Wild Ones (The Lane) (17 page)

Chapter Nineteen

I woke the next morning to lights that were too bright and the burning scent of cleaning products that assaulted my sinuses, making them sting. My head felt fuzzy, and as I came to, I heard a beeping sound from somewhere close by. Funny how not long before I had wished this existence for Johnson. I never figured I’d know it so soon myself.

I opened my eyes slowly, sensing a presence to my left. There, tucked in the corner, a nasty-looking cut splitting his eyebrow, chin to his chest as he sat slumped in a hard chair, was Brandon. Not who I expected to see.

“Brandon?” I croaked out and instantly he was awake and by my side.

“Need something to drink?” he asked, though his tone suggested that he’d rather I didn’t. “You sound like shit.”

I shook my head, grimacing when dark spots appeared before my eyes. “No. Where’s Luke?”

He glanced away quickly and grabbed a big thermal cup with the words St. Mercy etched into the side, almost as if he wanted something to do with his hands. “He’s...well, Theo will be back soon. He’ll explain it.”

I frowned and grabbed his wrist when he got closer, noting the way his right eye was almost swollen shut.

“Why don’t you tell me?” I rasped.

Instead of immediately answering, he handed me the cup, forcing me to release the hold I had on him in order to take it.

“What happened to your face?” I asked after taking a small sip that made my throat ache.

“Basically the same thing that happened to yours. Ended up on the wrong side of an angry dude’s fists.” He gave me a pointed look. “And before you ask again, I ain’t saying anything more than that. Theo will explain when he gets here. That’s his job. This was mine.”

I nodded, though I was unsatisfied with that answer. For once, I just didn’t have it in me to argue further.

It was uncomfortable, the time we spent waiting for Theo. Brandon and I weren’t anything remotely close to being friends, and being in a hospital room didn’t change that fact. He continued to refuse to tell me where Luke was, eventually outright ignoring me whenever I tried to ask until we both fell silent, the beeping heart monitor the only sound between us.

When Theo finally arrived, Brandon excused himself quickly, barely making eye contact with Theo as he passed him. Once Theo and I were alone, he dragged the chair over next to my bed and sat, taking one of my IV’d hands in his.

My head felt cloudy and thick, too heavy for my body, and while I had to struggle around a mouth full of cotton, a side effect of the shot a heavy, stern-looking nurse had given me just before Theo came in the room, I forced myself to ask the only question that mattered.

“Luke?”

Theo sighed and it was a tired sound, dripping with defeat.

“Figured you’d ask first thing. There’s some bad news, darlin’, and I was the unlucky bastard chosen to break it to you.”

I just raised my eyebrows, shocked that even that simple gesture could hurt so badly.

“Things aren’t looking so hot for our boy right now. Cam is on the next floor. ICU,” he clarified upon seeing my frown. “He was admitted just a few hours after you. Police got called in. It was apparently a slow E.R. night and Luke was in here with you. Didn’t take much for them to make the connection.”

“Where is he?” My voice sounded horrible.

“Police station,” Theo’s lips all but disappeared in a thin line. “They may keep him overnight. Hard to say. Lot depends on the fuck upstairs.”

I frowned, though I felt the same way about Cam, especially now, I still didn’t expect Theo to write him off like that. Especially not for me.

As if sensing my train of thought, Theo gave a one-armed shrug. “He was just a trainer. I can find another. Especially one that doesn’t give my prized fighter another reason to do time.”

My frown deepened, wanting to ask the question, but almost afraid to. It must have been written on my face because Theo answered it.

“Look, darlin’. I don’t mind you. You’re an okay enough girl, but you’re ultimately a distraction. But Luke’s in it with you, and when he’s in something, he’s all in. I know better than to mess with anything that belongs to Luke Turner. I just wish Cam had known the same. Now we might be in a fix.” His frown was as deep as mine and just as genuine.

“Self-defense,” I told him quietly. “I’ll tell the police.”

