Shaking my head at the grim thought, I pulled the bike into the trailer. So far, the Reapers were nowhere to be found. They hadn't followed us from what I could tell, and even if they had, there was security around the area, and the bus was like a triple-decker tank with its bullet-proof windows. We were in safe territory.
"Almost there, Jax," I said softly as I got off the bike. "We just have to get back on the bus."
The bus. I swallowed hard. Shit. The rest of the band. They were probably waiting for us, and they weren't going to let us get away with a couple of easy cracks about falling on a sidewalk.
I draped Jax's arm around my shoulder. "Let me help you."
He bristled, trying to move away. "I'm okay. Don't worry about me."
I could tell he was covering up pain. But then again, after the night we'd had, he'd have to be. I bit my lip and helped him limp toward the bus door.
My stomach was doing backflips as I tried to figure out what to say to Sky, Chewie, and Kev that could possibly explain Jax's injuries. Already, his face swelled with bruises. How could I face them and tell them what happened? I'd been helpless, defeated. We both had. The band would feel guilty, sad, maybe deceived—I had no idea which.
Bracing for the worst, I turned the key and the door popped open.
Inside, there was nothing but total darkness. I reached up for a light switch, worrying about what to say. With a wince, I held my breath and flipped the switch for the auxiliary lights.
There was a mess of clothes on the ground, a bag of weed on the table, and Chewie's ghost detector lying on the couch, but no one was around.
"Where is everyone?" I said, confused.
I followed my nose to find Chewie's half-smoked blunt on the living room table, next to a folded note:
Party at Lizzie Boham's house. If you two horndogs ever get back from wherever you went to do the nasty, meet us there.
- The Chewster
In the front room, Jax was still looking for the rest of the band. "Sky? Chewie?" he said.
"Over here," I called to him.
Jax walked stiffly into the living room.
I held up Chewie's note. "Look at this. They're all gone. They're not even here. It's . . . it's . . ."
Jax scanned over the note, and one corner of his lip turned up wryly. It wasn't exactly a smile, but it was something.
After all the terrible, traumatic things that had happened tonight, something had gone right.
A sound started from the back of my throat, and I held it back for a moment, expecting sobs. Instead, when I opened my mouth, a laugh came out—a sad, relieved, quaking laugh that shook my entire body.
It's going to be okay. We're not going to die. I'm not going to jail. We're going to survive.
I doubled over, unable to stop laughing. Too overwhelmed to speak, I gasped in big lungfuls of air, tears rolling down my cheeks as pained laughter poured from me. I was alive, and so was Jax—and for the moment, that was all I needed.
Chapter Two
DAMAGED
As I struggled to control my laughter and tears, Jax broke into a raspy, hacking cough. The sound came from deep in his lungs, and he leaned against the couch as he struggled to catch his breath.
My laughter cut off mid-breath as I snapped back to reality. "Jax!" I cried.
"I'm fine," he answered. He straightened with a grimace, wheezing in air before letting out another, smaller cough.
I narrowed my eyes in concern. As I scanned his body for wounds, he tilted his head away from my gaze. A patch of crimson glinted from beneath his hair.
"Stay right there," I said, pulse racing. "Actually, no. Sit down on the couch."
As he lowered himself gingerly onto the couch, pushing the ghost detector aside as he did so, I snapped on the bright overhead lights. Jax groaned and squinted, his hand reaching up to shield his face from the glare, while I stepped toward the couch to take a closer look.
What I saw made my stomach turn.
Blood caked over the side of his scalp, crusting and darkened at the edges.
I swallowed, trying not to let Jax see how scared I was. The terrifying memory flashed behind my eyes: Darrel slamming the butt of a pistol against the back of Jax's head, leaving him laid out on the street. I'd never seen someone beaten so badly before. I couldn't imagine the pain he must be in. Or how badly his whole body might be damaged.
