“Two-pump chump.”
“What was that?” Aleki asked.
“She said two-pump chump,” Wolfe repeated. They all sounded so close. If she could move, she might try to touch them. “Something you want to tell us, Aleki?”
“Fuck off, man,” Aleki said without heat. “I always guarantee a hundred percent satisfaction. It’s my Samoan blood. Gives me stamina.”
Someone was running their hands over her, feeling for something. She tried to move away. She didn’t want anyone touching her. As she slid to the side, her arm protested. She let out a cry of pain.
“Easy, jelly bean. I’m not trying to hurt you. I just need to check where you’re injured.”
“She’s got something wrapped around her arm,” Wolfe said and there was a tugging at her arm.
She screamed in agony.
“Fuck, what are you doing, Caleb? Stop it!” Aleki snarled.
“I barely touched her. The material is stuck to her arm with dried blood.”
“We need to call an ambulance,” Aleki insisted.
“It would seem to be the smart thing to do,” Wolfe added, his voice disinterested.
“Shit. Fuck,” Caleb swore. Things weren’t good if Caleb was unsure of what to do.
“Caleb?” she whispered.
“What is it, jelly bean? Can you tell us what happened?”
She moaned as someone examined her foot.
“Ow. Ow.”
The hand was immediately pulled away. But her ankle still throbbed mercilessly. Damn it. The numbness was preferable to this.
“Wolfe, aim the light down here. Fuck, she’s only got one shoe on. And her foot . . . damn it, it looks like it’s four times its usual size,” Aleki said.
“Fell. Twisted it.” She laughed. It sounded crazy even to her ears. “How did I get to this point? I’m sore. I smell. And I’m sitting in a puddle of dirty water.”
“Pretty sure this isn’t water,” Wolfe drawled.
“What?”
“Wolfe,” Caleb said warningly.
“What? It smells like piss. Might be hers. Maybe she peed herself. We don’t know how long she’s been sitting here.”
“Great. That’s just great. Can things get any worse?”
Aleki was about to lose it. He’d always been slow to anger. But once he lost his temper, then it was hard to rein himself back in.
And right now, he needed to let loose the fury riding him before he did something he might regret.
He couldn’t look at her. Genevieve. His Vivi. Sitting in a puddle of piss, only half-conscious, mumbling things that didn’t make sense, filthy and injured. He turned to the dumpster, and pulling back his fist, punched the metal as hard as he could with a roar of pain.
Vivi let out a startled scream. Then she started to cry.
“Jesus, fuck, man, what the fuck are you doing?” Caleb snapped.
Fuck. Fuck.
He leaned his good hand on the dumpster then bent over, taking in deep heaving breaths. His hand hurt like a motherfucker. Christ, he hoped he hadn’t broken anything.
But at least the pain was helping clear the fury from his head. Making it easier to think.
“If you’ve fucking broken your hand, I will break you,” Caleb snarled.
“Sorry. Sorry. It’s just . . . fuck, look at her. This is Vivi.”
“Are you upset because she’s injured? Or because she’s sitting in a pool of filth in a dark alleyway?” Wolfe asked curiously.
“Both, motherfucker. All of it. I’m fucking mad that she’s been sitting here for God knows how long while I made us wait for days before coming here. We could have come looking for her last night, but I wanted to go to a hotel to sleep. I’ve gone without sleep for days! I didn’t need fucking sleep.”
“I get that you feel guilty, but you don’t get the right to that emotion,” Caleb snapped.
“What?” What the fuck did that mean?
“He means that you’re being selfish. You’re thinking of yourself and your needs instead of her.”
Okay, something was seriously wrong if Wolfe was explaining this stuff to him. Wolfe, who didn’t even smile at cute kitten videos.
And the fuck of it all was he was right.
“Fuck. Okay. What do we do? I should call for an ambulance, right? She needs a hospital.”
Wolfe was running a light over her body. Her cheeks were flushed. She was dirty, sweaty. Her arm was wrapped with what looked like a T-shirt. And her ankle was swollen.
“No. No hospital. Please. They’ll find me,” she protested weakly. She sounded so weak. She looked terrible. Her hair was matted, her clothes dirty and damp with sweat.
“Who?” Caleb asked her. “Who will find you?”
“Please. Please. No hospital. Please.”
The way her voice broke tore at him. He wanted to do whatever he could to ensure she never sounded so broken and scared again. But they had to do what was in her best interests. Even if that wasn’t what she wanted. He waited for Caleb to explain that to her. Caleb always did what he had to, even if he didn’t want to. He and Wolfe were far more selfish.
“Okay, jelly bean. Shh. Don’t get upset.” Caleb ran his hand over her hair, which was a mess of tangles around her head. Aleki winced at the thought of getting those tangles out.
“No hospital, please.”
“All right. We won’t go to the hospital, I promise,” Caleb soothed.
Aleki stopped his pacing and turned to gape at Caleb. Wolfe also stared down at him from where he stood by her feet. Aleki noticed he hadn’t once touched her.
“Caleb, she needs the hospital,” Aleki said. What did he mean, she didn’t have to go? It was their duty to take care of her. And Caleb never shied away from doing his duty.
“I know that,” Caleb snapped. “But she’s obviously afraid and I’m not going to force her to do something that scares her.”
“Caleb, if we don’t take her to a hospital, she may get sicker. She may die.” Wolfe spoke in a monotone voice, as though he didn’t care either way.
“Fuck. Fuck. Okay. There’s got to be a way to get her a doctor but keep her safe.”
“I have an idea,” Wolfe said. “It’s going to cost us, though. And it would be better not to use her name. Just in case someone really is after her and that’s not just a delusion.”
“Okay, good. Go set it up,” Caleb told him.
Wolfe turned away, already on his phone.
“Aleki, go get the car and bring it to the entrance of the alley. We’ll claim she’s my wife.” Leaning down, he reached under her to pick her up. “I have you, jelly bean. I won’t let you go. Not again.”
4
I have you, jelly bean. I won’t let you go.
She sighed dreamily. Caleb. When things were bad, she could always count on them coming to her in her dreams. Three white knights.
Well, okay. Two knights. And Wolfe.
She snorted.
“How come I don’t get to be a knight?” Wolfe complained.
Whoops. What was that beeping noise? Why could she smell disinfectant?
“You’re at a private clinic. You’re also speaking out loud,” Wolfe replied dryly.