The thought terrified me. Avoiding the police had become second nature, a thing of critical importance. I didn’t know if a missing persons report had ever been filed on me and if it was, who filed it, my ma or da. They couldn’t make me go back, not now, not this many years later, but they could divulge my whereabouts. The last thing I wanted was for either of them to show up, to have to see them. I would have risked all that for Luke though. I would have risked anything for him.

“Darlin’, Cam’s in ICU. They don’t even know if he’ll make it. Self-defense won’t fly in this situation. They got our boy on assault with intent. D.A. could even go for manslaughter if he dies. It’s unlikely, but people can be pretty fragile.”

“But I was attacked,” I protested feebly.

Theo shrugged.

“I know it. You know it. Hell, even they know it. But the minute Luke went back for him, went barging into his house, it wasn’t self-defense. It was assault. He went too far.”

I gave him a pointed look.

“Fact, darlin’. Not opinion. In my opinion, the fuck should be in the morgue. There’s two rules we live by down at the gym. Don’t fuck with my money and don’t fuck with anything that belongs to Luke Turner. Otherwise? You forfeit.”

The same heavyset, stern-looking nurse walked in, pushing a cart with a computer sitting on the top of it. Theo scooted his chair back politely and she gave him a disgusted look. Even though he didn’t appear to notice it, I wanted to smack it off her face.

“This your birth date?” she asked, after pulling the cart up to my bedside and turning the computer screen so I could see it. I glared at her but nodded. She didn’t respond as she pulled out a syringe and unplugged my IV, inserting the syringe and pushing the liquid inside into my veins. Without a word, she plugged my IV back up, disposed of the syringe and pushed the cart back out of the room. Once the door clicked shut, Theo pulled his chair back over.

“Should we get a lawyer?” I whispered. Whatever drugs she had just given me wanted to pull me under and I kinda wanted to go.

“Depends on what happens upstairs and what the D.A. decides. Until then, the less people involved the better.”

“Will they drop it?”

“Maybe.” He didn’t look like he believed it. “If that fuck pulls through and doesn’t press charges, they could. Not much of a case then.”

“He better live.”

Theo laughed darkly. “Darlin’? If I were him, I wouldn’t want to.”

No. Maybe not. Maybe living and facing Luke again was risky. But not living and Luke going away wasn’t an option either.

* * *

Theo stayed while I slept the sleep of the dead, and when I woke up he was there to greet me. I was glad to see him, glad there was a familiar face next to me, but he wasn’t Luke, and that was who I really wanted. The need for him, to see and touch him, was a choking, hot ball that I couldn’t swallow around. But he was locked away a mile down the road, so close and yet so achingly far, and we were in purgatory. Our fates rode on Cam, who remained stubbornly unconscious in ICU, and that alone made me want to hobble up there and add a couple more bruises to him myself.

A couple of restless hours after I woke, a knock on the door had me and Theo glancing up. The one person I didn’t expect to see was standing there, clutching a bouquet of wilted wildflowers.

“I’ll just be outside if you need me.” Theo patted me on the hand as he stood and gestured to his chair at Jax. “I need to make a few calls anyway.”

I gave him a glare, not bothering to hide it from Jax. I might be in a hospital and he might be carrying sad flowers, but he was still a Judas.

Once Theo left the room, Jax sat down in his chair. Several long minutes of tense silence stretched out between us. Finally he leaned forward and placed the bundle on my lap.

“I know you’re not into this shit, but I figured they’d confiscate the Captain I was originally going to bring.”

I snorted in spite of myself and something broke with the sound of it.

“What’s the damage?” he asked, and it was a loaded question if I’d ever heard one.

“Two broken ribs, a sprained ankle, a broken wrist and ‘multiple contusions and lacerations,’” I recited. “I’ll live, basically.”

Jax made a sound in the back of his throat that sounded a lot like disgust.

I narrowed my eyes at it.

“I will,” I insisted. “Practically a regular Friday night on the Lane even.”

“Can you hear yourself?” Jax asked, shaking his head, his voice sounding as sprained as my ankle was. “You’re lying in a hospital bed, more blue than white, casts on, and you’re downplaying this like it’s nothing.”

“Well, you should see the other guy.” I shrugged, holding back the grimace that wanted to accompany it.

