Burn Down the Night (Everything I Left Unsaid #3)- Molly O'Keefe Page 0,16

would want to avoid a hospital in the condition he was in.

I glanced away, no match for this moment.

“This isn’t a hospital. But I need you to walk,” Fern said, taking charge of things. Good, I thought. Please, take charge of things.

Max nodded like his head weighed seven thousand pounds. He sat up and the blanket over his chest slipped and Fern got a good hard look at his leather cut. The white patches splattered with blood that declared him the president of the Skulls.

She stood up and took a step back away from the car. I had no choice but to stand up straight beside her.

“You’re running with the Skulls now?” she asked. Her words sharp, her tone clear: I knew you were reckless, but this is crazy.

“I’m not running with anything,” I insisted, trying to keep my own tone clear of all the disdain and petulance I had in my gut. But these were old roads, worn smooth between us. Habits, dark and awful that had no place here right now. “He…he’s a friend, and his club, the brothers, they tried to kill him.”

She blinked. “So you brought him here?”

“It’s the only place I could think of. He needs medical help and I can’t take him to a hospital.”

“Are those brothers of his following you?”

“No,” I shook my head. Emphatic. “No one is following us.”

“Cops?”

“He’s not in trouble like that. It was…it was a club thing.” I didn’t say anything about the cops possibly being after me. I figured the less Aunt Fern knew, the better.

Fern muttered under her breath, but she bent back down into the car. “You ready to get up?” she asked Max.

“Ready…as I’ll ever be,” Max said.

There was a lot of swearing on just about everyone’s parts as we got him out of the car.

“It’s his ribs,” I said, as if to explain the curses he lobbed our way as we slung his arms over our shoulders.

“Funny, I thought it was his charm,” Fern groaned under his weight.

We got him through the garage and into the freight elevator.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“Florida,” Fern said.

Max shifted and pulled away, dragging us all off balance, and I landed hard against the wall of the elevator.

“You’re okay.”

“Florida…bad idea. Club is everywhere.”

“Not here they’re not,” I assured him. We were dead center in retiree-land with its early-bird specials and old couples looking for shells on the beach at low tide. The only clubs here were bocce ball and bridge.

But Max wasn’t hearing it. “Can’t be here,” he insisted, and I was losing my grip on him. Losing my strength. I was so fucking tired, and I didn’t know where to find the will to fight him. Convince him.

“Stop!” Fern said in the commanding voice I remembered all too well. “You need medical attention and you need it now. Whatever problem you have with this location will have to wait.”

Surprisingly, that shut Max up.

The freight elevator doors opened and we stepped out into a coral hallway. A long tunnel of pink.

The hallway was hot and close and endless and my stomach was turning. My head spinning.

I can’t…I thought. I can’t keep going.

When the going gets tough, we get tougher.

That’s what I used to say to Jennifer until it stopped working. Until the tough got so tough I gave up.

I can’t lie, I really wanted to give up right then. Just lie down on the concrete and vanish from the earth.

“Olivia?” It was Fern. Max swore between us. “You all right?”

“Fine. Just tired.”

Finally we stopped in front of a door, and Fern pulled a substantial key ring out of the pocket of her robe. She got the door open and we stumbled inside. At this point Max was roughly the weight of a white rhino.

“Is this yours?” I asked. “Did you move?”

The condo was totally empty. There was a love seat and an easy chair. A few marks in the cream carpet where there had clearly been tables. The walls were bare, spotted with darker squares where I imagined there had been family pictures. Plaques that said “It’s always five o’clock at the beach.”

There was an empty TV stand with a statue of some kind on it.

“No. It’s Mary Gensler’s. Her kids moved her into one of those retirement places a few weeks ago, and they are going to put the condo on the market in the new year. Until then, it’s just sitting here empty.”

Fern led, half-pulling, half-carrying Max into the dark bedroom. All the blinds were closed, but