So I followed, allowing her to usher me into a tiny triage room, even forcing me to sit on the bed as she settled herself between my legs and took my hand in hers.
“It looks a little swollen.” She examined it, wiggling my fingers, pressing different points, and occasionally, I’d cringe a little, but for the most part, I knew it was just your typical sprain.
“I did just plow it through a man’s head,” I tried to reason, stretching it myself when she stepped away, frantically pulling at drawers and cupboards for a few seconds before finally finding what she wanted. One after another, they flew open and closed while she murmured under her breath.
“You all right, Em?”
She froze.
A roll of strapping in her hands.
Her knuckles going slightly off-color as she squeezed the life out of it.
“Woah.” I shoved off the bed and stepped in front of her, pulling the roll from her hands and placing it on the bed behind me. Her eyes looked up, wide and full of tears, almost like she had forgotten I was still there. “Hey. It’s okay. You’re good. That bastard can’t touch you, you know that, right?”
The air around us was thick, though I had no fucking idea why.
Emma and I had always gotten along fine.
There’d never been anything but a mutual understanding between us about what we were or where things were going.
She let out a shaky laugh and took an urgent step back. “Yeah. Sorry,” she mumbled under her breath before inhaling deeply and pushing her shoulders back. “Just gave me a fright, you know.”
“Make your life flash before your eyes,” I joked, forcing a smile.
“More like question the future.”
I raised my brow. “What do you mean?”
The fear in her eyes instantly changed to worry when they flicked up to meet mine. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter.” She shuffled backward, attempting to put some kind of distance between us but running into the cabinet behind her.
“That’s bullshit.” I cursed myself instantly for the harsh tone of my voice when her entire body jerked in fear. “Goddamn, Emma. What the fuck is going on? You in some kind of trouble?”
She held my gaze, her mouth falling open like at any second, she was going to break down, and I was going to learn exactly what the fuck had happened to her during the last twelve months. The reason she looked like she didn’t sleep anymore or maybe even eat. The reason she looked like she could break at any second if I breathed too hard.
“Let me help you,” I growled, trying not to be demanding, but honestly, it was hard because it was simply in my nature to control the situation and get what the fuck I wanted, including answers. I knew I needed to push her that little bit further, hoping she was close enough to the edge to take the leap.
Her lip began to tremble. “I—”
The door flung open, another nurse rushing inside, her eyes looking around the room in a panic. “I have a four-car pileup coming in. Emma, I need you on the floor. Now.” The nurse was gone as quickly as she appeared, and before I could register what was happening, Emma was already moving toward the door.
I lurched forward, grabbing her arm. but she quickly yanked it from my grasp and spun on me. “I can’t do this right now, M-Marcus,” she stuttered before clearing her throat, the thick emotion stuck there making it hard for her to speak.
“Are you in trouble?”
“No!” she spat out, her nose crinkling like she suddenly realized just how horrible that lie tasted on her tongue. “Not right now.”
There was something else.
I could see it in her eyes.
In the way she looked at me like she couldn’t figure out if she should trust me or if she should run far away.
“I’ve got you, you know that?” She held my gaze, and I hoped in it, she saw that this was real. That she could trust me. “No matter fucking what this shit was between us or with the club. All that bullshit to the side, you need to know I’ve got your back. Fucking always.”
Emma and I might not have a romantic connection, but at one point, the girl put her ass on the line for the people I love. She risked her career and her prospects for the future of my family. You don’t turn your back on that shit.
Tears dripped down onto her cheeks, her lip quivering. Emma’s eyes flicked quickly back and forth between the corridor and me like she was second-guessing her escape just for a moment. “I know now.”
I watched her back toward the doorway, letting her have that air to breathe. “You know where to find me.”
She paused, her hand on the doorframe.
And for that second, she took a deep breath.
One that wasn’t shaky or painful.
But one that seemed like reassurance that perhaps things would be okay.
AVERY
“Don’t leave the room until me or Shotgun come and get you, okay?”
My head bobbed up and down, though my eyes kept being drawn to the short hallway we’d just come down. My heart rate was high. Every fucking ridiculous scenario that involved Shotgun being stabbed was rushing through my damn mind, making me feel like I needed to be sick.
I was going to have a panic attack.
Right here.
Because you fucking care about him, you idiot.
“He’s fine,” Tyler stressed, waving his hand in front of my face in order to draw my attention back to him. When I finally looked up, he offered me this wide smile. “He’s fine.”
“I heard you the first time,” I answered and rolled my eyes like it was no big deal. Like I wasn’t about to decorate his boots with last night’s dinner. Like my heart wasn’t beating out of my fucking chest as I fought to convince it that Shotgun wasn’t about to be stabbed to death by some drug addict in the emergency room just because he had to bring me here to visit my friend, who had put herself and me in a really shitty position tonight.
I sucked in a deep breath. Though I hadn’t said any of that ramble out loud, I could still feel the weight of it sitting on my chest.
Shotgun was right.
Oh, how I fucking hated that he was right.
I had rushed in.
I always fucking did.
It was ingrained in me to always swing first, ask questions later when it came to two things…
Protecting the people I loved.
And protecting myself.
Holly’s eyes looked up at the creak of the door opening, meeting mine instantly.
“Hey,” I said quietly, stepping inside and pulling the door closed behind me with a click that seemed so damn loud. She stayed quiet, even as I walked over and placed a small bag on the end of her bed. “I brought you some clothes for when they let you escape. Yours weren’t in such great shape.”
It was an understatement. They had smelled like a mixture of cigarettes, fruity vape, and vomit, and if that didn’t correctly define the Beta Beta frat house, I didn’t know what fucking would.
The closer I got to her it became apparent her skin had more color than a couple of hours ago. Its pinkish tone had returned. Her lips were less blue. She looked alive.
A hot mess, with her hair sticking up all over, mascara smudged across her face, but absolutely alive.
“How you feeling?” I questioned softly, sitting at the edge of the hospital bed, the white plastic fabric they called sheets squeaking under me.