“I know about that too. You know how I know? Because Turner showed up at Duke’s last night covered in blood. Dragged Joshua in the office and ranted loud enough that we could all hear him accusing him of ordering this shit before he threatened to put a bullet in his head. I had no idea what to think, Bri. Then I find out this morning that you’re in the hospital? And the guy who put you there is your dude’s friend? What’s next, Bri? Do you have to be killed before you realize this shit ain’t right?”

“What about Rosie?” I asked. “You have this talk with her too?”

“I’m going to. But Rosie isn’t laid up right now. Listen, Bri. Please just listen to me.” His eyes took on a kind of desperation I had never known from him. “I don’t know what it is that’s making you stay, but if it’s just wanting someone, fuck. Just leave him. Leave him and date me.”

I jerked back in surprise, immediately hissing from the spike of pain that washed over me with the movement.

“You’re kidding me right?”

“No, I know. I fucked up before when I said all that shit, but damn, Bri. You have to understand where I’m coming from here.”

“I don’t think I can. I tried. For a second. Found getting my head that far up my ass to be difficult though.”

Jax shook his head and leaned forward, grasping the bars on the side of my bed. “If it’s just needing to be with someone, be with me. I don’t...God, you’re not my type. I love you, I’m not in love with you no more than you’re in love with me, but we’re best friends. We know each other, we’ve lived together, we could work and you know it. I can’t sit back and watch this shit anymore, Bri. Leave him before something really bad happens. Please.”

“I can’t,” I said and I left it at that. There was no need to try to explain. He’d never understand.

“Look at yourself. How can you see yourself and not leave him? Come home, dude. In a few years we’ll laugh about this shit over a fifth of whatever you want, and we’ll remember how stupid you were for a second and things will be normal like they have been before this shit started.”

I didn’t even have to think about it, put his words into consideration. I didn’t want normal. I didn’t want the same. It didn’t matter where I was right now, I knew I could never go back to how things had once been. The very thought of it made me shiver.

“I can’t, Jax. I need him.”

Jax exploded, his face turning an alarming shade of red as he gripped the rails of my bed so tightly his knuckles turned white.

“Damn it, Bri! You’re not one of those girls. You’ve never been. Don’t fucking start now!”

I shook my head firmly, my voice still calm even in the face of his anger. “I can’t. I can’t even apologize for not being able to. I just can’t, Jax. I can’t do it.”

He scooted his chair back, putting physical distance between us before he stood and ran a shaking hand through his curls.

“I can’t pick out your headstone.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“That’s what’s next. And I can’t do it.” He squared his shoulders and gave me a look that made something sour uncoil and stretch in my gut. “Come get your shit. You’re self-destructing, dude, and I can’t watch it anymore.” He took a step back and though his voice had been slightly anguished, his eyes were hard, firm. He meant it. He was handing me an ultimatum.

I clutched the blanket in my lap with my good hand so hard my fingers ached, and on its scratchy, stiff surface I saw our years together play out. The first time we met. His hair had been shorter then but his eyes were kind as he sent me away from Duke’s, telling me to come back when I was legal. He’d promised that he’d make sure I had a job. He kept that promise. It was the first time that had ever happened. I saw him turning to me when he figured out that I was living on the streets, cautiously offering me a room in his apartment. I’d only agreed when he said I’d have to pay rent. The nights on the Lane, him slipping me drinks between orders at work, sitting across from each other at our tiny, scratched kitchen table. Over and over, memory after memory, I saw Jax. Laughing. Smiling. Attempting to tame the beast in me and not giving up when he couldn’t.

Until now.

He’d been my constant. The one thing I’d been able to count on and I didn’t want that to change, yet I couldn’t just give up Luke. I couldn’t pick one or the other. It was like a surgeon standing over me, asking me to choose between two vital organs. How could I do that? How could I pick between my lungs and my heart?

There was years’ worth of things I should have said to him, and I didn’t know how to say them now that I needed to. Because maybe if he knew what he meant to me, he’d stay and I wouldn’t be forced to make a choice that would cripple me.

