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I whipped around to face him. “I need you to help me get his bike inside.”
4
Wilde
I yowled in pain. Thrashed. Who was this man standing over me—salt and pepper hair and a long goatee with white streaks like Franken-fucking-stein? Damn the pain in my leg and shoulder. I had to get off this bed and out of town. But every time I moved, a searing sensation rushed through my chest and made my head spin. I’d obviously been followed when I rode out from the warehouse, but my tails hadn’t shown themselves until I’d crossed the California-Arizona border. Now, all I could think of, aside from the burning in my shoulder and my throbbing calf, was the angel who’d helped me out of the ditch and how she smelled like something to devour—orange, vanilla, sugar, hell, butter-cream frosting. Why the hell I was thinking about her scent when I had bigger fish to fry, the devil only knew. What I really needed to focus on was figuring out the fastest way to get myself back on the road, bringing my old man back from Mexico, and clearing my name.
I tried to sit again, grunting then breathing through the fire shooting up my leg. “I’m leaving.”
“The hell you are.” Goatee pressed down on my shoulder—right where the fucking bullet had landed.
I let another roar rip through my already serrated throat, so hard it might have done some lasting damage to my voice box.
The man eased up. “Thought you’d see it my way,” said the smug bastard. “Got a name or should I call you John?”
“Motherfucker, what the fuck do you want?” I gasped against the throbbing pain.
Goatee put a bag of liquid he’d been examining on the table, leaned close, and grinned, his pearly whites gleaming behind the dark beard and his breath minty. “Your name’s Motherfucker?” he asked with a quirked brow.
“No, my name’s not Motherfucker, motherfucker!”
“So, John then?” He chuckled as if this was nothing new for him then dug through a case at the foot of the bed. He pulled out a mini version of the first bag, read the label, and placed it on the table by its bigger brother. The liquid in the small one was cloudy.
“Wilde,” I said through gritted teeth, trying to get my lungs to stop working overtime.
The man reached up to the window above the bed. Seeming satisfied, he grabbed the two bags and hung them from the window crank, then pulled out some tubes and . . . a needle.
The room tilted. Suddenly, I felt hot and cold all at once. My mouth flooded in warning that my stomach might turn upside down. No way I could even think of ever doing heroin. My heart started pounding, and I tried to crawl to the farthest corner of the small bed away from any of that business. “Wh-wha. Get that thing aw—” The room started to blur from the outsides in; the only clear thing was that evil needle the man held just under his goatee, examining it with pursed lips.
“Ah, shit,” Goatee said when he caught sight of my reaction. He whipped the needle out of sight and fumbled for his case.
Stars danced at the darkening edges of my vision. Cold rushed over my skin. Something popped and a sudden, sharp smell burned through my nose and into my sinuses. My eyes shot open. I turned my head, but I was suddenly wide awake. That shit was as potent as blow. I looked back at the man. “What the fuck was that?”
“Ammonium carbonate.”
I narrowed my eyes at the man wearing a standard-issue motorcycle cut and ratty old t-shirt.
“Smelling salts,” Goatee clarified just as the door slammed open.
A tall woman with her dark hair pulled back and another man in leathers burst into the room.
“What’s the screaming, Doc?” the woman asked.
My stomach flipped as I got a good look at long legs painted with denim and torn at one knee, revealing a peek of her bronzed skin. My mouth watered. What the fuck? Quit being sappy, I scolded myself as I took in the man who’d entered on her heels. Flaming red hair and big—maybe my size. Maybe bigger. Regardless, I was the one at a disadvantage. Heavy brows, shoulders back, and arms folded, the stranger glared at me with his mouth set in a tight line.
“Celt, hold him down,” Goatee ordered. “Bou, cover his eyes so he can’t see this.”
Bou. Her name’s Bou? But that was the only thought I could muster before Red’s thick arm came down over my shoulders. I rolled my head to the side just in time to lock gazes with Bou’s midnight blues. A hiss escaped between my teeth. I wanted to howl again, crawl away from the needle Goatee planned to use on me. But there was no way I was going to act like a pussy in front of this woman, who had obviously saved me. Fists clenched tight, I manned up and tried to maintain control. She reached up to my face and held my cheeks so that I couldn’t turn away from her, not that I would have anyway. She was fucking heaven in all this fuckery.
I felt a pinch in my forearm, tensed, and sucked in breath through my teeth. Then something wrapped tightly around the pinch. The heavy arm on my chest kept me in place, and I stayed lost in Bou’s sparkling eyes as a warm haze drifted over my body. Tension floated away like the tide rolling out to sea. Breathing came easier, slower as I melted into the bed. Numbness invaded my body from my toes to my head. My eyes drooped, but I fought to keep them open. The weight on my chest released. Celt, right? Where’d he go? Who cared? I had Bou in my sight, but she blurred too.
“Hold his leg,” someone faraway said . . . Oh, right, Goatee.
Pressure fell on my thigh, and their words diminished into the background entirely.
“Bou?” I whispered.
“Hang in there.” She looked away—to the men maybe.
