Page 3 of Property of Mercury

“Where did you say they got her again?” A gruff sounding man asks who I’m presuming to be Mercury.

“The hospital parking lot. Just like they did Skippy,” Mercury answers. “They’re ballsy because those lots are covered by CCTV monitors.”

I have no clue who this Skippy person is, but if they went through what I did, that tells me this is not new behavior. I wish I knew who was talking since my eyes won’t cooperate, because the only one whose identity I know for sure is Mercury. Everyone else is just a voice right now, which has my fear ratcheting up, because what if they’re involved too? I know Mercury said they were Kings, but that doesn’t really tell me a whole lot.

“Which means this is being covered up and those tapes are being erased,” another man concludes.

“That’s only an assumption,” Mercury states. “We can’t take opinions to the authorities, especially when those officers are most likely knee deep in this fiasco.”

“No we can’t because it’d be covered up just like it is at the hospital,” another unfamiliar voice says. I’m losing count of how many strangers are in the same room as me while I’m vulnerable. That thought causes shivers to race up and down my spine.

“Shhh, calm down, Finley.” Mercury’s soothing timbre is next to my ear and I can feel myself relaxing. “You’re safe. You’re going to be okay but you’ve got a long road to recovery ahead of you. As soon as the doctor says it’s okay, you’ll be coming to stay with us and trust me when I say this, nobody will get near you. They’d have to go through every single one of us.”

Licking my dry, chapped lips I manage to ask the question roaming through my mind. “Who’s us?”

“Right now, it’s me, Gemini, Neptune, Pisces, and Orion,” he replies. “The rest of my brothers are checking into a few things, and another is watching over Sutton while she’s with Skippy.”

“Sutton?” I query, my raspy voice sounding like I’m a three-pack-a-day smoker.

“She’s my old lady. I’m Gemini, president of the Kings. Skippy is her friend who was found in a similar state as you were.”

A cool sensation crosses my lips as Mercury says, “Sip slowly,” just as a straw is positioned at my mouth. While I’m more of a juice or soda girl, I want to cry with relief at how good the slightly chilled water tastes as it slides down my parched throat. After a few more sucks on the straw, it’s pulled away causing me to cry out in distress. “I’ll give you some more in a little bit. I don’t want you to have too much because you had surgery and it might make you queasy. No sense in you vomiting and undoing all the work the doctor performed to fix you, right?”

“Fine,” I grumble.

“Ah, the dreaded ‘fine’,” he teases. “I think I can live with that, Finley. It’s more important to me, to us, to get you moved to where we’re staying so we can keep you safe while we figure out what the fuck is going on around here.”

“Nothing good,” I complain, waving my arm that has an IV in it. “Case in point.”

“Oh, she’s sassy, I like it,” a male baritone jests. “Orion here.”

“More like class clown,” Gemini states. “And as far as her being sassy, Orion, she needs to pull her strength from wherever she can, don’t you think?”

The more time I spend awake, the stronger I start to feel. I have a boatload of questions I need to ask but one of the most prominent ones I desire to know is, “Who are the Kings?”

“How long have you lived here, Finley?” The man who has the monogram Pisces stitched onto his leather vest, asks.

“About two months,” I tell him. “I moved here shortly after my parents passed away in a car wreck, needing a place to start over. Dad used to visit his grandparents here, they had a farm, and he told me stories about the beauty of this town and made it sound like a dream.”

“More like a nightmare,” the one who introduced himself as Orion says.

“True,” I say, attempting to shrug my shoulders only to wince when the stitches pull. “Ouch. Note to self, keep your body as still as possible.”

“Do you talk to yourself a lot?” Orion inquires, tilting his head and angling it in my direction.

“Only when I need smart company,” I snark, my comeback rude and snappy, but dammit, why is he mentioning my shortcomings? That’s rude. And with everything I’ve just lived through, I should be getting pampered.

“You’ve got your hands full with this one, Mercury,” Orion says, his remark chock full of amusement. Now I see what he meant earlier when Gemini called him the class clown.

“To answer your question about who we are, we’re a motorcycle club,” Gemini says. “Most of us are from Texas, but we got an offer we couldn’t refuse from the national president of the Kings of Anarchy so here we are.”

“So we all moved here wanting greener pastures,” I muse. “Hope it works out better for you than it did for me.”

“We’ll make it safe for you too, Finley,” Mercury promises. “It’s gonna take some time which is why we want to move you in with us so you’re under the umbrella of our protection.”

“Do you think that’ll make the asswipes that took me leave me alone?” I ask, and when I notice the doubtful looks on their faces, I harrumph. “That’s what I thought.”

“Even if you move away, there’s no guarantee they’ll leave you alone and let you flee, Finley. You’re a loose end,” Mercury reminds me.