I had this particularly tough head nurse who, for some reason or another, decided on sight that she wasn't my biggest fan. All I could think of as I made my way to work that day was her giving me that now legendary side-eye that managed to make me feel very small for any little infraction.
She'd already shown massive displeasure in my tendency to hum a little bit to myself while filling out charts. She also thought I was a pen thief (I am not). And I'd heard her talking to one of the other nurses complaining that I'd brought a magazine with me to flip through during my break instead of socializing.
It took a lot of self-control not to turn the corner and inform her that if maybe she were more welcoming, I would have happily spent my break talking to some of them.
As it was, I felt like an outsider.
So even changing my hair felt like it was bringing unnecessary attention to me that was getting me more hard looks whenever it was mentioned.
I was never so glad to be done with a shift as I gathered my things, wondering if I had enough time to stop off at the store to grab some hair accessories that might help me tame this much shorter hair into some sort of style, so it wasn't such a reminder of my stupid mistake as I let it grow back in.
That was what was on my mind as I walked out of the hospital.
There was a bite in the air that shook off the lingering exhaustion that started to cling to me on my third twelve-hour shift in a row. I liked to stack them when I could, giving me a longer span off in between. I always found I decompressed better when I had time and space for it. So a day off in the middle of long shifts usually left me feeling frazzled and irritable.
I had one more shift in me this week, though. Someone else had called out, and after moving to a new area, a whole new state, in fact, I felt like I couldn't turn down the money from an extra shift after I'd used most of my savings to cover the move.
But then I was free for a few days. I had grand plans in store, let me tell you. Like re-grouting my bathtub and painting my moldings. Maybe squeezing in a trip to Ikea for some cute, but budget-friendly, pieces of furniture to add to my very bare space.
You see, when you break up with someone in a blind rage and storm out of the house you shared for three years, you didn't think to tell him that you'd be back for the eight-hundred-dollar couch you bought or all the various knick-knacks that he never even noticed existed.
I don't know about you, but I had always had too much pride to go back after a full-on rage-out like that.
I'd used cuss words that would make my mother embarrassed to claim me as her own. If she were still alive. As it was, she was probably ranting and raving in the afterlife about how she raised me better.
And she had.
I was raised by a mother who put a full face of makeup on the morning after her husband let her know that he'd been diddling the secretary for a year and a half, she was pregnant, and he had to "do the right thing" by her. A mother who bit her lip to save her face. A mother who once cut the tip of her middle finger off while chopping vegetables for Thanksgiving dinner and let out a very tame "Oh, fudge!" that she then apologized for.
I didn't know where my potty mouth came from, but I knew what got it flapping with reckless abandon.
Shitty men.
Shitty men doing shitty things.
Especially when those shitty men did shitty things to good women.
Oh, sure, I was no saint, but I had my heart in the right place, I did my best, I pulled my weight, I abided by the laws—both criminal and common decency.
So I felt I was justified in cussing out the man who sat me down to inform me that he needed to "keep his options open" after three years of monogamy, that he had to know if there was more out there for him.
More out there for him.
More than me out there for him.
Now, I'd loved the man—or thought I had at the time—so I'd overlooked a great many things about him while we dated. Like the fact that he always waited until the server walked away, then passed the check to me before sliding it back to himself to hand to the server when he returned.
Or that he worked a very part-time job because he was "working on his side-hustle" that seemed to involve playing a hell of a lot of video games and no actual hustling.
I never mentioned his complete disregard for our home that he refused to ever help me clean.
I didn't lose my ever-loving mind when he brought clippers with him and cut his nails in bed, leaving little toenail shrapnel all around.
Did I freak out when Valentine's went by and he "forgot?" No.
Did I speak up when I'd spent months researching, tracking down, and purchasing the perfect present for his mother for her birthday only to have him claim it as his own?
Nope.
Didn't do that either.
But he thought he could do better than me?
Let's just say, I was very aware during my rant that followed his declaration that I hadn't truly been in love with him at all. Because there was no pain over losing him. Just anger. Just a bone-deep resentment. And a little bit of fear at the idea of being single again, starting over again, having no one in the whole world again.
That was why I moved states. I figured it would feel a little less sad to start over and be alone in a place that wasn't filled with memories of a time I spent with someone who never appreciated me.
If it weren't for my terrible hair choice and my stern superior, I would say things were going pretty well.
I had a place in a decent area.
I had a steady job with a good income.
I got to start decorating from scratch again.
And I was pretty sure I was finally ready to take the plunge and get myself a pet. Something that didn't mind being alone while I did long shifts. A cat or maybe even a set of bunnies so they could keep each other company while I was out.
Things were really starting to look up.
"Don't scream," the voice hissed in my ear as a hand clamped over my mouth, as another grabbed me around the center, lifting me up off my feet, leaving me peddling in the air as he dragged me backward.
