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His head snapped up. “No, it’s Alan’s fault. Don’t you dare put this on yourself. Now help me lift Dom. I saw a cot in one of the rooms we passed in the hallway. We need to figure out what’s in his system and check his leg.”
“The doctor is on his way,” JJ said, kneeling by us.
“A doctor who makes house calls this time of night?” Peyton asked.
“He’s a customer I helped one night when his truck broke down. He said he owed me. I’m cashing in my favor. No questions asked. He assured me this will be totally off the books. No hospitals.”
“We should get him to an ER,” I muttered. “This place isn’t sterile.”
JJ pried Dominic’s eyes opened. “If I had to guess, he’s been drugged.”
“Look what I found?” Val said, coming over with a brown vial.
“Come on,” Peyton reminded me. “Let’s get him moved.”
30
DOMINIC
Why was my mouth so dry? And why did my eyelids feel so heavy? I tried swallowing but it was like a desert in there. Did I crank the heat up too high before I went to bed?
I moved and pain shot through me, over my shoulders, down both arms. My leg throbbed. What the fuck?
Groaning, I tried to move again. Someone gently put their hands on me to keep me still. They were speaking, but I was trying to come out of the fog I was in.
Slowly, voices started to make sense. I heard Perry say my name, whispering quietly that I was going to be okay.
I smacked my lips together and swallowed. “Water,” I croaked out, sounding like I smoked a carton of cigarettes.
A straw touched my lips, and I gulped down the drink. Something tugged on my arm. One Perry pushed back down.
“Dom.” A different voice. Peyton.
“Yeah?” This time I sounded more like myself. I finally blinked my eyes open, the harsh white light in the room making me squint. “Where am I?” I certainly wasn’t in Perry’s bed. That wasn’t a mattress but a damn cloud. What I was on now felt like a sagging piece of burlap, rough against my hands and legs.
Peyton came into focus first, a white bandage wrapped around his upper arm, a dot of red seeping through.
“What the hell is that?” I asked and tried to point but, fuck me, my arm was so sore I could barely lift it.
“Mr. Summit,” a new voice said kindly, one I didn’t recognize. A man with light brown hair and a sprinkling of gray around the temple came into view. His glasses were pushed up his nose. “How are you feeling?”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Corbin Dove, a doctor and friend of JJ’s.”
“JJ?” Everything was so confusing. I didn’t know where I was or why.
“You were kidnapped by gunpoint, strung up, stabbed in the leg, and drugged.” That was a mouthful. Though now that he said it, I vaguely remembered Emerald showing up at my apartment with a gun. A gun he pointed at me and made me get into his car. Holy shit, he was going to kill me.
My heart started jackhammering in my chest as I struggled to sit up, not caring about the pain I was in.
“Dom, stop,” Perry coaxed, his voice held an edge of panic, but he was trying to soothe me. He pushed closer so I could see him again, the doctor taking a step back. “You’re okay. A little banged up, but you’re going to be fine. Corbin has been taking care of you. He cleaned up your leg and bandaged it. He reversed the drug in your system.”
“I was given something?” Shit, why couldn’t I remember?
The doctor came along my other side. “You were drugged with a benzodiazepine. Midazolam to be specific. It’s used to make patients drowsy and to help calm their anxiety before surgery. It will also make them forget what happens during and right after a procedure. It’s why you’re having difficulty remembering. This isn’t the first time you’ve woken up, but I think it’s finally wearing off. JJ had told me you were drugged and with what, so I grabbed what I needed before coming here. You should feel better soon, but the drowsiness could linger for a bit longer. I’m not sure how much of the drug you were given.”
That was a whole lot of information my brain couldn’t seem to process. If a doctor was here and he was smiling like this one, I had to think I was going to be okay.
