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I corner Doc in the hallway while Neil and Kendrick set up a mini-triage area in a third hotel room.
“Spill, Doc. What’s up with your side?”
“I’m fine,” he lies, brushing my hand away from him.
That was the wrong move. Nobody lies to me, not even Doc, and I’m sure as hell not gonna tolerate him being disobedient. Doc and I have a dynamic, and that dynamic does not include a hands-off approach.
I grab Doc’s dreads and yank, causing him to yelp. He reaches for my hand, but I swat his ass so hard that years of conditioning kick in, and he finally submits. He goes limp everywhere except where it counts, and he lets me lead him to one of the two queen beds. I order him to lie down, and he obeys.
Since I don’t have the usual implements handy, I improvise by stripping the top sheet from the other bed and ripping some strips for binding. I hogtie Doc, noting his grimace of pain when I tug at his arm and leg on the injured side.
“You’re going to be a good boy now, Doc, and tell me what I need to do to fix this,” I say, jabbing a finger at his bandage. He winces again, recoiling away from me.
“I swiped some antibiotics when Neil and I were out,” he says. “We hit a compounding pharmacy down the road. They had what I need. Just let Kendrick start a line on me, and we’ll hang a bag or two. I’ll be fine.”
“You’re lying again, Doc. That hurts me more than the Vipers did.”
At least he has the decency to look chagrined when I say that. “I’m sorry, Bun.”
“So, what’s the real story?”
He sighs. “It might be too late. The infection’s spreading rapidly. I’m septic. I probably need a hospital. A real one.”
“Shit. Why did you let it get this bad?”
He avoids eye contact. “You were missing. This wasn’t important. Finding you was.”
The air echoes with the sharp smack of my palm against his cheek. “Asshole! You’re telling me you let yourself go just because you didn’t know where I was?”
“Yes.”
Tears fill my eyes, hot and wet and unexpected. “Goddamn it, Doc! You’re supposed to be the smart one. You’re my fucking stability, and you just risked yourself like that? Fuck, Doc … You know I can’t function without you. I need you.”
Doc’s eyes glisten with tears, too, and his voice breaks when he answers me.
“I’m sorry, Bunny. I didn’t know where you were, or Kendrick, and after Manny dosed me—Oh, don’t get mad at him. He meant well. I just couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t think straight. It took all I had to keep focused on finding the rest of you.”
I sit back on my heels, all Domme-ing forgotten as the reality of things sets in. “You said you need a hospital?”
“Yeah, Bun. I do.”
“Fine.” I whip out my stolen pocketknife and cut Doc loose. “We’ll take you to one. Then, when you’re better and we’ve gotten what we need out of that computer, we’ll hit the Cobra with all we’ve got.”
Chapter 28
Neil
The next few days go by in a blur. Bunny and Kendrick hustle Doc off to the hospital that treated Keys, while us two nerds stay at the hotel to comb through my laptop.
What Keys uncovers has me shaken to my core. Justin had uploaded a series of files into my computer, files that a dead reporter had emailed him just before her gruesome murder.
Unbeknownst to me, I had been carrying around all kinds of dirt on the Cobra and his operations. Banking records. Hideout locations. Photographic evidence of kidnappings and torture. Videos. Phone logs and recordings.
Why did Justin target me for this? What in the world would make him unload all this evidence onmycomputer? And why did he try to get me killed over it?
We’ll never know now. Bunny saw to that, unintentional as it was. Justin’s long gone, along with any potential answers. For better or worse, I’m in the thick of it now. I should probably be thanking Justin, though; in a roundabout way, he introduced me to Bunny.
Just as I’m deep in Bunny thoughts, she appears. She’s battered and bruised but still somehow sexy as hell. Everything looks worse than it did a few days ago, but then I suppose the same could be said about me or Keys. His forehead has taken on a deep purple hue around the bandage, which he refuses to let me check. I think he’s afraid I’ll think less of him now that he’s been hurt. I don’t know what gave him the idea that I’d give a crap if he’s got a little temporary brain damage. I mean, I told him how I feel before the explosion … Or does he remember that?
