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Skins did pretty well working around the two of us given that Meyah refused to let me leave. And even if she’d wanted me to, there would have been no way I was walking away from her for a second. I managed to get her to my bedroom, and she was cuddled up against my chest, her ear pressed to my heart as Skins worked on the cut to her neck.
“I’m not going to stitch it,” he announced. Meyah’s body tensed as Skins moved the skin with his fingers. “It’s not deep enough, and I think it will heal well with some butterfly stitches and a bandage.”
“What are butterfly stitches?” I asked, wanting to know every little detail about what he was doing, and things she would need over the next few days as her body recovered.
He held up a small white thing that looked like a Band-Aid but was skinny in the middle and wide at the sides, like a butterfly I guess. “It will stretch over and hold the skin together so it can heal naturally. It should only take a few days before it starts to look a little better.”
“There’s gonna be a scar,” Meyah murmured softly. Her fingers traced the edges of my patches on the front of my club cut.
My eyes met with Skins over her head. I could see the rage burning in his eyes which he was trying to keep concealed for Meyah’s sake. I could imagine he saw something similar in mine, although I was managing to keep that shit on lockdown. And the only reason was because right now, I had her in my arms and could convince myself that nothing could touch her anymore.
God forbid the things that could get broken when the boys pulled me away from here, and we have to rehash what happened. I hope the old ladies had the drinks ready. The entire club was protective of Meyah. There were a lot of reasons, and it wasn’t just because Leo was her uncle. No. They’d already seen her hurt. After how Nick treated her, and the times she’d show up here in tears because of him, well, they were more times than I’d like to fucking count.
Slowly, she became more immune, and I was almost sure it was because of the time she started spending at the club. Hadley was teaching her how to shoot which made her feel more confident, self-assured. And fuck, was she a good shot.
She grew, developed, became stronger and blossomed into something fucking amazing.
But the boys in the club still saw her as that girl who showed up a year ago, after the guy she gave her virginity to dumped her and told anyone who would listen.
“I’ll try to make the scar as pretty as possible, babe,” Skins attempted to assure her.
“Will I be able to see it in the mirror?” she asked, this time her voice a little stronger.
“No,” I replied confidently. “It’s behind your ear. So you won’t be able to see it if you look directly into the mirror.”
She pressed her lips together and moved her fingers from the patches on my cut down to my forearm where she started to trace the lines of my tattoos. Skins took that as the go ahead and made quick work of placing around ten butterfly stitches across it and bandaging it up for now.
“I’ve got some pain relie—”
“I don’t want it,” she cut him off, and then after a couple of beats, she finally sat up and turned toward him, shaking her head and screwing up her nose. “Christ. I’m being a real bitch, aren’t I? I’m sorry, Skins. Thanks for looking after me. I just… I’m already feeling a little fuzzy. I don’t want to add something else to the mix.”
Skins dipped his head and moved back from the bed. “I hear you. Just come find me if you decide you want something,” he assured her with a gentle smile before adding, “No one would question why.”
She dropped her head and leaned back into me as Skins ducked out the door. I could tell she was blaming herself. She kept trying to look away as if she was embarrassed. While she hadn’t said the words yet, Levi had brought Emma back to the club just before I’d ushered Meyah upstairs to my room.
A sheriff.
He’d asked to speak to Meyah in private, so they’d gotten in his car while Emma had followed her gut instincts, and the second she rounded the corner, she called Eagle to come, not entirely explaining what was happening but letting him know she was feeling a little off about the interaction.
Eagle was there within minutes, but it was too late.
“I’m so stupid,” Meyah confessed after a few moments in the silent room. “Emma knew something was off about him right away. How did I not see it? I’m such an idiot.”
“Stop,” I admonished, hooking my finger under her chin and forcing her to turn toward me. When her gaze met mine, it was different. I couldn’t quite figure it out. Maybe she was scared or still a little confused. But she was nervous for sure. “Your brain told you the police are meant to protect you, not cause you pain. Emma hasn’t had that ingrained in her since she was a baby. She’s far more jaded. When you’ve seen evil as much as she has, you just know.”
“He…” she started to talk, but her voice broke, and she stopped, shaking her head with a frown. “He said he had a message.
I inhaled slowly through my nose, blowing out the long breath before I managed to ask, “What was the message?”
“He wants Romeo to go back to Las Vegas… that he has a week to go back… or else.”
Her words stole my breath, and I felt fucking sick. We knew that Romeo’s past might follow him to us, and that we’d have to be vigilant, but it’d only been a few days. We were expecting fucking criminals, drug addicts, some assholes that the world wouldn’t fucking miss, not a county sheriff with God only knows fucking who in his back pocket, and the law on his side.
Shit just went to the next level.
I took her hand in mine realizing we both still had hands covered in blood.
“Come on.” I took her hand, and we both shuffled to the edge of the bed. Pulling her off, I walked her slowly toward the bathroom and moved her body in front of mine as we stood at the vanity. Reaching around her, I twisted the hot water on before grabbing the hand soap and squirting a couple of dollops into each of our hands.
