Satan's Revenge (20 page)

Now or never.

I throw my body toward Ace’s arm, moving it away from Drifter. At the same time, I kick back as hard as I can with my right leg and nail him in the crotch. I hear Ace grunt and Drifter’s eyes widen.

Without hesitation, he launches himself at Ace. I fold my body over Ace’s arm to keep his gun pointed down and away from Drifter. The gun goes off in Ace’s hands just as Drifter slams into him. The force of his body knocks Ace away from me and onto his back on the floor.

I try to go to them, to help Drifter, but my knees buckle beneath me. No, no, not now. I can’t pass out now. But I feel my panic attack in full force, rising to constrict my throat, and I can’t seem to get a full breath in. My heart feels like it’s exploding in my chest as my vision blurs.

Drifter and Ace become a whirl of arms and legs as I collapse on the ground.

Chapter Twenty-Two

When did I come in to work? I wonder, as I look around the familiar hospital room. And why am I laying down on the job? I’m usually very professional. I wiggle my toes underneath the sheet at the bottom of the bed.

I reach to pull the blanket off of me, and am surprised to see an IV in my arm. I look up to the open doorway of the room, and spot Drifter and Dr. Green a few feet beyond it, shaking hands. Now I know I’m dreaming.

Drifter turns away and walks toward the doorway, his face down. He looks so pale and drawn. It’s an expression I’ve never seen on his face before. He runs his hands through his hair and looks up.

We lock eyes and I see a wave of relief wash over his face. He hurries toward me and takes my face in his hands, rubbing his thumbs over my cheekbones and leaning his forehead in to rest against mine.

“You’re awake,” he whispers. “How are you feeling?”

“Ice chips?” I manage to rasp, and I see him smile and reach for a plastic cup next to the bed. I try to reach for it, but he gently pushes my hand away and brings the cup to my mouth, delicately tipping a couple of pieces between my lips.

I look toward the sun streaming in through the thin window curtains as the ice melts on my tongue. My memories of the night before begin to come back and I frown. I glance over Drifter’s body, searching him for injuries. He shakes his head at me.

“I’m fine,” he assures me.

“Ace?” I ask.

“Definitely gone this time,” he grumbles, looking down to his clenched fist on the bed.

I reach my hand up to touch my face and he takes it between his rough paws, stopping me.

“There are some bandages…I don’t think you should touch them. And Dr. Green said you probably have a concussion, that’s why you passed out.”

I shake my head. “No, I just hyperventilated. I was having a panic attack. Though I guess I did lose consciousness earlier. Did it take you long to find me?”

“No. Not after I listened to your voicemail.”

“Then I can’t have been out for very long. That’s good.”

I take a deep breath and relax against the pillow behind my head. Drifter glances at my hand, still held in his. The silence stretches on as the happiness of being safe fades and we both remember the place we were in before it happened. The fight, and all the small betrayals leading up to it.

“I’m so sorry, Violet,” he whispers. I glance up, and see a tear running down his cheek. I’ve never seen him cry before. “I should have believed you…about Ace, about Marcus. I promise I’ll be better from now on, I’ll be the man you deserve.”

“Drifter, you already were,” I reply, exasperated. “You just can’t keep secrets from me anymore. It’s poisonous.”

“I just…I don’t think you’ll be able to love me anymore,” he whispers.

“Do you have so little faith in me? In us?” He glances up to meet my gaze. “Besides, I’m already lying in a hospital bed, how much worse can it get?”

He smiles a little and sighs, then stands up to close the hospital room door. He returns, and pulls a rolling stool up to the side of the bed and sits, then takes my hand again. He stares down at it, running his fingertips over my knuckles.

“Well, after my parents died, Marcus and I were put into separate foster homes. There aren’t a lot of people that are willing to take in two kids at once,” he begins.

He tells me about how their homes started up close together, but then they were placed farther apart. How he ran from the first home where the foster father hit him, and then was placed somewhere worse. And how he finally ended up in a small town in Oregon, staying with the Ralstons.

He talks about how he always told Marcus he would take care of him. When he turned sixteen, he’d legally be able to move out on his own, and Marcus would be able to stay with him.

He tells me how he met Flint through his high school shop teacher, and had his first real kiss at their clubhouse in Oregon. I smile as he describes Liz through his eyes then, beautiful and intimidating as hell. How Flint told him that he could have a future in the club, and how he suggested joining the military, and how he finally felt like he had a goal in life.

And then how Marcus showed up out of the blue, a little after his sixteenth birthday, expecting him to follow through on the plan they’d always discussed. And how he had turned his back on his scared little brother.

“He didn’t talk to me for two years after that,” he says, clearing his throat, his eyes still on my hand.

“Did he go back into foster care?” I ask.

“No. Our case worker would give me updates on him now and then. Not that there were a lot of changes for him. He was put into juvie from there, then into a group home where he stayed until he ran away, at fifteen. He called me for money after that. He was living on the street, and I was in the Marines. I saw him a couple times in between tours when I was still living back in Oregon, but not after Flint came here and brought me with him.”

“You kept sending him money?” I ask.

He nods.

“I wanted to keep him off the streets. I thought it was the least I could do.”