In a fit of irrationality, I quickly snapped the light off again, as if blanketing the wound in darkness would somehow take it back to the way it was before I'd seen how bad it was in full light. I had to fight hard against my instinct to take him to the hospital right away. From the way he responded to the guard, I knew Jax was already irritable. If I suggested he needed serious care before even taking a closer look, he'd get stubborn—and that was the last thing either of us needed when the stakes were so high.
"I'll be right back," I said, careful to keep my voice from trembling.
My heart beat anxiously and my hands shook as I ran hot water from the bathroom tap onto a clean washcloth, then brought it back out to Jax.
I turned the light back on before approaching him. He hadn't moved a muscle, and was sitting tiredly on the couch.
"I need to clean this out a little bit," I said softly. "I'm going to try not to hurt you . . . but it looks bad. I can't promise anything."
"Give me that," he said as he grabbed for the washcloth.
I pulled the cloth out of his reach, not surprised by his response. Jax was trying to be tough, but the wound was on his head. He couldn't possibly see it well enough to clean it properly. "Let me. Really," I offered, trying to figure out a way to assuage my worries without wounding his pride. "You helped me clean up when those guys chased us onto the bus, remember? I'm just returning the favor."
His mouth stretched to a thin line, as though he was formulating an objection. But then he closed his eyes and nodded, his body relaxing into the couch.
I forced a small smile past my apprehension. Raising the warm washcloth to his head, I pressed it against the clotted blood on his hair and started to wipe away rust-colored streaks.
When I gently increased the pressure, he flinched.
My touch lightened instantly. "Sorry."
He remained silent, staring at the opposite wall.
After a few moments, I managed to clean most of the surface of his hair. I now needed to see what the actual wound on his scalp looked like. Steeling myself against the possibility of finding something horrible, I parted the black strands of his hair carefully. My eyes darted back and forth between the wound and Jax's restrained expression.
There was a gash. A small one, though. More like a cut. Blood had stopped flowing from the opening, and every wipe of the washcloth sent fresh relief through me. It had made a mess, but there was no way he needed stitches.
I released a deep breath. Thank god. He'd been beaten, but he wasn't broken.
"There," I said, gently wiping the last of the blood away. "That looks a bit better."
Jax let out a low grunt. "Thanks."
The head wound looked like the worst of it, but I knew it wasn't the only place where he'd been hit. "Now . . . can you take off your shirt for me? I need to take a look underneath."
"Later," he said dismissively.
I set the washcloth down on the side table and went to get the first aid kit I'd remembered was stored in a cupboard near the bar. "Better to patch you up now than to wait for morning," I called back.
His eyes closed as he took a long, deep breath. When he opened them again, his voice was soft and low. "Fine, I'll do it. For you."
I squeezed his hand, quietly accepting the significance of his words. Part of his irritability and defensiveness came from the physical pain, but a larger part came from how vulnerable he was feeling at the moment. And as difficult as it was for him, he was willing to lower his guard, to be vulnerable, for me. "Thank you."
Together, we slowly lifted his shirt off. He winced hard as he moved his sho
ulders, stiffly sliding his muscular arms out. I looked at Jax's torso, naked as the cloth peeled away, and suddenly felt like all the air had been sucked out of me.
An angry bruise, red, green and black, radiated in an irregular circle from his side, a Rorschach blot of pain and suffering. Raw and shiny, the dark splotch stretched halfway across his body.
I'd never seen a bruise so big. I suddenly felt like I'd been the one kicked in the gut.
Jax saw the expression on my face and looked down. He tried to shift his torso away so I couldn't see the bruise, but it was too late.
I sank down near him to take a closer look. Circles within circles patterned his side. This was clearly a lot worse than a normal bruise—it was the result of heavy boots repeatedly kicking at the same unprotected area. It was a bruise with bruises of its own.
"It's really not as bad as it looks," he said quickly, casually sliding his arm over to cover the discolored skin.
I held my hand near a black-purple spot toward the center. I probed the tender skin as gently as I could. "Does this hurt?" I asked, looking into his eyes.
He swallowed stiffly, his body tensing. "Not much."
