged her, feeling my tears come fast. “Stay with me. Don’t go.”

  “I won’t,” Matt answered, and I wanted to yell at him I wasn’t talking to him, but I couldn’t make my mouth work. My throat was closing. “I’m right here, brother. I’m not leaving you.”

  Jos.

  I wanted her so fucking bad. Loved her so much, my soul had been holding on by its fingernails in the hope that I would see her for real one more time.

  “Tanner!” Matt was screaming in my ear. “We’re almost there. Please, please, just hold on a few more minutes, and then we’ll be there. Bash, fucking drive faster.”

  “I’m already doing a hundred and ten! I don’t know where the fuck I’m going.”

  “Then do a hundred and twenty! He’s dying.”

  “Jos,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  Chapter 3

  Jos

  I jerked awake when a hand touched my shoulder. Gasping, I sat up straight on the little mat Reid and I had been sharing the last few nights in the main room of the MC’s clubhouse.

  Reid grumbled in his sleep, turning on his stomach, sticking his little butt in the air, and letting out the kind of sigh only the sweetly innocent were capable of.

  My eyes focused on the man crouched beside me, and my heart began to calm slightly. “Daddy?” I whispered, so as not to disturb any of the others sleeping on their own mats close by.

  With the MC on full lockdown, all the families were now calling the clubhouse home. There wasn’t much room left for anyone else, even in the main room.

  Dad’s eyes were wide awake when they met mine, a guarded look on his face that told me something was wrong. Lifting his finger to his lips, he waved his hand, indicating I should follow him.

  Tucking the thin blanket up over Reid, I carefully got to my feet and followed. We walked through the kitchen, which even now was alive with some of the women making coffee and whispering. They all shut up the second I entered the room, and as soon as the door closed behind us, I was pretty sure the conversation picked up right where it left off.

  What the hell is their problem?

  I got that I’d messed up. Royally, spectacularly. The kind of fuckup that couldn’t ever be undone because I left telling Tanner about his son too long. I was going to have to live with that for the rest of my life. It broke my heart to know my son would be without his father through all the huge milestones in his life, just as much as it broke my heart that the man I’d once foreseen spending eternity with was dead.

  Stop it, Jos.

  I quickly shut down my mind on those thoughts. They could choke me with guilt later. For now, I had to see what my dad wanted that was so important he woke me up before dawn.

  Outside, Raven was pacing back and forth, her phone to her ear as she listened intently. On either side of the path she was wearing out the asphalt on with her boots stood three of her four future sisters-in-law. Seeing me with Dad, Flick shared a quick look with Quinn and Gracie. It was Quinn, sweet, pregnant Quinn, who stepped forward and pulled me into a hug.

  I blinked, unsure what I was supposed to do with this. Growing up with a mother who thought hugs made a child spoiled and without my father around, I didn’t experience a lot of physical contact outside of the snuggles Reid loved so much.

  On Raven’s next turn, she saw that I had joined the group, and she abruptly ended her call with a sharp, “We’ll be on our way soon.”

  Quinn stepped back as Raven pushed the phone into Flick’s hands and approached me. Her face was set in hard lines, but when she reached me, I saw that she was fighting back tears. I might not have known her well, but one thing I did know was that Raven didn’t cry for no reason.

  Seeing those tears set my nerves on edge. “What’s wrong?”

  She swallowed roughly and grabbed my wrists in both hands, squeezing so hard it was painful. “The guy who killed your grandpa and blew up Matt’s truck?” I gulped, a flash of white-hot pain searing through me, but I nodded. “Bash took some of the brothers to deal with him. They got everyone but the guy responsible. Chickenshit must have known they were coming.”

  “Was anyone hurt?” I whispered thickly.

  She shook her head, but two tears fell down her cheeks. “No. But…” Her inhale was shuddery, and I felt the tremor all the way to her fingertips, the aftershocks rocking up my arms. “But they found one of our own in the basement.”

  I nodded, unsure what she expected me to say about any of this. If the man responsible for Grandpa’s and Tanner’s deaths wasn’t already on his way to hell, then what did any of this have to do with me?

  “It’s Tanner,” Flick suddenly announced, stepping up closer to me.

  Anger rocked through me, and I jerked my wrists out of Raven’s hold. “I know what I did was wrong, and I’m well aware everyone in this MC thinks I’m a total bitch, but
you two don’t have to be cruel.”