It was selfish, so selfish, but I wanted him to stay.

“Jax.” I looked up, throat burning, and my eyes widened.

The room was empty. He was already gone.

Chapter Twenty

It took a long time to fall asleep that night. Regret, raw and unfamiliar, battled with choking anxiety. They fought with each other until my insides felt bruised and bloodied before settling in side by side as my demanding and abusive companions. The monitor next to my head ticked away my heartbeats, the beeps slowly morphing until they were Luke’s name. The blood pressure cuff chimed in occasionally to wheeze Jax’s name as it tightened around my biceps. It pounded against my temples, wailed relentlessly against my skull, until I thought I would go straitjacket crazy under the pressure of it all.

A reprieve finally came the next day when Theo got a call informing us that Cam had been moved to step-down unit. Not long after, we were both visited by two grim-faced officers and neither of us breathed a word about the other. Instead, on Theo’s advice we both cited unrelated mugging attempts.

Relief coursed through my veins when they left, shoved back the regret and the anxiety into dark, shadowy corners where they belonged. They’d have to let Luke go now that we’d cleared his name. Any minute he’d walk through my door and everything would be okay. He’d erase all the bad just by being here.

They didn’t let him go.

He was still locked up when I was discharged early the next morning. Theo wheeled me out, grumbling the entire time that I wasn’t healed nearly enough to be released so soon. The hospital was probably reluctant to keep me given the fact that I didn’t have insurance. It was a shame on their part, since Theo ended up paying for my stay in its entirety, the lady in charge of billing looking like she could have shit bricks when he handed over a wad of cash thicker than my forearm.

Crushing disappointment and sharp anger set up camp in my chest as we drove back to Luke’s apartment and settled in to wait. The phone rang constantly, sparking a flash of hope that was stomped out when it wasn’t Luke on the other end. The calls never brought good news. Cam wasn’t considered out of the woods yet. They weren’t convinced he and I had been telling the truth when we were questioned. The D.A. hadn’t decided whether or not he was going to move forward with charges. We might need to go ahead and bring in a lawyer after all.

Another day went by and I gave up hoping altogether. I drifted from room to room, a ghost in Bri’s skin. Lost. Hurt in every way a person could hurt. Theo eventually stopped trying to interact with me aside from gentle reminders to eat and take my meds and drink. After all, ghosts made shitty company.

Dusk was falling and I prepared for another aching night in a too-big bed, angry and bitter and tired. Out in the living room, Theo’s phone rang and I cursed it, then him for the silence that followed. I couldn’t take any more bad news. Ghost Bri was giving way to Hulk Bri and she wanted to smash. She wanted to rip and tear and destroy over the injustice of it all and I wanted to let her. We had nothing else to lose.

I was picturing the damage I’d wreak when Theo shouted out suddenly. Before I had a chance to wonder at it, footsteps hurried down the hall toward the bedroom. His face appeared in the doorway, his scar threatening to burst open under the strain of his grin.

“They’re dropping it. They’re dropping everything. There’s no evidence.” His smile widened as if he could see how I struggled to process his words, convinced I wasn’t hearing him right. “It’s over, darlin’. Let’s go get our boy.”

* * *

The ride over was nerve-racking and I couldn’t sit still, even though my ribs protested even the slightest movement. Theo hardly had the car in park before I was flying out of the door. My feet barely touched the pavement as I dashed across the parking lot and up the old stone steps to the aging courthouse just as Luke emerged from its double doors. I didn’t slow, though my ribs were wailing and my ankle throbbed. I threw myself at him, forcing him to catch me as I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck and buried my face in his big shoulder. He didn’t smell completely like himself, not with the lack of cigarette smoke clinging to his skin, but it was close enough that I was dragging it into my lungs with greedy, desperate breaths.

When he finally untangled me from him, he pulled back to look me in the face.

“You okay, sugar?”

“Fine!” I laugh-cried, appalled by my reaction and yet not finding enough care in me to be too embarrassed by it. “You? You okay? Did anybody hurt you? Do I have to go fuck up some random Crip or Blood or...I don’t know, biker dude?”

