Doc (Ruthless Kings MC #7) - K.L. Savage Page 0,24
own. I never gave thought to having kids, and by the looks of it, neither did Jo. It’s her choice. It’s all her choice.
Jo has to choose to live.
Jo has to choose motherhood.
I can’t push it on her, or she will end up hating me before I can get her to fall in love with me. Even after all of this, I feel something with her that I want to explore. I want to prove that I can be there for her. I can be worth it. I can show her that she is worth it. I’ll help her find herself.
I’ll be her stepping-stone, her armor, the softness when she needs to cry. The first time I saw her, she was happy, smiling, took what happened to her with a grain of salt, but I fucking knew. I saw the shadows in her eyes, the pain she held, the mask she made sure no one could see through.
I could.
Pain notices pain.
Abuse recognizes abuse.
With every slash against my back, a memory played in her eyes.
The two of us, we are cut from the same cloth, even if she doesn’t want to admit it. I’ve had most of my life to deal what happened to me. Jo didn’t have that. She made it the best she could without asking for a damn thing. She still hasn’t asked, but she doesn’t need to.
“Are you okay?” Jo’s doctor’s aged voice grabs my attention. I open my eyelids, grainy with exhaustion, and stare into his big eyes.
“I’m fine. I just need a minute. Some food too.” My stomach rumbles, reminding me that I haven’t eaten since breakfast yesterday. I’m starving.
“She’ll be okay. I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but I’ve seen my fair share of cases like this in my time. You just get a feeling, a gut instinct about people, and sometimes I know when someone is too far gone. I don’t think she is.”
“Code Blue. Room 564. Paging Doctor Abernathy. Code Blue. Room 564. Paging Doctor Abernathy,” the woman blares over the intercom.
“Excuse me. I need to go.”
I watch him scurry down the hallway, disappearing as he takes a left in hopes to save a patient’s life. I miss that. I miss the codes in the hospitals and being rushed into surgery. I shouldn’t complain. I have enough work to keep me busy at the club, but it isn’t like this. I miss the rush of going into surgery.
Don’t get me wrong, I stitch up club members all the time, remove a bullet or two, but I never get to see a bad car accident. An accident where the body is mangled to the point that survival seems impossible, but then somehow, the person fights for their life, and it’s up to us to save them. It’s pressure, it’s anxiety, it’s terrifying, and I fucking miss that feeling.
At the end of the day, it’s hard not to feel like a superhero after the rush of saving a life. It’s usually short-lived because I’ve learned if there is someone who lives it’s because someone has died. There is a balance. That much I believe.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, but I’m too tired to answer, so I let it ring until it goes to voicemail. I turn in the opposite direction, away from the emergency room, and toward the vending machines. I pass a few nurses, some wearing pink scrubs, some blue, green, all color-coded differently to show which department they work in. A few check me out, and I give them a kind, half-smile in return, but I’m not interested.
I’m interested in the woman laying in bed, fighting her battles all alone. Maybe it’s because I know what it’s like—to be alone, to struggle, to feel that impending doom. She’s screaming on the inside, and the only person who can hear her is me.
I pull out my wallet and insert some cash into the machine. I punch the number for a questionable looking sandwich I shouldn’t eat, but I’m going to anyway. The silver spring uncoils, and right as my sandwich is about to fall, it stops.
“Are you kidding?” I slap the side of the machine to try to knock the sandwich loose, but it doesn’t work. “Of course, you’d take my money.” I bang my head against the thick plastic then kick it.
“You know, sometimes things need a gentler touch,” a sultry voice says from beside me.
I peer over my arm and see a short, curvy woman with beautiful long