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From there, I was probably just going to excuse myself back up to my room, and lock myself away with my demons until an opportunity came to exorcise them.
It was kind of fucked up, but as I was listening to the shit about some guys in town maybe wanting to take us on, I hadn’t felt annoyance or anger.
I’d felt anticipation.
It fluttered in my stomach like the anticipation of a first date. The nerves, the excitement, all mingled together into a heady cocktail.
That was how confrontation felt to me.
Fun.
So while the others were probably frustrated or pissed off about someone stepping to us, I was eagerly awaiting a chance to come toe-to-toe with the fuckers, to show them what we were made of.
And, yes, to get some peace as well.
Violence as therapy.
Did that make me fucked in the head? You bet. But there was no changing me now. Not after all these years. Not after all the shit I’d done.
So I embraced it all.
But knew my limits, knew when I had to rein myself in, when I had to hold myself off, when I needed to get some peace and quiet to keep all that ugly shit from pouring out at inappropriate times.
I was just taking a short walk down the street, stretching out my legs, when I felt something.
A sharp little piercing sensation on my thigh, right through my jeans.
My first thought was the wall had a jagged piece of brick or mortar.
But I wasn’t walking close enough to the wall to let it catch me.
I was trying to turn, but the whole world went a little blurry, a little slow.
Like I was high.
Really, really fucking high.
But I hadn’t drank anything all night.
I damn sure didn’t take anything.
It felt like it took an hour for my vision to stop swimming after I stopped turning.
When it did, all I saw was a bit of flowing brown hair disappearing down the alley.
“Jai—“ I started, the sound slurring out of me, my tongue feeling fat and immobile in my mouth. “The fuc—“ I tried again, trying to raise my hand to pat my mouth, finding it heavy and uncooperative.
Even as the reality crossed my mind, there was nothing I could do. I was falling to the ground.
I was out before I even hit.
“Wake up,” a deep voice demanded as a sharp slap landed on one of my cheeks. “Crow, wake the fuck up,” he snarled again, and that time the slap was to both cheeks.
“Is he breathing?” another voice asked.
“Of course he’s fucking breathing,” the first one shot back.
“Well, is he bleeding?” the second voice demanded, and it was starting to sound familiar. I knew that voice.
“Not that I can tell,” the first voice responded, and this time I knew that voice too. Because only one person on the planet had that deep, rough voice that he did. Slash.
“I don’t see any bruises either,” the second voice, Sway, said, voice sounding tighter than usual.
“You think it was those fucks?” Riff piped in. “The ones that got me?”
“Don’t know why they’d leave him breathing?” Slash asked.
“Barely, though,” Detroit said. “His breathing isn’t right.”
“How the fuck long does it take to get the fucking SUV?” Slash growled, even as I heard the crunch of the tires.
“It’s a five-minute drive,” Raff said from several feet away. “We can’t wait for Judge to get here to drive him. Throw him in the back. I’m more sober than the rest of you.”
No one argued with that, and the next thing I knew I was in the car. I must have passed back out for the transfer part, and then again for the rest of the ride and getting inside of Dr. Price’s office.
The next thing I was fully aware of, though, was the good doc prying my mouth open, and a small amount of liquid slipping in.
“If you can hear me, Crow, swallow,” Dr. Price said, tone calm and reassuring. “Activated charcoal will stop whatever this poison is from getting worse if you ingested it.”
I swallowed one mouthful, then another before the words sank in.
This poison.
I swear I fucking sprang back into consciousness, everything assaulting me at once. The bright light of the exam room, made worse by all the white accents.
My vision still felt off, a little blurry.
Other things became clear, too.
The pounding of my heart.
The dryness of my mouth, despite the water/charcoal mix being slipped into it.
The flushed, hot sensation over all my body.
And the wooziness that was making it hard to focus.
But I fought past it. Because the doctor’s words made it all come rushing back to me.
The prick.
The strange sensations.
The woman in the alley.
Poison.
I’d been fucking poisoned.
“What… what was…” I tried after he was done making me chug back the charcoal.
“The poison?” Dr. Price asked as he came toward me with a banana bag full of fluid. “It could be a lot of things, but judging by how bad you got and fast, and all the hallucinations…”