He was beginning to put up his guard again. I wanted him to see a doctor—and soon. "I need to take you to the hospital to get you checked out."
"I'm fine." His tone was low, with a forceful edge.
I looked at him sitting there on the couch: his hair hanging in limp tangles damp from the washcloth, his body battered.
"Jax, I'm not trying to pressure you, but you don't seem fine." I took his hand into mine and gave it a soft squeeze.
Darkness clouded his face as he pulled his hand away. "Dammit, Riley," he snarled. "I told you I'm fine. I'm not going to spend the night in some hospital just so you can feel better."
The blood drained from my face. Suddenly, my hands were icy cold. I knew Jax was tired, hurt, and upset, but I didn't know why he'd make it so personal when I'd done everything I could to help him. I opened my mouth to reply, but nothing came out.
As my eyes began to sting with tears, Jax looked away, a pained expression on his face.
"Fuck." His voice was much quieter now. "I'm . . . sorry. I know you're trying to help. I just . . . I fucking hate hospitals. Can we drop this for tonight?"
I wanted to say yes—but even more than that, I wanted Jax to be okay.
He looked at me tenderly and gave my shoulder a soft squeeze. "I'm fine. Really. I know it looks bad, but it's really not that bad. It's just a bruise. I've had much worse. Trust me."
The sincerity in his voice momentarily broke through my worry, making me realize that I'd been shaking. I'd just had the craziest night of my entire life with multiple close calls for both me and Jax. Was I overreacting? The blood on his head had looked so much worse than it turned out to be. Maybe he had a point.
I touched his side again as a sanity check.
He exhaled. "I didn't say it doesn't hurt. It does, but I'm saying it's not serious. At least it's not, unless you keep poking it."
"Okay," I said finally. "But if it gets worse—"
"I'll call a doctor." His eyes, no longer dull and glazed, had a renewed depth I realized I'd been missing. "I promise."
Looking into his warm gaze, I felt tense muscles I didn't even know I had starting to relax. My shoulders loosened, and I exhaled all at once. The relief was palpable. The crisis was over, at least for tonight.
"Let's go upstairs to rest," he said.
We made our way up the stairs one slow step at a time. As we entered his room and laid down, I shook my head, trying to make sense of everything. I still couldn't believe the night we'd had. It felt like a terrible dream.
Memories flashed across my skull like a slideshow. The flickering firelight, the street lit by a Molotov cocktail—one that I'd thrown. Darrel's gravelly voice calling me a little bitch, the Reapers kicking Jax with sounds that still echoed faintly in my mind . . . how long would it take me to get the images out of my head?
"You okay?" Jax said, a look of concern on his face as he laid next to me.
"Yeah," I replied, trying to smile. "I'm fine. Just a little tired, that's all."
He touched my cheek softly before flicking off the light. I nestled in against the warmth of his body, taking care not to press on his bruise.
Within minutes, he was snoring softly. I laid awake, listening to his breath. I'd almost lost Jax tonight . . . and in the end, we'd both been lucky to make it out as unscathed as we did. I shivered, unable to stop seeing Darrel's angry face every time I closed my eyes. He was Jax's dad—and he only wanted to hurt his son. The injustice of it struck me to my very core. And now, with Jax resting up in his bed, it was like there'd been no real consequences. He seemed unperturbed, at least for now, but I wasn't so sure. In my experience, life didn't work that way: when you did something that big, you couldn't just walk away without feeling the effects one way or another.
I curled my hand around Jax's hip. With time and rest, our aching bodies would recover. But I'd seen the pain in Jax's eyes—would time and rest be enough to heal that kind of hurt?
Chapter Three
THE MORNING AFTER
The next thing I knew, I was sitting up in bed, coughing.
Heavy smoke spread thickly throughout our room, choking me. The smell of burning rubber assaulted my nose.
Fire!
I flung out my hand to wake Jax—but my hand only brushed an empty spot. He was gone!
Panic raced through my body. Where was he? I knew he wouldn't leave me in danger unless . . . he was too hurt to help me.
