Midnight Wreckage - Winter Travers

Chapter One

Wake the fuck up…

Queenie

“What are you doing?”

I shielded my eyes from the blinding sun and focused on the woman sitting in front of me. Duchess? I looked around frantically. “Am I dead?”

“You better not be,” Duchess snapped.

I pulled out the chair at the table where Duchess sat and plopped down. “Well, I gotta wonder if I am because you are dead, Duchess.” I was sitting at a table, talking to my very dead sister.

“You’re not dead. I am. Let’s move on.”

Just like Duchess to jump straight to the point even though there were tons of other things going on. “And where will we be moving on to?” I asked. “The pearly gates?”

Duchess rolled her eyes.

I reached out to touch her, but she snapped back and glared at me. “No touching. I’m dead, Queenie.”

Then why in the hell was I talking to her? What was going on?

The earth shook around us, and I grasped the table.

“We don’t have much time.” Duchess leaned toward me. “You need to find him. I’m not there to take care of him, but I know that you’ll do everything you can.”

“Who? What?” The blinding sun turned up its intensity, and I lifted my arm to shield my eyes. “What is going on, Duchess?”

“Just find him, Queenie. He’s lost without you.”

What? What was happening? I frantically scanned around, but the bright light blocked out everything around us.

I looked back to Duchess. She leaned into me until her nose was almost touching mine and screamed, “Wake the fuck up, Queenie!”

“Welcome back, sweetie. You gave us a bit of a scare there for a second.”

I stared up into the face of a woman I didn’t know and blinked rapidly. “Gunner,” I croaked. My throat was scratchy and I could barely get the words out.

She laid her hand on my shoulder. “Shh, honey. You can’t be moving around too much just yet.”

The only thing I could move was my eyeballs. If I could have jumped off the table, I would have. “Please, Gunner,” I pleaded.

Someone fiddled on my side while others moved behind me. There had to be at least ten people in the room who were all hustling around.

“We gotta get you calmed down right now. Once we do that we can talk, okay?” the nurse replied.

Calmed down? There wasn’t any time to calm down. “Where is he?”

“Shh, sweetie. You don’t need to worry about anything right now. We just gave you a little something and you’ll be feeling better in just a little bit.”

I searched the room frantically, hoping to find someone who would listen to me and get me out of this bed.

Everyone buzzed around, poking and prodding me. The word surgery was bounced around along with others that were too big for me to understand.

My mind raced trying to figure out how to get out of here and find Gunner. I asked every nurse who came close to me about him, but they either ignored me or just gave me a sympathetic glance. My eyes grew heavy from whatever shit they had pumped into me. “Just please,” I whispered, “tell me where Gunner is.” My lids drifted closed, and I sighed, defeated.

Now was not the time to fall asleep, but I didn’t have any other choice. I drifted into the darkness behind my eyelids, desperate to find Gunner but unable to do anything but let the drugs drag me under.

*

Chapter Two

Bubble wrap her…

Sledge

“She’s coming home tomorrow.”

“Already?”

I wedged the phone between my ear and shoulder. The vending machine sucked in the dollar I held up to the slot and then spit it back out at me. “Son of a bitch,” I grumbled. I had been fighting with this damn thing for the past two minutes, and I was ready to punch my fist through the machine to get a cup of fucking coffee.

“Sledge,” Quinn called, “what the hell are you doing?”

Trying to get some fucking coffee so my brain could get out of the sleepless fog I was caught in. “Nothing.”

“You sure you’re good?”

I could tell Quinn was worried about me. Hell, I was fucking worried about myself. I was torn up and a fucking mess over a chick I barely knew. Don’t even get me started on the fact that Gunner, a kid I also barely knew, was missing. Women and kids. Two things you never fucked with.

“I’m fine. She’s coming home because her insurance sucks ass and the doctor says she just needs to be on bed rest for the next week or so. They