From The Ashes (The Knights of Mayhem Book 3) (22 page)

Kent looks around the room then back to me.  “Eno?”

Shaking the fog from my head.  “Um, he’s fine, sedated.”

“Sedated?  I didn’t realize he was that bad.”  Kent’s concern for him written on his face.

I shake my head again, could this day get any weirder?  “Um he’s not, he was harassing the help.  So for the sake of the nurse’s, they sedated him.”

Kent smiles.  “That boy is going to be the death of me.”  He continues.  “Okay, this is how it goes.  First off, I want to apologize how all this went down, but it’s the only way we could’ve done it.”  He looks to the sliding doors behind me.  “Oz, why don’t you guys come and take a seat.”  The sight of the four men coming through the door has me, Cowboy, and Dalton ready to fight.

“You got some balls coming here, Kellen,”  Dalton says what we’re all thinking.

“Contain your shit, boys, they’re with me.”  I turn confused eyes to Kent and then back to the four Bastards.  “If you all will sit, I can explain … now,”  Kent orders.  We do as we’re told, but never take our eyes of the Bastards.  They circle around us to another section of seating, all taking a chair.  “Hollis contacted me three weeks ago.”  He looks at me.  “Evidently, she’d been left alone enough in that house of yours that she’d come up with a plan.  She contacted Oz as well, so we had a meet one day and she told us her plan.”

“I told you not to use her.”  I point to the doors. 

“Son, this was all her idea. She knew she could get all of you to believe she was still working with Markus, so it was an easy sell.”  He looks around the room at five sets of eyes, now all holding shame.  She was right, obviously. I didn’t trust her or have the faith in her like I thought I had, or told her I did.  “Oz was ready to be out from under Markus’s thumb, and hanging around you boys had a positive effect on them.”

“I wouldn’t go as far as that, Kent,”  Oz clears his throat. 

I stand and begin to pace.  “So all that shit she pulled back at the clubhouse was a fucking act?”  Then the memory of me spitting in her face floods my mind.  “Shit.”  I let my head fall back, studying the brown stains dotting the ceiling tiles of the room.  “I called her a whore. I didn’t try to stop her, but I just let her go.” 

“She came up with this whole thing?” Cowboy comes to stand next to me.

“Yes, she did,”  Kent answers.

“Why? Why would she do this?”  Piper asks.

Kent looks at Piper and then at the rest of us.  “Because she was trying to keep you all safe. I tried to talk her out of it many times, ask Oz, but she wouldn’t hear of it.  She was hell-bent on doing it, kept on saying this was how she was going to pay her debt and make things right.”

“She didn’t have a debt with us.”  Dalton shakes his head.  “We were okay with her.”

Kent levels his eyes at Piper.  “Not in her head.”

“There is no need to make her feel any worse than she already does, Kent, so get off her case.”  I shake my head and look to Oz.  “So, when did you get in on all this?” 

“After Hollis contacted me, I knew she would need to have back up, so I gave Oz a call, but she’d already called him.  I’ve been over all this.”  Kent answers for him.  “She was going to do it regardless of what I said, and I wasn’t going to let her go it alone. Oz was the best person for the job.”

The double doors bust open as Leo walks through, seeing all of us standing in the waiting room, some he expected and others he didn’t.  “What the hell did I just walk into?”