I'd been to a self-defense class that taught me exactly how to get out of this situation. I'd practiced it a dozen times. Successfully. But in the heat of the moment, the movements flew out of my brain, leaving only panic in their wake.
Even if I remembered the moves, I think it would have been over too fast to implement any of them.
One moment, I was walking out of work with the silliest cares in the world.
The next, I was tossed in the backseat of a SUV with a man on top of me.
Whatever panic I felt before amplified. My heartbeat pounded so loud that I heard the thumping of it in my ears, felt it in my throat, temples, wrists.
This was not happening.
I did not work so hard to change my life for the better only to be pulled into a car and raped on my way out of work one night.
One of my arms shot out, managing a sideways closed fist to the man's jaw under his mask, barely getting a muffled grunt out of him before I saw the handcuffs appear out of nowhere, closing around my wrist.
It was only a matter of seconds before he got the other wrist too, closing the bracelets so tight that they bit into my skin.
"Are you going to make me gag you?" he asked.
If he wanted me to be silent, then hell yes.
But I wasn't going to tell him that.
I shook my head vehemently as he looked down with me with light eyes, likely blue, the only thing visible to me.
Cold.
God, they were such cold eyes.
He searched me for a moment before deciding I was trustworthy, removing his hand.
I wasted exactly no time.
I opened my mouth to scream even as my feet pulled out from under him, ramming him in his lower stomach as I pushed toward the door near my head, trying to reach for the handle with my cuffed hands, tasting freedom, knowing that if I could just get out of the vehicle, that I ha
d a much better chance of getting safe.
"Fucking hell," the man growled, hand clamping on my mouth as his body came down fully on mine, crushing my chest to the seat, his weight pinning me in place.
I was small.
Short, petite, "doll-like" my mother used to say.
I stood no chance against a man who had to be well over six feet with the weight that came with such a tall frame.
"This will be easier for you if you stop fighting it," he growled in my ear as his hand slipped away, but only because he planted it at the back of my head, smashing my face into the material seats that smelled like, oh God, like blood.
But before I could truly slip into the horror of that realization, something was slipping over my mouth, getting tied so tight around the back of my head that I immediately started to get a headache.
"Alright, down you go," he declared. And before I could guess his meaning, he was pushing me off the seat and onto the floor, wrestling with my cuffed wrists and another set of handcuffs until he attached me to a bar under the seat.
And with that, he climbed out of the back like nothing at all had happened, getting into the front, turning over the car, and backing out of the spot.
All the while, in my mind, all I heard was the animated voice of the true crime podcaster I loved listening to talking in my head.
Don't ever let them take you to a second location.
We all knew what happened at second locations.
But, as the car pulled out of my work lot, and the bar under the seat refused to budge no matter how hard I yanked against it, it didn't seem like I had any say in the matter.
All I could do now was try to stop letting the panic fog my brain. I needed to think. I needed to focus. Because wherever he was taking me next, he would have to get into the backseat again and unfasten me from the bar.
If I kept my wits about me, if I looked for the right opening, I might be able to act quickly enough to get away, to flag down a passing car, run to a neighbor's house.
Something.
Anything.
So he drove.
I plotted.
When the car pulled to a stop, anticipation skittered across my nerve endings, made me feel jumpy and strangely weightless.
The door opened at my feet, and the car jolted a bit as the man climbed inside, and unfastened the second set of cuffs from the bar.
Alright.
So I didn't give it a whole ton of thought, as it turned out.
I just reacted in the moment in the best way I could. Which meant I struck outward with the swinging cuffs, knocking the man across the bridge of his nose. It didn't have the kind of impact I wanted what with the face mask on to soften the blow and all.
But it gave me a second of shocked inaction that allowed me to scramble toward the other door, wrenching it open, and tossing myself out the other side.
I wasn't even sure I was seeing right as I took off. My vision was so blinded by my fear that I ran in the exact opposite direction we had come from. You know, the direction that had led to a road at some point. A road where I might encounter cars and people who could help me.
Nope.
I made a beeline for what was a whole lot of nothing. Except an open field that led up to a mountain that made my thigh muscles burn just looking at it.
But I couldn't seem to find any logical thoughts right then. Like the ones that would tell me to turn around, change directions, head back to the road.
I was in pure fight-or-flight response right about then. And all I could think about was running, getting away, not letting him drag me wherever he was planning to, do whatever he wanted to me while I was helpless but to endure it.
I didn't even hear him approaching.
But I felt his fingers sinking into my upper arm, the strength in them hurting, bruising.
I didn't think of anything but yanking away.
Because had I thought about it, I might have realized that the momentum would have sent me shooting forward, that I couldn't brace myself properly thanks to the cuffs, that I would be helpless to do anything but fall
And crack my head off the ground.
And slip into the inky blackness of unconsciousness.
So, yeah, that was exactly what I did.
Chapter Three
Ace
"Did you kill her?" Drex asked, coming up behind me as I leaned over the woman whose body was very still on the ground.
