Page 130 of Trigger Happy Ending

“Did he say where he was going?”

“He didn’t, I’m sorry.”

“Well, did he say anything? Anything at all?”

“No, I’m sorry, Ma’am.”

“Please,” I plead, stronger this time. “I need to get out of here.”

“No, I’m sorry. I can’t allow that.”

It takes me a few seconds, but I find it. I summon the raging hell-bitch that lives inside me and awaken it.

“I might look meek and unwell. But I’m not like your other patients. I could wrap this cord around your throat and have you choking, gasping for air in under five seconds if I really, really wanted. Or needed to.”

The nurse hesitates for a moment longer, the threat on her life obviously not on her bingo card. A cold ripple crawls over my body, and I know she can sense the shift in me.

“I could swipe your feet right out from under you, causing you to hit your head so hard you may never wake again … I can make anything look like an accident. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

The nurse bites her bottom lip and looks around. Exactly the body language I’m looking for. All nerves.

“God himself can’t stop me from walking out of this hospital.”

“No,” she says, her eyes shifting behind me. “But he can.”

My head whips to the side to see a familiar figure emerging from the private bathroom within my hospital suite. A pale, lifeless orb burns a hole into my body. Any thoughts I was having simply evaporate as I watch O take a few menacing steps towards my bed.

“Hook her back up to everything,” Agent O instructs. “If she resists … sedate her again.”

The nurse begins to reattach me to the heart monitor which I allow her to do. I don’t dare remove my eyes from O’s. Her fingers feel cold and shaky as she grabs my arm, preparing to reinsert the cannula. I know if I allow this to happen, the chances of me being sedated again are high.

And I’m not fucking having that.

I slide my eyes from O’s to hers as I jerk my arm away. “If you stick that needle in my arm, I’ll break yours.”

Her eyes flit from mine to O’s, unsure about my direct threat.

“I’ll take it from here,” Agent O states simply, dismissing the nurse. She scurries away, the spineless brat. No doubt O has paid her off. Hell, he’s probably paid off the entire Intensive Care Unit.

“You’re like a fucken cat, Raine,” O says as he stands at the end of my bed. “Nine lives and all that.”

“Where is he?”

“How about we start with why the fuck you thought it was a smart idea to slaughter a bunch of motorcycle gang members while on an active assignment?”

The machine monitoring my heartbeat increases. “They deserved it.”

“You selfish bitch.” O steps to the side of my bed and slaps me across the face. The sound of his open-palmed slap echoes in the sterile hospital room. “You compromised the mission.”

Well. He’s fucking furious.

“I should have pulled you off life support and left you to die alone. Nothing but a Jane Doe. A cold, unclaimed corpse that would rot underneath an unnamed grave.”

“So why didn’t you then?”

O’s jaw ticks as he turns and walks over to the window, staring out over the Manhattan skyline.

O shoves his hands in his pockets. “I thought you two hated each other?”