I jolted out of bed, tortured by visions of Jax hurt and trapped by the fire that raged somewhere down below. He could be worse than hurt, he could be dead. My heart seized with terror. I had to find him, had to get to him somehow, no matter what. Even if that meant going into the fire myself.
I opened the door, and a heart-stopping BOOM twisted up from below. A heavy hot gust of air hit my face. I was falling . . . Jax!
My eyes shot open. I stared at the tapestry-lined ceiling of Jax's bedroom, panting. Sunlight poured into the room.
My heart thumped in my chest, and I took a moment to catch my breath.
It had just been a nightmare. The most horrible kind—the kind that felt real.
I'd thought the Reapers had come and torched the bus and that the worst had happened.
I thought I'd lost Jax.
I rested the back of my hand against my damp forehead and slowly closed my eyes again, allowing a smooth stream of air to escape from my lips. We weren't in danger. We were safe. No Reapers had come looking for us in the night. How could they? They didn't know where we were; they'd been too busy dealing with the fire on their bikes to follow us.
I reached over, searching for the comfort of Jax's body, but my hand brushed a cool emptiness on the mattress where his body should have been.
"Jax?" I turned over to find him gone. Confused, I sat up and clutched the sheet to my breast.
Scenes from my nightmare flashed before my eyes, and a terrible sense of foreboding swept through me. I was suddenly haunted by the thought of losing Jax, for real this time. Where is he?
I grabbed a pair of jeans off the floor and hopped into them, cursing loudly when I banged my shin against the open closet door. I shrugged a t-shirt over my head, paused to consider putting on shoes, decided against it, and flew out the door.
Out on the landing, I hesitated. Should I check upstairs first?
A harsh clang burst from below.
I started, then raced down the stairs, skipping the last few steps and landing with an impact that sent tremors through the bus's steel floor. Four heads snapped up to look at me.
Jax.
He was sitting on the couch next to Sky and Kev, while Chewie crouched on the floor, paused in the middle of wiping up a wet puddle with a rag. The awful-smelling liquid came from a two foot tall bong that glistened damply from being knocked over.
I heaved a sigh
of relief at the unexpected normalcy. The flat screen TV was on, showing footage from what looked like the concert last night. A half empty pizza box lay on the table, surrounded by random piles of scribbled-up note paper.
The strong sunlight filtering through the windows meant it was at least noon already. I slept ten hours? It was little wonder: after the terrors of last night, I'd been exhausted. From the state of the living area, it looked like the rest of the band had been up for a while.
"Whoa," Chewie said, "You got here fast. It's like ringing a bell." He picked up the bong and righted it. "Give me a minute and I'll get this warmed up for you."
"Uh, no, thanks," I replied, feeling a little awkward about my grand entrance over what was apparently just some weed smoke.
Sky bounded up from her seat and grabbed my hands, pulling me down on the couch between her and Jax.
She touched my scraped cheek gently, her brown eyes wide. "Hey, Jax wasn't kidding. You did save him."
My heart skipped at her words. Had Jax told them what happened last night? My eyes darted over to him. He was holding an ice pack to the side of his face, but the bruising around his eyes was now minimal. His olive skin was a little paler than usual, but overall he looked far better than he did last night. A half smile even played across his lips.
"Man," Kev said with a laugh, "And I thought the party we crashed last night was wild."
I blinked, then mentally kicked myself for being so stupid. Of course he hadn't told them, or at least not the whole truth. But that left me unsure about what to say until I found out exactly what he had said.
The faces around me were eager for my response. I hesitated, then said, "Ours wasn't much of a party."
"Yeah, Jax told us," Sky said. "It's happened a couple times before. He beats a lot of people at pool."
Chewie smirked. "Not all of them take it so well."
I snapped my head up and peered at Jax. So that was his story.
Sky looked at me sympathetically. All I could think was, you don't know the half of it.
"You should've seen Riley whipping her cue around, Bruce Lee style." Jax shook his head. "I never saw anything like it." He leaned over and kissed my unbruised cheek. "My baby is such a badass."