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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.”
