AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Unlikemost people, it was because my chances of whatever unknown place I’d woken up in being hazardous to my health were extremely high.
I wasn’t constrained though, and my head was clear. My side hurt like a bitch, but it was the only apparent source of pain. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I realized exactly where I was.
My bed, in the room at the clubhouse.
How?
I closed my eyes, trying to force my mind to connect to the events earlier in the day, assuming it was the same day now. I remembered the mysterious rider, finding the thorn tattoo. Somewhere between the two, I’d taken a bullet to the gut.
“Fuuuuuuck,” I groaned as I forced myself to sit up, carefully. I reached for the switch beside the bed that controlled the lamp, flicking it on so I could see.
I was bandaged in the same place on my torso and my back; an entry and exit, which was a good thing, but surprising.
Thornsdidn’t usually mean to maim; they went for thekill.
I would’ve expected the weapon of choice to be something much more destructive.
Or… shit, maybe I’d just gotten lucky. I gingerly peeled back the bandage I could reach for a peek at the stitches; nothing haphazard like what I would’ve expected outside a hospital. They were remarkably neat.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Shit.
I looked up to find Tati standing in the doorway I hadn’t even heard open.
“Just checking on—”
“Uh-huh,” she interrupted, stepping inside. “Doc is gonna bepissedif you mess up his hard work.”
I frowned. “Who the fuck is Doc?”
“Elliot,” she answered. “You haven’t met him yet. His sister had a baby, so he’s been gone midwifing.”
“He?”
“The term midwife refers to the gender of the patient, not the service provider,” she explained. “Anyway, he’s back today, right on time to sew you up. You got lucky; it would’ve been a Nightmare Before Christmas situation if I’d had to do it.”
“Lucky me,” I quipped, laying back down to take the tension off the situation in my torso. “What’s my prognosis?”
“Four to six weeks recovery, but we all know you won’t do that, so… just try to take it easy as much as you can. Next question?”
“What the fuck happened?”
Tati sighed as she crossed the room, taking a seat on the end of the bed. “Not super sure, but… webelieveJake was the actual target. He walked away from the dispensary but wasn’t as lucky about an hour ago. Somebody hit his house.”
My eyes went big. “Did he live?”
“Yeah, he’s alive. With a few extra holes now.”
“Man… what the hell is going on,” I muttered, trying to raise a hand to cover my eyes, but quickly dropping it back down when the action pulled at my torso. “Have y’all talked to him at all?”
She shook her head. “Not really. It’s been chaos since this all went down. And now we’re on lockdown. Which is why I’m here instead of my cute new house. Thanks.”
“You make it sound like it’s my fault.”
“Isn’t it? If you hadn’t been going to play tag with Jake, you wouldn’t have gotten shot, and I’d be in my freestanding tub.”
I shook my head, chuckling at her fake annoyance. “My bad.”