  Quinn and Gracie came up behind me, blocking me in, and I suddenly felt claustrophobic. The four of them were ganging up on me. My dad was still pissed at me, and something told me he wouldn’t help me out if these women suddenly started beating the shit out of me.

  Quinn’s soft hands touched my arm. The kindness in her eyes made a lump fill my throat as the same tears in Raven’s eyes spilled out of her blue ones. “She’s not trying to be cruel, Jos. I swear. None of us believed it either when Jet called earlier. Flick yelled at him and told him not to come home if he was going to play sick jokes like that. But then Hawk sent Gracie a picture of Tanner in a hospital bed. It is…bad.”

  “But you told me he died!” I exploded, breaking through the wall they had built up around me.

  There was a weight pressing down on my chest, making it hard to breathe, and I knew I was seconds away from having a full-on panic attack. I hadn’t experienced one in years, not since that first time with Tanner. He’d grounded me, made me fall for him even more as he’d held me through the mind-bending panic after my mom called to scream at me over something trivial.

  And then he’d made love to me.

  Or, as he later described it, fucked me good and nice.

  That was after I’d asked him if I could stay in Creswell Springs with him forever. After I’d seduced him for the second time in the two weeks since he’d first taken my virginity. I’d done some things I wasn’t proud of to get his attention back on me after our first time. Flirted with some not-so-nice guys, pretended like once he’d popped my cherry, I didn’t mind who fucked me as long as I got dick.

  It was all a lie, though, a ploy to make him jealous—to see if I even could—and to make him mine again. It worked, but after that last time, he treated me like trash, and I walked away with a broken heart. Finding out I was pregnant with Reid had scared the living hell out of me, but I wasn’t about to put any of us through the same crap I’d grown up experiencing firsthand. I wouldn’t use our son to hold on to Tanner. I wouldn’t control Reid by giving him ultimatums about when he could see his father or make him feel guilty if he ever picked his dad over me.

  I took on the role as single parent, even though I was sure Tanner would have stepped up and helped me raise our child.

  Looking back on it with hindsight, I saw how scared I’d been of being rejected by the man I’d stupidly fallen in love with. Again. I didn’t want to go through that over and over again when we exchanged diaper bags and car seats at the end of every other weekend and holidays. I had been selfish, and now we were all paying for it. But it was Reid who would suffer the most, and it broke my heart.

  “We thought he did!” Raven yelled, then visibly forced herself to calm down. “We all thought he had, Jos. Raider saw him in the truck before it exploded. The coroner said there was no way of knowing who was who when it came to Warden and Tanner because there was nothing left but ash. We never questioned it. I don’t know what happened, or how, but he’s been in Fontana’s goddamn basement for three fucking weeks, and he’s close to death now. The doctors aren’t giving him good odds.”

  The panic was only increasing with each word out of her mouth. I bent in half, my hands on my knees as I tried to suck in a breath. He was dead. Then he was alive. Now he might actually die.

  I couldn’t bear it if he died a second time.

  Raven’s cold hands touched my back, rubbing soothingly. The surprise of the action gave me the tiny bit of control I needed to draw in my next shallow breath. “He’s asking for you,” she murmured, so softly it was almost tender. “He keeps saying your name…among other things, but Bash said it’s obvious he’s wanting you.”

  “M-M-Me?” I whispered, dumbfounded. “Why would he ask for me? He hates me.”

  “I don’t know. But every time he speaks, it’s your name. We need to go. It’s a two-hour drive.”

  “But…” I tried to think past the possibility that Tanner actually wanted me with him right then. “Reid is asleep. I need to get him ready and—”

  “I’ll take care of Reid,” Quinn assured me. “He likes me. We’ve played a lot with Max the last few days. I promise, I’ll take care of your son as if he were my own. And your dad will be here. We won’t let anything happen to him, Jos. I swear to you.”

  I sucked in a deep breath, but it did nothing to calm me. Leave Reid? No. No. No. I couldn’t. We hadn’t spent a night apart, ever. He needed me. I needed him. He was all I had.

  “Tanner needs you more than Reid does right now, Jos,” Raven told me, her eyes darkening with impatience. “We have to go. The longer we wait, the higher the chances we get there too late for him to even see you.”

  Tears spilled down my face instantly. “Okay,” I cried. “Let’s go. Quinn, please take care of him.” I needed to go now before I changed my mind and ran back in for Reid.