He laughed and it was a hypnotizing sound that vibrated my bones.

“God, I missed you,” I told him, with something akin to worship.

“I missed you too, sugar.”

He slung an arm around my shoulders and pulled me toward where Theo waited at the base of the stairs. I couldn’t wipe the goofy grin off my face and I knew if Jax could see me now, he’d know he was wrong, that Luke wasn’t bad for me. There was no way he could be. Not when I felt as good as I did despite my injuries. Anything that felt this good, this right, couldn’t be bad at all.

We dropped Theo off at his house and continued on to Luke’s, to mine now, though we hadn’t discussed it. We hadn’t had a chance to discuss anything. Not that I wanted to. What I wanted to do involved fewer clothes and more Luke, and we took care of that want first, though we had to go painfully slow and mind my ribs. And arm. And ankle. Also my back hurt, as well.

It wasn’t easy, but it was worth it.

Afterward we lay together, legs tangled, hands stroking, and I told him what had happened while he was gone and he told me about how he’d hunted down Cam and that while Cam didn’t deny it, he showed no remorse either. I asked him about Brandon, about the bruises that had marred his face, and his eyes took on a hard edge.

“He’s not guilty. Not really. But he ain’t innocent either.”

“What does that mean?”

“I guess Cam said something to him at one point, something about how there was too much at stake for me to be fucking around with you. How things would be better if you weren’t in the picture. Brandon tried to talk him out of it. Came to me and tried to get me to break things off. Never said anything about the shit Cam had been talking. He said he didn’t think Cam would actually go through with it. He thought he was just blowing smoke.” His arms tightened around me. “If he’d just opened his fucking mouth, none of this shit would have ever happened. I could have handled it before it did.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, wasn’t sure how I even felt about it, and I got the sense that Luke was in no hurry to forgive him.

“Any word on the next fight?” I asked after a while of lying in silence, because I wasn’t stupid enough to believe that what happened with me and Cam was enough for it to be canceled.

“No,” he replied, playing with the ends of my hair that were fanned across my chest. “It’ll be soon. Wouldn’t be shocked if it’s this Friday.” He gave me a sideways glance that made my scalp prickle. “Oh, yeah. You also don’t have a job anymore.”

“Excuse me?” I choked out, sitting up entirely too fast to not feel it. “What do you mean?”

He didn’t even have the decency to look sheepish. “I threatened King the other night. Thought the idea to have you attacked might have come down from him. I’m still not entirely sure it didn’t, even though he claimed he had no idea what I was talking about. He didn’t appreciate me getting up in his face on his own turf. Can’t exactly fire me though. Not without losing money. So he did the next best thing.”

“Which was fire me? I’ve worked for him for years! I’m the fucking victim here! How am I going to get fired?”

Luke shrugged, reaching for me only to scowl when I brushed his hands away. “You just did. It’s not that big of a deal. I make enough money for both of us.”

“Not a big fucking deal? It’s a major fucking deal, Turner! I lost my damned job because you threatened my boss.” I stood, moving away from the bed to sit down in the dirty clothes basket across the room, attempting to breathe through the rising panicked feeling in my gut. I dropped my head into my hands and dug my nails in my temple, focusing on the sting they caused.

It was official. I was my ma’s daughter. What was it Da had screamed at her the night I left, as I was walking out the door without them even realizing it?
You have more good looks than common sense.
She hadn’t denied it and I wouldn’t either. The fights, they were bad enough. The violence, it came with the territory. But this? Losing my job? That was too much. A step too far.

“I don’t know why you’re being so dramatic,” Luke said from the bed. “It’s just a job. You can get another one. Or not. Like I said, I make enough money.”

I snapped my head up and glared at him. “I’m being dramatic? Really, Turner? It. Was. My. Job. You threatened him. You should have lost your job. Joshua is a twisted bastard but Duke’s was mine. Not yours to take away.”

He shook his head at me. “No. It wasn’t yours. If it was, you wouldn’t have lost it.”