Oz stands and walks around the various chairs sitting around the waiting room, stopping in front of me and offering me his hand.  I take it reluctantly.  “She did all of this for all of you.  I mean, I questioned her about being sure lots of times and she’d always say, ‘They would do it for me.’”  He releases my hand and I can see regret in his eyes.  “I didn’t even have time to react when Markus fired, I was standing right there and couldn’t get between them.   She turned just enough to shield Caden, but was hit in the face.”  He takes a deep breath, looking over to a blood spattered Caden.  “The whole time she was lying on the ground bleeding, her main concern was Caden.  Hell, it took all Kent and I had to pry them apart.”  He looks around. “You might not ever want to know what went on up at that house, but I can tell you one thing, when Hollis says she did it for Caden, I can assure you, she isn’t lying.”

~~~~~~

My head bobs and I can feel the need for sleep engulf me. I stretch and yawn, trying to stay awake. I take her hand, hoping she knows I’m here for her.  The past three days have been like riding on a roller coaster―she wakes up, but she’s incoherent due to the meds she’s on.  “Hollis, I’m so sorry, baby.  I hope you know that.”  I kiss her hand. She’s so doped up she doesn’t respond to me.  I let my eyes drift over her face that is badly bruised on the right side where the bullet had shattered her cheekbone.

“Roman?”  A familiar female voice says.

“Go away.” 

The door softly closes behind Piper, and then I feel her hand on my shoulder.  “You have to get away for a little bit.”

“No, I don’t.  I wanna be here when she wakes up again.”

“They’re getting ready to take her up for her CT scan and I was just thinking you need to get out of here for a while.”  She kneels beside me, looking up at me with her big blue eyes.  “She wouldn’t want you to be doing this, Roman.”

“How the hell do you know what she would want?”  I lean forward and rest my elbows on my knees, cradling my head in my hands.  “You hated her … you all did, and the last time I saw her I did too.”  I jerk my arm free of her hand and stand.  “Do us both a favor and fucking leave.”

“You’re no help to her if you’re in the bed the next room over.”  She lays her hands on my arm and back.  “Please? I’ll make sure she’s looked after, but I’m worried about you too, we all are.”

“She got shot in the face for us, doing something to keep us safe.”  The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.  I’d heard the doctors tell me over and over again what had happened to her, but this is the first time I’ve acknowledged what she’d done for us out loud.  “And we just let her leave.  We accepted her act of betrayal as just that, never seeing that she wasn’t the same girl from years ago.”

“You didn’t know, how could you?”  Piper sighs as she looks over at the bed Hollis lies in.

“I should’ve known. I told her I had faith in her and the one time it’s tested, I let her down.”  I sigh as I look at her body lined by the white blanket tucked tightly around her still body.  “I lied to her too.”

I see Piper wipe at her cheeks.  “And how is that?”

“I told her I trusted her.” 

The door opens as the doctor enters.  “Mr. Jefferys, it’s time for her CT Scan.”

“Yes sir.”  I turn to him, drying my eyes as fast as I can. 

“This should be the last one for a while.  She’s making major improvements and we’re going to back her off the pain meds slowly.”  Dr.  Meads is a good man and a wonderful doctor.  “Don’t worry, we will take good care of her.”  Two nurses enter behind him.  “But I am concerned about your health and hygiene.  It has been three days and you haven’t left that chair.  I strongly urge you to take this time to go home, eat a good meal, sleep, and for God’s sake, take a shower.”

Piper tugs on my arm, heading me to the door.  “See, doctor’s orders. Cowboy’s waiting for you out in the truck.  I’ll stay here with her.” 

“Why are you doing this?”  I look at the one person who had never given Hollis an inch.

“Because I’m a great little sister, and I have shit to pay for too.”  Remorse covers her model perfect face.  She pushes me to the door.  “Go. I promise she’s in the best of hands.”  She turns, raising her eyebrows at the doctor and nurses.  “They fuck up, they won’t even know what hit them.”  She pushes against my back, leaning into me with her hands. 

I turn to watch as they hang bags and wires from her bed as they unlock the wheels and point it feet first at the door.  She begins to stir as they wheel her out.  I’ve never wanted anything more than for her to jump up from that bed and argue with me, to call me an asshole, stomp off with her arms crossed over her chest, cursing me the whole time.   I want her back. There isn’t any way else for me to live. 

I finally relent and let Piper push me out the door, only because Hollis .  I stop at the elevator and watch as they push her in. 