"She fell," I told him, reaching out to flip her onto her back, brushing her hair out of her face to look at the bloody wound on her head.
"You realize she's not going to be able to help Red if she's bleeding in her brain, right?" he asked, sounding amused as he rocked back on his heels.
"You're not helping."
"I'm not known for it," he agreed.
"Make yourself useful then, and get Lenore. She might not be able to help Red, but she can probably do something about this," I said, waving at the woman's head.
Hearing Drex move off—even if it was at a snail's pace—I looked back at the woman, turning her head each way to make sure she hadn't hurt herself anywhere else before letting my gaze slip down, seeing a laminated hospital badge hanging from a clip low by her hip.
Curious, I grabbed it, finding her name there.
Josephine Walsh.
RN.
I'd been hoping for a doctor. But I figured the nurses did a lot of the work at any given hospital. They certainly did most of the wound care. She should have been able to handle whatever was going on with Red.
"Oh, no," Lenore said, rushing forward, taking in the handcuffs, the wound on the woman's face. "What did you do?" she accused, dropping down, fingers pressing around the cut.
"Got someone to heal Red."
"And who is going to heal her?" Lenore asked, frustration clear in her voice.
It was no secret that she'd never been a fan of mine. Over her time with us, she'd developed relationships with most of the others, maybe especially so Daemon and Aram, the least cold of all of us. But she'd also gotten close with Minos. I'd walked down to get coffee many-a-morning to find the two of them talking in hushed whispers in the kitchen. She also often asked Seven for help with some task or another. She tolerated Drex and his sarcastic indifference. And she kept a wide berth around Bael. Like all of us did, to be honest. The man was not someone who wanted to get to know anyone, form any sort of relationships.
But me?
She openly disliked me much of the time.
I rarely gave her reason to feel otherwise.
"You," I told her, reaching down to lift the nurse off the ground. "It doesn't look that bad."
Lenore followed me inside, mumbling under her breath the whole time as I brought the woman into my bedroom where Red was still on the bed, bleeding, screaming against her gag.
"Fix up her head. Stay with her. Then call me when she wakes up," I demanded to Lenore as I placed the nurse on the couch, then made my way toward the door, needing coffee, to sit in front of the fire, to get some warmth back in my body after being outside for so long.
"Barking orders at her," Ly said as I moved into the kitchen, shaking his head at me. "Easy with that shit. You're my boss, not hers."
"If she didn't talk shit to me all the time, I wouldn't need to bark at her," I shot back as I went to the coffee maker, brewing a pot.
We didn't get a boost from caffeine like humans did, and I found myself envious of their susceptibility to mind and body altering chemicals as the day started to weigh on me. It was early to feel tired, but as I cradled my coffee in my hands and moved in front of the fire Bael was stoking, I knew that this tired wasn't as simple as needing rest.
I was a different kind of tired.
Just life tired.
Exhausted, really.
After finding out Lenore was capable of what generations of witches never could manage—opening the mouths of hell for us—I'd started to let myself hope for something I'd scarcely let myself truly hope for before.
A return home.
It had always been my goal, one I worked doggedly toward, one I obsessed about, but a part of me had always been doubtful it would be possible. Or, at least, that it would be possible for several generations yet.
I always figured that, worst case, eventually there would be a war between Good and Evil. And if Lucifer himself decided to open up a Hellmouth, we would have a way to go home.
But then there was Lenore with her powers, with her control over them.
She'd opened the Hellmouth that had produced Bael and Daemon, the same Hellmouth that Red had jumped into in her excitement over getting home after so long.
There had been a restless excitement among all of us since then. Even after several failures. We all figured it was just a matter of time before we found the right Hellmouth with enough energy left to open it.
I'd been sure as the Earth started dropping down into its own core that this was it, all the years on this plane were finally over, and I could take most of my men back home.
Not having that happen, then having Red show up so mutilated, it was more than my body wanted to deal with, let alone my mind.
I needed a few minutes to sort it out in my head before I could go back there.
"What?" I asked, sensing Bael's gaze on me.
"She didn't get fucked up like that just coming through," he told me, making me turn, finding his eyes intense, his jaw tight.
"I'd deduced that already," I agreed.
"So it stands to reason that someone did that."
He wasn't wrong.
"I've seen wounds like that on her back before," he said. "I've inflicted wounds like that before," he went on. "As I'm sure you have." I didn't want to think about it. I didn't want to come to conclusions about it. "Someone lashed her," he finished.
Yes.
There was no way around that fact.
Those lacerations were ones I'd seen a million times in my very long life. Both in hell and on the human plane.
If humans ever believed they were fundamentally good, all you had to do was go back in history a little bit to see how evil many of them were. Lashings and beheadings and burning at the stake. Even those who didn't inflict the pain stood by and witnessed it, took part in it, found glee in it.
The Healer (Seven Sins MC Book 2) Page 2