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” I asked him incredulously. “This is your answer? Really? You get me fired and it’s just nothing to you? You don’t see how incredibly jacked up it is that you interfered that much in my life that you made me lose my fucking job? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he shot back at me as he stood up and came around the bed to stand in front of me. “It’s just a job. Not even a good job. You brought people their overpriced beer. You weren’t curing cancer.”

I pulled myself shakily to my feet and slammed my good palm into his chest, managing to catch him off guard and push him back a few steps. My mind was buzzing with rage, a droning hum in my ears.

“You are un-fucking-believable. Why in the hell do I stay with you?”

“Because you love me!” he roared, using the wall next to the dresser to propel himself toward me.

I flinched, instantly hating myself for it.

“I don’t love you. I can’t fucking stand you! You’re a damn mess, Luke!”

He scoffed and leaned closer to me, his breath smelling like the cigarette he’d finished smoking only moments before.

“I’m a mess?” he growled and damn him. Damn me. I felt myself responding to his tone like always. “Oh, Bri. I’m fucking Mr. Clean compared to you.”

I was so angry I sputtered. “I’m a mess? Ha. I might be a mess but I own my shit. I’m not in denial about my many fucking faults.”

“Sugar, your middle name is denial.”

The remark broke me with its sucker-punch honesty. Wasn’t that the damn truth? Hadn’t that been what Jax had been trying to tell me all along? That I was my ma? That all Luke had to do was walk into the room, and any common sense I possessed, any ounce of awareness, fled before him? He’d tried to warn me and I wouldn’t listen. I’d been too wrapped up in this twisted, dangerous life to see that history was repeating itself. It was a cycle and I was becoming the woman who hadn’t raised me. I’d end up on my back under other men for money. There would be kids with my eyes and his hair and empty bellies. A dirty, sad apartment, bodies covered in welts, and a loaded pistol of a boy that smelled like booze and other peoples’ blood. I was making all my ma’s mistakes.

“I want you to quit,” I demanded. “If I lost my job because of you, I want you to quit boxing for me.”

Luke laughed, still leaning over me. “Yeah, sugar. That ain’t gonna happen.”

“Then go. Get the fuck out of here.”

Whatever response he had been expecting, that wasn’t it, judging by his bewildered expression. He reached out to touch me, and before his hand could make contact, I lost it, stepped firmly into shrieking insanity.

“Get the fuck out of here!” I screamed. “I’m done with this! God, you’re such a prick. I want you and I hate you and I’m fucking done!”

He stared at me for a minute, an unreadable expression on his face before he tipped his head back and roared with laughter. “Oh, sugar. You’ve officially lost your damn mind. This is my place and I’m not going anywhere. And neither will you.”

“Like hell I won’t,” I snarled, bending over and snatching up my clothes from the floor. “I’m done with your shit. You’re fucked up, this is all fucked up.” I paused and held up my wrist for emphasis. “I don’t want to deal with your drama and bullshit anymore.”

Luke continued to laugh, a dark, menacing sound that rolled through me, both pissing me off and turning me on at the same time. “All this over a job?”

“It’s not just the job!” I pulled my shirt over my head with some difficulty, then bent over and shimmied into my jeans. “The job was the final straw. I can’t do this, Luke. I don’t know why I thought I could.”

“Because you can. And you will. Face it, Bri. This is what you want. I’m what you want. You want me just as bad as I want you. Unreasonably.”

“You’re fucked up.”

I sat on the edge of the massive bed and pulled on my boots, then shrugged on a jacket and turned to look at him. I had to go before I lost any of my good looks so that I wasn’t left without even a pretty face to hide my lack of common sense. If I wanted to break the cycle, be different, then I couldn’t stay. I didn’t have anywhere to go, had no one to go to. Jax was gone and Jax had been the only other one I’d had. I was completely alone, without a place or soul to turn to, and we both knew it, but that didn’t stop me from standing up and pushing past him, and it didn’t make him attempt to stop me. As I walked out of the bedroom, toward the front door, Luke shouted one last thing after me. It slammed against the base of my skull and vibrated there.

“Newsflash. You’re just as fucked up as I am, sugar.”

God. Didn’t I know it?