“Don’t worry, Mr. Jefferys. She’s in good hands.”  The doctor assures me again.  “We’re just going take a few images, just to make sure the zygomatic bone is healing correctly and that her eye socket is still intact.”

“Hold it for me, I’m gonna follow her up.”  Piper steps into the space between me and Hollis.  “Cowboy is right outside. You go and I’ll be here. I’ll text you with any news, okay?  She’s going to get better. It was a glancing shot, not a full impact.”

The fog of sleep deprivation has taken hold of me and I would probably agree to sell a kidney on the black market right now.  But Piper’s right, I need rest and a good meal.  Me sitting beside Hollis wasting away isn’t doing anybody any good. 

I walk through the automatic doors to see Cowboy sitting in his truck.  I open the door and climb in.

“How is she?”  He asks as he guides the truck away from the curb.

“They were taking her up for a CT scan, Piper went with her.”  My voice is flat and void of all emotion.  It’s been that way since I saw Hollis for the first time, lying in the bed after her surgery.

“I’m lost … CT scan, is that good or bad?”  He pulls away from the curb.

“The same,”  I sigh. “How did you do it, man?”

“What do you mean?”

“When Emily was in the hospital, then when she left and then again when Caden was taken?  You held it together.”

He scoffs at me.  “You know better than that shit. I was a mess.”   He takes a deep breath.  “I think we’re all sweating this one.”

“Sweating this one?  What the fuck does that mean?”  I cut my eyes to him.

He winces.  “Maybe the wrong choice of words, brother.  Let me try again.”  He clears his throat.  “We’re worried is what I meant, for you and for Hollis.”  He takes off his hat and rubs his bald head. “Shit, we all feel responsible for her actions, for the position she’s in.  We all feel like we put her there.”

“It’s nobody’s fault but mine.”  I’ve replaced my indifferent face and stare at the road ahead of us as he takes me back to his place. 

“And how is that?  You were the only one who actually gave her a chance, unlike the rest of us.  We just acted a part for you.”

“I just diluted myself and said all the right words so she would fuck me.”  I feel the guilt that’s been riding on my shoulders for the past three days hug me a little tighter.  “So I think it’s on all of us.  Fuck it. She tried, and we just lead her to believe we accepted her.”  I run my fingers through my hair, pulling it hard enough to stretch my scalp.

“Nothing we can do about it now but sit and wait with her, holding her hand and letting her know we’re around.  On the upside, Markus is in lockup.” 

“Yeah, I guess, but he deserves a fucking bullet.”

“Him and his brother both.”

Then I have a coherent thought that doesn’t involve me ripping someone’s throat out or kicking in the head of said individual.  “Does Kent know about Megan?”

He smiles over at me then laughs a little.  “No, not at the moment. At least he hasn’t said anything if he does.”  We go silent as he drives us down the road. 

I would love to be alone, really alone.  “Can you just take me to my house?”

“Nope. The other two women are waiting for you at my house with all the food and stuff they think you might need to cheer you up.”

“Cheer me up?”

“Yeah, you aren’t the happy-go-lucky Roman you used to be.”  He rolls his eyes and looks at me.  “Avery’s words, not mine.”

He pulls into his driveway and shuts off the engine.  “Listen, I kinda understand what you’re going through without the need for you to share much more. Give them this―let them take care of you because this is their way of saying sorry for fucking up with Hollis.”

“They didn’t fuck up with Hollis.  I’ve already told you, I did.”

“How, by loving her? Making her feel wanted?  For seeing her for the wonderful woman she’s become?  Believe me, her actions have shocked the shit out of me and for that, I’m sorry.  I expected less than she gave.  People change and now I know she has, ‘cause man, I know you love her, you always have.”

I shake my head and revel in the thought of what she’d been going through the past couple of weeks.  The insecurity she’s lived with under my roof and then in my arms.  “It just took her getting shot for us to see?”

“No, you always saw it, you just relied too heavily on us for approval that you let our doubt, as a group, infect you at a crucial moment.”

“So what are you saying?  I have no fucking spine?”

“I’m saying all of us have gotten so used to relying too heavily on the opinions of each other that we never truly go after what we want as individuals.”

“And how many hours of therapy did you pay for to get that insight?”

“None, but I do think we should all go and drive the Doc insane just once,” he laughs, which makes me smile.  “Can you imagine someone trying to shrink all of us? Talk about a big clusterfuck.”  He takes the keys out of the ignition.  “Let’s go in. I can see Emily peeking out the window.”  I go to exit but he grabs my arm.  “Hey, the only thing I ask is that you realize what they’ve done for you and how much they love you, and how much they need to apologize.”