Blackness rushed back, filling me to the brim with...nothing.
A wet, warm tongue lapped against the knuckles of my left hand. My fingers twitched, an involuntary movement, since I lacked the ability to command my muscles. The licking sensation penetrated my brain fog, and as my senses awoke, I heard Sahdev speaking in a low voice.
“Kenzie...in the next room...wake me.” Only scattered words made sense, at first.
A woman murmured a response in a voice I didn’t recognize.
“Anything at all,” Sahdev added.
“Yes.”
“Hector, come on, boy.”
The rough tongue ceased licking my fingers, and the dog’s toenails clicked across the floor.
Sahdev. Hector.
I wanted to call them back; I longed for that tangible connection to a familiar soul.
Where am I? Where’s Ripper?
I willed my eyes to open, but they stubbornly refused. Soft footsteps approached my bed and a hand gently pushed the hair back from my face. “Everything is fine, Kenzie,” the woman said. “You’re safe now.”
Kind words. Reassuring words. So why did a chill slither up my spine? I shivered and managed a small moan.
“Shhh, sweet girl. Everything will work out for the best.”
I spiraled back into darkness.
SEVEN
Ripper
Kyle, Sahdev, and I held a huddled consultation in the front room. No idea if an unconscious Mac could understand what we said, but I didn’t want her to hear the worry in our voices.
“It’s been three days,” I said. “Three fucking days, and Mac hasn’t come to.”
An indignant protest came from the couch, where Pastor Bill sat upright, his ankles crossed like a prissy old biddy and a sour expression on his face.
“Language, please,” he huffed.
I rolled my eyes and shot the fucker a dirty look.
Nobody asked Nicole’s minister to park his wide ass on the couch or to hang around to offer his unsolicited consolation and prayers. With Pastor Bill and me, it had been a case of hate at first sight. Yesterday, he dropped by to check in on Nicole, then stayed to pray over Mac. We sized each other up with a single glance: outlaw Janissary vs. holier-than-thou clergyman. I saw the contempt in his eyes when he took in my cut, and I didn’t bother to hide my disdain for the sanctimonious man of God.
For the life of me, I couldn’t see why everybody around here treated him like he was king shit, but he was Nicole’s minister, and we were crashing uninvited at her place, so I mostly kept my mouth shut and ignored the pissant. Mostly.
“I said, I don’t appreciate your foul language,” he snapped.
Apparently Pastor Bill didn’t like being ignored. Did I give a rat’s ass? Nah. Kept my back turned to the man and spoke to Sahdev instead.
“What’s going on, doc?”
Sahdev shook his head, frowning. “Without the proper diagnostic equipment, it’s hard to know for sure. Fortunately, I’ve seen no signs of internal bleeding or spinal damage.”
“Thank fuck for that, but why isn’t she waking up?”
The good reverend sniffed then whispered furiously to his sidekick, Deacon Morris, who sat beside him on the couch.
“Kenzie isn’t in a coma,” Sahdev said. “She’s heavily unconscious, but she sometimes reacts to external stimuli.”
A couple of times, when I got in her face and demanded that she wake up, her lids had fluttered open. She stared at me, eyes wide and vacant, unblinking, like a doll, but she couldn’t hold on to even that level of consciousness for more than a couple of seconds.
“Her pupils react to light. That’s a good sign. Her swallow reflex is intact, so we’ve been able to keep her hydrated.”
“So what does that mean?”
“It means we wait and see.” Sahdev clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t give up hope.”
I nodded, grasping at his reassuring words. I wouldn’t give up on Mac, not after everything we’d been through, not ever.
“You’ve scarcely slept since the accident,” he said. “Your body took quite a beating, too, and you need rest in order to heal.”
“Sahdev’s right,” Kyle broke in. “You need to sleep, man. If Kenzie wakes up and sees you looking like shit—and finds out it’s because you didn’t take care of yourself—she’ll kick your ass. And then she’ll kick ours for not making you lie down and take it easy.”
I snorted and raised a brow. Kyle and Sahdev trying to make me do anything? “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Kyle agreed. “I’ve seen Kenzie when she’s pissed off, and it isn’t pretty. Spare us all the aggravation and take a nap.”
Almost smiled remembering the image of a spitting-mad Mac, poking her finger in my chest, telling me off and making demands. If Kyle was trying to lighten the mood, to make me stop and think, it worked. I’ve gone days without sleep when the situation required it, but hovering over Mac hadn’t made a damned bit of difference. When she finally came to—and she would come to—I needed to be alert and at my best.
“All right. I’ll lie down for a while, but if Mac stirs—”
“We know,” Kyle interjected. “If Kenzie so much as twitches, we’ll wake you up.”
I nodded to Nicole, then retreated to the third bedroom, which had belonged to Chimney’s dad. When I spent a long weekend fishing at the cabin a few years back, Chimney, Jack, and I had spent our evenings sitting on the porch overlooking the lake, drinking beer and shooting the shit. The old man had served in Vietnam, but we hadn’t swapped war stories. Jack spied the Ranger tattoo on my forearm, dipped his head, and lifted his beer bottle in a silent salute, which I returned. He passed from cancer a year later. And now the flu had taken his son and grandsons. Three generations gone. Goddamned flu had cut down family lines like the Grim Reaper on a tear.
Kicked off my boots and stripped off my cut and T-shirt, then stretched out on the old man’s bed. The mattress was too soft, and the iron bedframe creaked every time I rolled, so I folded my arms under my head, held still, and stared up at the ceiling until I fell asleep.
Commotion in the front room roused me some time later, a pounding on the cabin door followed by raised voices. I rolled out of bed and raced from the room, in time to see Pastor Bill and Deacon Morris disappear out the front door.
“What’s going on?” I demanded.
“One of the other deacons just showed up,” Kyle said. “Said it was an emergency and he had to talk to the pastor.” Glancing out into the yard, I saw the three men carrying on an animated conversation. The third man, a bald-headed deacon whose name I didn’t know, waved his hands excitedly. As if feeling my eyes on them, they fell silent and turned their faces to the cabin.
I opened the door and stepped onto the porch. “There a problem?”
Pastor Bill waved his hand, signaling for me to go back inside. Hell, no. Not taking orders from that pissant. I stomped off the porch and approached the gaggle of men.
“What’s up?”
The deacons looked to their pastor for guidance. Pastor Bill turned to me, his eyes lit up with excitement. He spread his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “We got a report back from a hunting party. There’s a problem in the western quadrant. I’ll tell you all about it after I finish consulting with my deacons.”