Savage Vandal (82 Street Vandals #1) - Heather Long Page 0,20
move. Raptor would kill us all. And no way Jasper didn’t know it.
Then again, I couldn’t argue with his reasons either.
We were so fucked.
I paused to knock on Rome’s door, but he didn’t answer. I didn’t open the door and walk in, even if it wasn’t locked.
We didn’t lock our doors, but we didn’t barge in either. No one else belonged in this part of the clubhouse. The rats weren’t even supposed to be in our lounge or den. A dull headache throbbed behind my eyes.
I checked the room between mine and his. I might need to install an external lock. Not my idea of fun, but a lot would depend on Emersyn. Inside, the room was clean, the bed made, fresh towels and pillows. It even smelled clean.
A desk and chair were also set up, and one of the walls had a huge painting on it. When the fuck had Rome had time for that?
He didn’t do canvas. Or at least I didn’t think he did. But it was a sunrise. It was put right where a window would be. The room didn’t have a window. None of our rooms did. That was a choice we made to avoid spies and snipers.
Paranoid?
Sure, but we were alive.
I was ready to walk out when I spotted the bear on the bed. It was a little ragged, but it had been cleaned up and a new bow affixed to his neck.
Yeah.
Fucked.
Totally fucked.
I didn’t know the half of it though until I made it back to Doc’s. The drive in my baby—a 2017 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon, sleek, black, and growling with power—had settled some of my misgivings. It did not in any way prepare me to walk into the standoff taking place in Doc’s clinic.
A tousled and wary-eyed Emersyn, pale as death with dark shadows ringing her eyes held up—what the fuck was that? It wasn’t a knife. No, it was some kind of steel tray. She wielded it like a weapon. Vaughn had a hand over his mouth like he was trying not to laugh, and Jasper shot her an exasperated look.
But Doc was actually talking to her in a soothing voice. “You have a concussion. No one here is going to hurt you…”
Only Emersyn’s whiskey brown eyes weren’t on Doc anymore. They pinned to me.
One minute, she had the tray in the air, the next, she stumbled straight to me and threw herself in my arms. I caught her, especially after the way she staggered and pain creased her face. She only had on a T-shirt—Vaughn’s—and her dance clothes were still in a heap.
Fuck, I should have brought her some clothes back.
“Kestrel,” she gasped, and I closed my arms reflexively. “You didn’t abandon me.”
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Jasper glared at me, and I just stared back at him as I held her.
I told him this was a bad idea.
“You’re safe,” I tried to assure her, but she stiffened in my arms and jerked away a little. I tried again. “You’re safe.”
This time, she blew out a breath, then shot a nervous look toward Jasper, then Vaughn, and finally Doc. Some color flushed back into her cheeks, and her mouth tightened.
“Where the hell am I?”
Chapter 5
Emersyn
“Where the hell am I?”
That had been my first question when I woke up to the chilly room, naked beneath a blanket. The second had been the icy realization that not only had I awoken in this foreign room, it was some kind of hospital or clinic.
The last place I wanted to be stuck again was a hospital. No, just no. Worse still, no sooner had I slid off the bed in search of my clothes than my ankle screamed in protest and so did my head. Hot hands had gripped me, and it had just gone downhill from there.
He’d dragged a shirt onto me, and then more people had walked in, and frankly, I didn’t know any of them. Well, I knew the one tech guy—both tech guys—sort of. I had no idea what their names were or why they were here. The redhead had helped me I thought, or he’d tried to when Eric cornered me.
Fuck, my head hurt so bad, I swore my heartbeat pulsed inside my skull. My wrist hurt, and so did my leg. Every muscle on my body had a protest, and they were screaming. I could barely focus. When they’d tried to make me get on the bed, I’d grabbed the silver tray and hit the redhead across the shoulder and swung it