  “I will. Don’t worry. You just focus on Tanner.”

  Raven and Flick pushed me toward the black SUV across the parking lot. No one said a word as the two women climbed in the front, leaving me alone in the back for the long drive to whatever hospital my baby’s daddy was currently fighting for his life in.

  Chapter 4

  Jos

  I was shaking by the time we got to the hospital. Raven pulled up in front of the ER, and there was an MC brother there to park her car for her as we walked inside.

  People I didn’t recognize surrounded those I did, all of them dressed the same, with black army-like paint smeared across their faces like they’d all just come from a weekend of playing war or some shit.

  Jet stepped forward with Hawk, both of them embracing Raven and Flick before turning to me. “He’s in real bad shape, Jos honey,” Jet informed me, his face tense yet grave. “They have him in the ER right now, trying to clean out the flesh…” He broke off when Flick made a distressed sound, and he hugged her against his side, pressing her face into his cut. “But he keeps asking for you. Maybe if you are with him, you can make this a little easier on him.”

  I squeezed my hands together, trying to get some small trace of warmth back into them, and nodded. “I’ll do whatever you need me to,” I assured him. “Just show me where to go.”

  Hawk took my arm, guiding me past the ER desk where the nurses gave us kind nods, past full exam rooms and curtained-off areas where the less serious patients were being taken care of. I heard someone groan, as if they were in absolute agony, and I whimpered.

  “Tanner?” I whispered, and Hawk nodded grimly.

  “It’s not pretty,” he warned. “You are about to see and smell something that will haunt you, sweetheart. But try to keep it together for his sake, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said with a gulp.

  “Good girl,” he murmured and knocked on a door at the end of the corridor.

  Seconds later, it opened, Bash standing there with tears in his magnetic eyes so like his cousins’. He was so tense and angry-looking, I instinctively took a step back. Noticing my reaction, he attempted to ease his expression into something less intimidating, but he didn’t really accomplish it.

  “Thank fuck,” he breathed and grasped my free arm, forcefully pulling me into the room.

  The instant I stepped through the door, it was like being hit by a wave of the worst-smelling scent on the planet. I gagged, trying to breathe through my mouth, then my nose again. Neither helped, and I had to cover my nose and mouth with my hand.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s rotting flesh,” a voice I didn’t recognize answered. I glanced over and saw a man in scrubs with a mask on and a light blue gown tied around him. He looked like he was performing surgery, and I couldn’t be sure he wasn’t.

  “Tanner has second-degree burns on his back,” Bash explained. “It’s mostly healed, but the rotting flesh has been infected with maggots. The doctor said that was probably the best thing to have happened to him since they’ve fought off gangrene setting in.
But he’s cutting away the rest of the rotten skin.”

  He had scissors in one hand, tweezers in the other, as a nurse helped him clean Tanner’s back. Tanner lay facedown on the bed, two different IVs in his arms pushing fluids and medication into him. Oxygen was in his nose, the heart monitor connected to him letting us all know that his heart rate was very, very low.

  The doctor cut away something on Tanner’s back and placed it in the container another nurse stood holding patiently.

  “Are you Jos?” the doctor asked casually as he continued to work.

  “Y-Yes.”

  “Then please, come sit beside the bed,” he requested. “Our friend here is on the strongest meds we can possibly give him, but they can only do so much. He keeps talking about you. Maybe he’s talking to you. Not quite sure right now. But I think he needs you more than he needs me at the moment.”

  Matt moved from where he’d been standing in the corner of the room, startling me so much, I jumped. When I didn’t move quickly enough for him, he picked me up several inches off the ground and carried me over to the chair the doctor indicated. Sitting me down, Matt stood over me, waiting to make sure I didn’t run away.

  I really, really wanted to run away.

  Tanner groaned again, his body flinching with pain, and I instinctively reached out. My hand touched the side of his face, my fingers stroking over the weeks’ worth of beard on his jaw, my thumb touching his deeply cracked lips.

  “Shh, shh,” I murmured softly, as if I were talking to Reid having a bad dream. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

  His eyes opened to mere slits. They were glazed with narcotics and pain, and he blinked a few times, as if trying to focus on me. Then he smiled a sad, heartbreaking smile, and my world stood still. “I really must be dead this time.” His words were slurred but not unintelligible. “Never believed in heaven before, but I’m glad I got here.”