“For listening to me.” Maybe she didn’t remember that part. But I did. “I need your help to get you out of here, Boo-Boo.”
Her mouth formed a perfect little ‘O’ and I was in such a good mood, I didn’t even mention blowjob face. Oh, so fucking tempting. Really… tempting. I wanted to throw myself at the crack in the glass separating her from us and blow it open. Boo-Boo was right there, within touching distance, and goddammit I wanted Boo-Boo back.
“You look shocked,” I said. “I mean, I get this is like some kind of wealthy booby hatch and you got boobs—I mean they’ve kind of shrunk but so have you—not that they aren’t nice boobs. They are. So maybe it's rude to say booby hatch. Can you hear the guys right now?”
Another giggle fell out of her and she cast a look around, then hesitated when she stared at Bodhi. He stared right back at her and I narrowed my eyes. If he told her how he would kill her…
“Who do you want to kill?” Oh, that was a way better question.
Her eyes shuttered for a minute, but she glanced toward the nurses. Grandma and Big Ox Broderick were over there. Got it.
"Anyway,” she said, focusing on putting the puzzle pieces together with intensity. “Should we be talking with…”
“Bodhi,” the guy said. “I’m pretty much nuts. They wouldn’t believe me even if I recited back your whole conversation.”
Yeah, not helping, but Boo-Boo surprised me when she stared at him for a moment. “You’re Jock Cavendish’s son.”
“Damn,” Bodhi said slowly, elongating the word as he sat back. “Pretty and smart. You want to dump him and run away with me? I’ll kill anyone you want.”
“Don’t make me stab you,” I threatened him and Bodhi grinned as he leaned back in the chair.
“That could be fun, too.”
Yeah. Certifiable.
“I don’t want to run away with you,” Emersyn told him, and Bodhi nodded his head.
“But that’s not a no to killing people. I like you.”
When Emersyn shot me a mystified look, I laughed. “He grows on you.”
Laughing felt so weird.
At the same time, I’d found her. I’d found Boo-Boo.
I shifted my gaze from her to where Grandma was. She’d looked up from the desk and stared at Emersyn. What I wouldn’t give for a knife right now. We needed to get her the hell out of here.
Boo-Boo got to spend a whole three hours in the community room, but then the bitchy Grandma with the “sugar will kill you she was so sweet” attitude, brought her pills when she noticed her having a good time.
The stricken look in Emersyn’s eyes gutted me, but I nodded. If we made a stink right now, she could get dragged out of here and I could end up hurting a lot of people. I was pretty sure Bodhi and I could take the ones in here. But it was the ones outside of the community room that I worried about most.
And I wasn’t risking her in here. Getting her into the community room was a good start. The next was to get a message to Liam. I hadn’t spoken to my “brother” the whole time I’d been here. I hadn’t even tried.
When I asked after dinner, I was told “not today.” Right, not waiting around to see if they changed their mind. Lockdown began a little after seven. There was no television in my room, but I had managed to score a couple of books from the library. Soon as they locked the door and left, I went to take a piss and coughed out the evening pills.
Now, I just had to wait. I sprawled on the bed and read one of the books, not that I saw much of the words. I just had to wait. The last few nights had given me a really good idea of the schedule. Even without a clock, I had the timing down. After the lights visible through the textured glass went dark, I gave it another fifteen minutes.
Stretching a hand up, I shut off the light. Then I went to work freeing the clip from the inside of the book. Dumb luck had been on my side in the library. A bobby pin had been on the floor, tucked right up against the edge of the shelves. The paperclip I’d pocketed when I’d gone to “check” out my books.
I’d been tempted to take a regular pen but there was nowhere to hide that easily. The bobby pin, flattened, tucked right into the pages. The same with the paper clip. No one searched the books. It was all win-win. Before dinner, I had to leave them in my room. That meant risking someone finding them. Luckily, no one had touched them in my absence.
With care, I kept an eye on the door while I chewed off the plastic ends on the bobby pin. I spit them out into my hand and then shoved them under the bed before I crept out of it. The whole week, I’d looked for some kind of camera in here and unless they had it super hidden, there wasn’t one.
I’d deal with the one in the hall when I got there. The doors locked from the outside—comforting, right? Then again, this wasn’t the first place I’d ever stayed where they tried to lock me in. The less I thought about that, the better. Forcing myself to be patient, I waited at the door for what felt like an eternity.
In my head, I hummed Crazy Little Thing Called Love. The song was just under three minutes. When I finished it, I went to work with the bobby pin and the paper clip. The locks weren’t super fancy, it took a minute to work the angle, but it popped neatly and the tumblers gave. Twisting the knob, I swung the door inward. No lights came on at the motion and I kept my makeshift picks hidden in my hand.
So far, so good.
The nurse’s station was at the end of the hall. Boo-Boo wasn’t on this hall. There were two others—thank you Bodhi for noticing—he thought she’d be in the VIP wing. I did not want to know what they considered a VIP here.
When no one jumped out at me and no alarms went off, I made my way down the hall. I walked steadily, no hesitations as I followed the path I’d mapped to avoid most of the security cameras. Some were inevitable, but I had to hope if I didn’t try to be stealthy, they wouldn’t catch the movement. If they did, it would look like I was supposed to be out here.
It took me a hot minute to locate the doors that led to the VIP wing. They were locked and fuck my life, a card reader. Okay. I back tracked to the community room. No one was in there. I popped the lock on the door to where the orderlies and nurses retreated when we were in here.
Third drawer of the desk proved to be the jackpot. A spare white badge. I took it and checked for more, then headed back to the door.
The reader went from red to green as I scanned it, and then I was through.
Yes.
On the heels of that triumph, however, came the very real question of where to now? No nurse’s station seemed in evidence. Maybe VIPs didn’t need a full station? Whatever. I checked the location of the cameras and started down the hall. One perk of being on this side of the doors, all I had to do was open them.
They weren’t locked on the outside. One by one, I checked the rooms. C’mon Boo-Boo. No whammies. No whammies.
Movement in the hall had me ducking into one of the rooms and I pushed the door almost all the way closed and waited. But the sound of the nurse talking on the phone passed right by without slowing down. When her voice faded away, I let myself back out. The person on the bed snored like a motorboat.
Definitely not Boo-Boo.
Six doors down, I found her.
Elation quickly turned to fury when I got a good look at her. She was sound asleep, but she was also strapped to her bed. Even in the half-light of the room, I could make out the velcro restraints.