“When I was sixteen, my friends and I would try to sneak into those slasher movies, like
Scream
,
I Know What You Did Last Summer
…” He looks at me in confusion. I close my eyes, trying to gather my thoughts. “Sorry, what I meant was, that’s what
I
was doing when I was sixteen, that’s what kids that age do. But you were worried about planning the rest of your life, and being a parent to your little brother.”

He frowns. “I don’t understand.”

“You were just a kid. Maybe you felt like a grown-up then, but have you seen a sixteen-year-old recently? I mean, they’re still children in a lot of ways.”

“Sixteen or not, I was all he had.”

I tilt my head to the side, considering. “You know how in airplanes, they say in the event of an emergency, you’re supposed to put on your own oxygen mask before helping the people around you? That’s what you were doing. You weren’t in position to, probably weren’t even capable of, helping him at that point. You were barely surviving yourself.”

“You don’t hate me…” he says slowly.

“Of course I don’t hate you!” I burst out. “I mean, I’m mad at you!
Really
mad. I’ve never been this mad at you, but I don’t hate you. I love you, don’t you know that?”

“It’s hard, sometimes…I know it…up here,” he taps his head. “But sometimes not here,” he says, moving his hand down to his chest.

“Drifter, at what point, I mean, let’s say, just for argument’s sake, that what you did was wrong, or immoral, or unfair, or whatever you’ve thought it was. At what point did Marcus’s life become his own responsibility? “

He shrugs, staring at the floor.

“You thought of him as a kid for so long...but he’s an adult now. All the choices he made are his own responsibility. All of them.”

“I should have believed you when you said you saw Ace. I talked to Flint. He told me he broke out of the handcuffs that night. I’m so sorry. I should have listened to you.”

“I can’t argue with that,” I whisper. “Where’s Marcus now?”

“I don’t know. And I hope I never find out. After what he did to you, I never want to see him again,” he says, his hand grasping mine tightly.

“I thought I heard voices in here,” Dr. Green says from the doorway. “Sorry to interrupt, but I just want to check your vitals.”

“Sure,” I say glancing curiously between him and Drifter as he walks in and grabs my chart.

“Adam recognized me, helped me get back here,” Drifter explains, noticing my look. “There was a problem with one of the nurses…said only family was allowed in.”

I nod. “Thank you,” I say to Dr. Green.

“Everything looks good. We’ll do an MRI just in case, but I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. You should be able to go home tomorrow.”

Dr. Green’s estimate turns out to be correct. The next morning, I’m walking out of the hospital. The only time Drifter left me was to go home to get a change of clothes for me, since the ones I came in wearing were wrecked. He asked me if I wanted visitors—a bunch of the brothers and their old ladies wanted to stop in—but I just wanted to rest. I caught sight of myself in the bathroom mirror,and was shocked by the bandages and bruises on my face. Though the truth is, I think I look worse than I feel.

Abby helps me out to the curb while Drifter gets the car. He hurries out to help me into the passenger side as she wishes me well.

He’s turning on the engine when his phone rings. He checks the caller ID then picks up.

“Drifter,” he answers. He frowns as he listens to the person on the other end. “Got it.”

He hangs up and pauses, staring ahead, then turns to me.

“That was Flint. They found Marcus. He’s at the clubhouse.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

“I’ll drop you off at home,” Drifter says, turning the key in the ignition. He pulls away from the hospital. “I’m sorry to leave you alone right now, but maybe you could call Cherish…”

“No.”

“No?”

“No, you’re not leaving me at home. I’m coming with you.”

“This is club business, Violet.”

“It’s my business, too. Marcus kidnapped
me.
I want to have some say in what happens to him. “

“Violet…”

“You really want to try to hide something else involving him?” I snap. “Besides, it’s not just that I want to see him, I want him to see me.”

Drifter pauses at the next stoplight, and finally puts on his blinker, taking a left toward the clubhouse. I settle back into my seat, trying to come to grips with the mix of emotions that just flooded over me. I’m not sure what seeing Marcus again will be like. Maybe it would have been better if he had just disappeared.

I don’t have much time to think it over, because fifteen minutes later we’re pulling through the clubhouse gates. Drifter drives up the hill and parks on the dirt outside the main building, which looks imposing even during daylight hours.

The shades on the first floor are drawn, and Flint steps out of the side door to greet us before we go in.

He looks at me in surprise as I step out of the car. Clearly I wasn’t expected. He opens his mouth to say something, but I see him look over my injuries and he just nods at me.

“Suppose I’d want to be here if I were you, too,” he says. “We got a tip that he was holed up in a motel off the highway. Picked him up there an hour ago.”

He turns back to the door and we follow him inside, through the empty lounge area and into the more private back office. As the office door shuts behind us, I nod at Bean, Tag, and Hollywood. They part a little, and I see Marcus tied to a chair in between them, a cloth gag in his mouth. He looks even worse than he did when he came home after being beaten up the other night.

“We found him like this,” Tag explains. I nod. I know the injuries aren’t from them.

Flint clears his throat. Drifter is just staring at his brother, who’s staring at the ground.

“Drifter, I could’ve brought the club in on this. Had a vote to decide what happens to him. I don’t have to tell you that Violet’s a favorite around here, and that anyone that messes with her… But at the end of the day, the one who really has to deal with the decision is you. And Violet.”