“This really is unfortunate,” Garrett rambled, looking down at me with a gentle smile. “I did warn Shotgun. He knew better, knew not to fuck around with my world. A world I have fought so hard to fucking create.” The anger cracked in his voice, and he quickly cleared his throat, forcing a smile again despite the way a soft red flush of anger crept up his neck.
“An eye for an eye, that’s what I believe,” he began, getting to his feet and pulling a white sheet from a drawer behind him. He shook it out, letting it float through the air and land over my body. There was a couple of clicks, the bed jiggling and moving, making me realize just what he was doing.
He’d taken the brakes off.
He was moving me.
“Shotgun took my wife, he took my job, my home, my money. Everything I worked a lifetime to gain,” he hissed, standing over me, his breathing heavy and erratic.
Shotgun had pushed him to the edge of the ledge, and he was ready to jump.
“So, I’m going to do the same,” Garrett continued, wrapping a gown around him, and pulling a mask over his face and a piece of cloth on his head, so it looked like he was going into surgery. “And I’m starting with you.”
I couldn’t move, couldn’t talk, couldn’t do a single thing as Garrett pulled the sheet up over my head and rolled me out the door.
I fought, fought against my own fucking body, knowing all I would need is one movement to catch someone’s attention.
The voices in the waiting room got louder as we reached the end of the hall, one voice hitting me hard, yet not a sound left my mouth as a tear-streaked the side of my face.
“She needs to sleep. I’ll take the little man in there in about twenty minutes,” Shotgun explained to someone.
He was right there.
So close I felt like I could touch him.
“Austin have any leads on who the other car was?” Repo questioned, the voices moving further away now.
“Not yet, but I could easily take a guess. We’re just lucky he didn’t take her, probably too many people around.”
Help!
I’m here!
Please!
More tears streaked down my face as the voices disappeared into the background, and I knew they were gone.
I was on my own.
SHOTGUN
Pressing my palm to the door, I eased it open, Gage sitting in the crook of my elbow.
My muscles stiffened as I stepped into the room. My body was frozen to the spot while Myth, Meyah, and Kennedy stepped around me.
“The doctor said he wanted to get her some more scans,” Myth reasoned, trying to be the steady fucking minded one while I continued to stand there, holding my son and wondering where the fuck my old lady was.
He was right.
The doctor had said earlier she should be able to be released tonight, but he wanted to get a couple more tests and scans done first just to be thorough.
“Kennedy and I will go and check with the front desk before we start to panic,” Meyah added, bouncing Juliet in her arms as she headed back out the door, with Kennedy right on her tail.
It didn’t matter, though.
My gut screamed I’d missed something, and I was about to fucking pay for it.
It was barely a few seconds before a nurse rushed through the door, flipping furiously through a clipboard of papers. “Could she have gone for a walk?” the flustered woman questioned.
Myth answering with a loud snort. “The whole fucking bed is gone, lady,” he stressed, jabbing his finger at the empty space in the room where there should be a fucking bed.
With Avery in it.
“Where is she?” I ground out through clenched teeth.
Gage let out a gentle cry, and I finally shifted from the spot I’d been glued to, refusing to move, knowing I was going to fucking lose my shit the moment I was out of here and my son wasn’t in my arms.
“Better question,” Kennedy interjected, crossing her arms. “Where the hell could someone remove a bed with a person in it from the hospital.”
“Oh, fucking hell,” I growled, the loud heavy rumble in my chest startling Gage. “That fucking bastard.” I rushed forward, passing Gage off to Kennedy and storming out the door. Myth was hot on my heels, the both of us ducking and diving around nurses and patients, my eyes searching the hospital signs for the morgue.
We hit the staircase going down into the back part of the hospital, obviously eager to keep the stacks of deceased away from the healthy and close to somewhere they could have easy access to load the bodies out to places like funeral homes or the coroner.
“You really think he dragged her down here, on a gurney, somehow, without her kicking and screaming, and they would just let him load her into the back of his car and drive off,” Myth rambled as we shoved through two swinging doors.
“He was never fired,” I explained, scanning the dungeon-like space. “The hospital didn’t want that kind of press, so they simply decided not to renew his contract, which means a lot of people working at the hospital who are familiar with him wouldn’t know he’s not meant to be here.”
“Hey! You can’t be down here without ID,” a young guy protested. He was wearing a blue apron that covered him from head to toe and white gloves that reached his elbows. “You need to leave.”
“Dr. Drake come past here?” I asked, ignoring the guy’s demands and walking further into the space. He seemed hesitant as I came closer, though I can’t imagine someone who loves working with dead people had great people skills when it came to the ones who were breathing.
“Dr. Drake?” he questioned, his eyes moving to the right, giving me the answer I needed before he even said, “Yeah, moved a body through to the loading bay. Said the family was coming to see it before we went through the motions.”
He came after Myth and me as we rushed down the long hall that opened out to a large space with a roller door that was wide open. “How long ago?”
“Like fifteen minutes?”
“Check it out,” Myth called, stepping outside.
I followed, instantly noting the empty bed and the sheet blowing in the breeze.
But no fucking Avery.
“Goddammit!” I screamed, grabbing the bed with two hands and hurling it across the concrete area outside, sending it crashing into the high wire fences. The young guy backed away slowly, but before he could escape, I rushed over, my hand going straight to his throat.
I slammed him back against the wall, jolting his body hard and knocking the air from his lungs.
So Garrett had her.
I could get her back.
I fucking knew that much, at least.
But there was one itching feeling sitting in the back of my mind that, up until this fucking point, I’d tried to ignore. How the fuck did he get her out of here without her warning someone she was there.
Avery was not a go-quietly type of girl.
Which meant I needed to ask a question I didn’t want to know the fucking answer to.
The kid struggled to breathe, his weak hands tugging at my wrist where I had him pinned to the wall. “Was the body on the bed dead?” I managed to force out, though it felt like as I did, someone was reaching down inside my throat and dragging my insides out.
I’d just officially made her mine.
Losing her was not an option.