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“Fuck you,” Blade said through clenched teeth.
Luis simply chuckled before he stared at me, then shook his head. “I hope your new husband won’t be angry at all that shit you’ve done to your skin.”
“Husband?” I asked in absolute shock as we started to pull out of the lot.
Before Luis could elaborate, I heard a weird gasping sound from the back seat. Then there was blood spraying all over me. I couldn’t help it, I screamed. Motion in the back seat caught my attention, and I thought I saw Squirrel crouched on the men back there, but I blinked and he was gone.
Blade jumped forward, snapped the passenger’s neck, and had the dead man’s gun held to the driver’s head faster than anything I’d ever seen.
“Stop the car,” he told the driver, who pulled off to the shoulder and cast a worried glance in the rearview mirror. Evidently what he saw shocked the hell out of him, because his complexion went white before his door was jerked open.
Squirrel was standing there with a twisted grin. “Hi,” he said to the guy with a happy little wave of his bloody hand.
I started to hyperventilate.
“Laila!” Blade called. “Hold it together for me. We’re okay. It’s over.”
Terrified, I was still taking gasping breaths as I nervously glanced to my left. Luis was sitting there with blank eyes and his throat gaping like a macabre smile. Blood waseverywhere.
For a second, I was transported back to the night my parents died, and I couldn’t shake it. It was all the blood.
Blade gripped my face and forced me to look at him. In my periphery, I saw Squirrel shove the driver, who was now obviously dead, over into the passenger seat on top of the other dead guy and climb in.
“Look at me,” Blade demanded. “It’s okay.”
Squirrel made a U-turn on the highway and headed back past the clubhouse. We pulled into the hog farm Ghost had told me they owned. The entire time, I stared into Blade’s eyes, trying not to completely lose my shit.
“I’m gonna be sick,” I whimpered.
Blade quickly turned my head, and I puked all over Luis’s lap. The sight of my vomit on top of all the blood was more than I could handle, and I began to laugh. The more I laughed, the more maniacal and disconnected it sounded to my ears.
Squirrel opened the door, and Blade helped me out of his side.
“Get her inside and washed up. You’ll have to put a sheet around her until we can get her back to the clubhouse,” I heard. In a daze, I turned and looked at Venom’s salt-and-pepper beard, then up to his stern expression.
“She’s going into shock,” I heard and then saw Voodoo standing there next to Venom as everything began to blur. Blade held me up when my knees buckled.
Venom stepped in front of me and laid a hand on my cheek. As he spoke, I began to relax. “Laila,” he said. “It’s over. We’re going to take care of everything, but I need you to get cleaned up. Do you think you can do that?”
Numbly, I nodded. A woman took my hand, and I slowly swiveled my head to look into Loralei’s worried gaze.
“I’ll help you get cleaned up,” she said kindly. Slowly, I glanced down where our hands connected and saw the contrast of my blood-splattered one against her clean one. Blankly, I stared a moment before I looked up and nodded.
She led me into a metal building that looked like a slaughterhouse. We went around a wall and into a walk-in shower.
“Can you undress? Or do you need my help?” she asked.
I blinked once, then my gaze darted over to the stainless steel walls and floor with a drain.
“I can do it,” I mumbled.
Her brow furrowed, but she nodded. “Okay, I’ll stand around the corner, but I’ll be right here if you need me. You hand your clothes around to me, and I’ll give you some soap. Okay?”
“Okay,” I whispered.
“When you’re done, the towel is right here,” she said as she motioned to a hook she was hanging it on.
As soon as she stepped around the wall like she’d promised, I stripped out of the clothes that were already starting to stiffen from the thick blood drying on them.
