“They’re waiting on us to show up, I can guarantee it. You trying to go to jail tonight?”
“No,” she says quickly, opening her mouth to say something else, but I cut her off.
“Then we don’t go to hospitals who have cops waiting for us,” I tell her bluntly.
She turns her attention back to the road in front of us and I can tell by the look on her face if we don’t pull up to some kind of medical facility fast she won’t hesitate to bring the girl from the club back out. I wouldn’t mind seeing the wild side of her again, but I figure she’s been through enough for tonight.
And I’m not even sure why it matters to me.
I pull up to the front of Preston’s private practice clinic and hop out quickly scooping the girl out of the backseat. I don’t wait for the other two because I may not know the girl who got shot, but I know she got shot because of me, and Ruby seems to care about her.
Why it matters to me is another thing I don’t have time to even think about as I rush to the doors. I only make it about three feet away from the car before nurses rush out with a gurney. They know the deal.
“Where was she hit,” one of the nurses asks.
“I don’t know, I think the stomach,” I tell her as Ruby and the sobbing girl get closer.
Ruby sidles up next to me once I lay her friend on the bed and we watch as they rolled her towards the door. The crying girl follows behind the nurses, still talking gibberish through her tears.
She is fucking annoying.
“Sorry about Lucky, she hasn’t ever been able to get her crying in check,” Ruby says cooly.
“Does she cry about everything?” I look down at her with a frown, but it isn’t directed to her. Lucky just gets under my skin.
“Not everything,” she tells me, sounding extremely unsure. “But she’s been through a lot and it’s just her way of handling things.”
“Crying doesn’t handle anything, it makes things worse and it’s annoying as shit.”
She looks back to me without a word and just stares at me for a few seconds before turning her bloodied body back towards the car and looking around, surveying where she is. “Where are we?”
“It doesn’t matter, but you’re safe here,” I assure her, and she looks back at me with a frown, her eye swelling already getting worse by the second.
She is covered in blood and her face is already bruising but she has a pouty frown on her face. It fits her perfectly.
“Why does me being safe even matter to you? I know who you are, and I know what you do,” she states, squaring her shoulders so she is standing right in front of me.
I start to tell her I’m not sure why I give a fuck about her, but I don’t want her to know how much I seem to care. “I don’t care, you just looked worried.”
“I’m not.”
She is so defiant and if she was anyone else I would be ready to smack her, but she is interesting to be around. I just want to piss her off more. I want to see how sassy she’ll get with me. I want to push her away so she’ll heed the warning I gave her earlier about me not being someone to get involved with. I have a hunch my plan isn’t going to go any way like how I intend for it to, but I am going to try anyway.
“You sure? You’ve been through a lot tonight.”
“I’ve been through a lot in my life, Hollis …” she pauses and scoffs before turning back to me. “I’ve been through more than most people could ever think about going through. So while you say you don’t care, your actions are saying otherwise and for what it’s worth, I appreciate you bringing us here. I didn’t want to have to deal with the cops tonight.”
“Are there certain nights you'd like to deal with them?” I ask, surprised I’m even making conversation with this girl let alone joking around with her.
She narrows her eyes. “Is this your way of being funny?”
I just look at her and she smiles before shaking her head and looking over to where her friend was wheeled inside. She scoffs again.
“Today has been one of the weirdest days of my life,” she admits as she sits down on the curb. “And for me, it’s really saying a lot.”
I don’t make a move, only observe her from above and before I can dig myself into an even deeper hole with the little crazy woman in front of me, my phone rings. She looks up at me with her eyes narrowed and I glance down at my screen. Elijah’s name flashes on the screen.
“Hey man, you good?” I say into my phone.
“Yeah, bruh, but where the fuck did you go? You good?” His concern was cute, but it made me smirk. I knew he just needed me alive to get our next target.
“I’m good, but I’m at the clinic,” I tell him, and I hear him curse under his breath.
“I thought you left before the shooting shit popped off, man here I come.”
We never talk business on the phone, and I know he’ll be here in a few short minutes anyway so I slide my phone back into the pocket of my joggers and turn my attention to a nurse who is coming out of the clinic. In my peripheral vision, I can see Ruby follow my gaze to the nurse and she hops up quickly to her feet just as the woman gets to us.
“Your friend is going to live, sweetheart,” the nurse tells Ruby, but I notice her shoulders stay rigid. “The entry wound is in her lower abdomen but luckily for her, the angle of which she was shot made it to where the bullet didn’t go through her body much at all.”
“What was with all the blood?” she asks, and a smirk creeps across my face.
“The exit wound is much larger than the entry wound which was the source of all of the blood was coming from.” The woman begins to explain but Ruby cuts her off.
“So, she’s going to be okay? Not any big damage?”
The woman smiles as she nods. “She’s going to be just fine in a few months. She lost a lot of blood so we will help her with recovery after we get her all sewn up, so she doesn’t lose anymore. We also gave your other friend a little something to calm her nerves. She’s allowed us to put her in one of the rooms next to where Tasha will be.”
“Great,” Ruby tells her, still showing no real emotion. “Thank you.”
The nurse smiles before looking to me and giving me a slow nod, averting her eyes quickly. When she turns around to head back into the clinic Ruby turns to me.
“Thank you.”
I narrow my eyes but before I can open my mouth Elijah’s McLaren P1 comes to a quick stop next to us. He hops out and I notice the quick second when Ruby’s eyes grow three sizes even though she tries to hide it well.
“Bruh, what the fuck happened? People are saying Benzo is dead.” Elijah has a hand on his head and is more than likely wondering if it was me who shot him. It isn’t the fact he’d would have a problem if it was me, but it would bring a whole heap of problems with it. We both know the consequences of something so brazen.
“He is,” Ruby states. When I look at her, I already see the determined look in her eyes, and I can already guess what she is about to do. She knows the shit storm it would create, too, and while lying to Eli isn’t something I do often, I let Ruby lie her little ass off. “I shot him.”
Elijah turns his big frame towards her and studies her stance before dragging his eyes back to me slowly.