My mind blanks for a long time. I don’t have an answer to anything he’s just said to me. I know I need to keep fucking moving, keep Allie in my heart and keep the club in my head.
“I ain’t gonna go straight for her parents when all this shit’s over with. She’s coming home to be with her old man,” I say firmly.
“Even if she asks you to?”
That’s a tough question, her or the club? Do I have an answer for that?
“She wouldn’t, and if she does, I’ll chain her up in the clubhouse,” I say with a smile.
And for the first fucking time since this shit happened, I actually feel like I’m giving a real smile.
“Fuck, man, that’s a good answer,” he snickers before he starts taking his kutte and shirt off.
“Dude, what the fuck are you doing?” I ask as he hands me his kutte. “You ain’t, uh, tryin’ to tell me somethin’, are you?”
Looking at me, he grins even bigger. “Been awhile since I’ve been behind some bars, but this should do the trick.”
With those words, he kicks off his boots and then shucks his pants down to the ground.
“The fuck?” I ask.
“Grab my shit, brother. You won’t have long.”
With that, the fucker rips open the stairwell door and starts whooping and hollering like he’s some batshit insane mental patient.
Trying to stick somewhat close to him, I watch as he stops directly in front of a cute little nurse and does a few rotations of the helicopter in front of her.
Leaning down, he kisses her right on the forehead before skipping toward a stunned doctor.
And I mean skipping like a little fucking girl down the hallway, shouting something about tulips up his ass.
Shit all over the hall gets tossed in the air as he goes about his happy little rampage.
“Fuckin’ love that dude,” I mutter to myself before heading directly for Allie’s room.
All the security for this floor is now trying to chase Gremlin down, so now’s my chance to be close to her again.
I don’t see any of her security outside so I open the door as quietly as I possibly can. Looking in, I crane my head around the door to see if I can spot anyone. I don’t see her parents or any nurses either, thank fuck.
Stepping fully into the room, I can feel my fingers twitching in the anticipation of finally feeling the one person in this world that I want to touch.
That soft, silky feeling of her cheek.
The way her golden hair feels as it slides through my fingers.
Even if I don’t have long, I have to have one touch.
I need to feel her to ground me back to earth. To help me stabilize my heartbeats, to keep me sane.
But there’s nothing here, only an empty bed with the sheets removed. Allie’s not here, and I don’t see any sort of flower arrangement or cards set up anywhere.
What the fuck?
Running out of the room, I rush up to the nurse’s desk.
I can barely breathe by the time my thick tongue feels like it can move. “Where is she?”
Eyes wide and looking at me like I’m some sort of fucking nut, the nurse says, “Sir? How can I help you?”
“Where’s Allie Stack at?” I nearly shout.
Her voice raises close to mine, “Excuse me?”
“Where is the girl? Allison Stack? She was in a coma right the fuck over there!” I snarl out, my temper finally breaking through all the pain and suffering I’ve been drowning in.
The nurse stands up from her chair. “She’s gone! She’s no longer with us!”
She isn’t annoyed with me now. No, now she’s fucking scared. I can almost smell the fear coming off her.
Gone.
Such a simple word. So simple, yet I can feel my very being falling down into a pit of despair.
She’s gone. Those words the doctors talked about, the brain scale numbers or whatever, those things must have gone bad…
I didn’t even get to kiss her goodbye and tell her I’d see her soon.
I’ll never again get to feel her lips brush against my own or smell her sweet scent when I hold her in my arms.
Walking away from the nurse’s station, I head for Allie’s room and feel like each step is only forcing me to accept the hard truth I learned so very long ago.
Nothing good can stay in this life.
Sliding down the wall outside of where she must have drawn her last breath, I finally let out the breath I’ve been holding ever since the accident. The one where I knew the other shoe had yet to drop.
Well, I guess it’s dropped now.
Some man in an officer’s uniform comes to stand in front of me after a while, and while I know it’s not the answer I was looking for, I guess this fucker will do.
I stand up when he starts saying shit I don’t understand.
I don’t really hear the words coming out of his mouth before I rear back and slug his chin with everything I have in me.
All the hurt, all the hate, and all the love I will never have again, go into my fucking punch.
And I’ll be fucking damned if I don’t connect square with his chin and watch him fall to the ground like a sack of bones.
Before I’m even aware of anything else that’s going on besides this dude on the ground, I’m tackled to the floor.
My arms are yanked behind my back and a knee is dropped on my neck with cuffs going around my wrists.
This will be a first for me. I ain’t ever been behind bars before.
The cell door slams shut behind me after a nice hard shove from the dickhead cop I laid the fuck out. I know I punched his ass pretty damn good, but the fucking bitch didn’t need to use his nightstick on me like he did.
Fucking pussies, the lot of them. No different than us bikers, except we actually care about the community.
“What the fuck, Coy!” Gremlin shouts at me as he stands up from the bench he’s been sitting on.
Thank fuck, he’s finally got clothes on.
“Figured if you were gonna be in a cell… I might as well keep ya company,” I say and shrug my shoulders.
Striding over to me, he looks at my swollen eye then starts prodding my busted lip.
Pushing his fingers away from me, I turn to the face the bars and look out them.
Fuck, this is a first for me, never been on this side of the bars. Guess I had to break my cherry sometime.
I’ve lost everything else in the world the that matters, why not my freedom too?
“Christ alive, Coy, they fucking tore into you. I’ll fuckin’ kill ‘em,” Gremlin snarls.
He must see what I suspect is blood on the back of my shirt. Fucking pig hit me on the back of my head before he threw me in the police car.
Waving my hand at him, I shake my head. “Don’t, brother. Just…”
Words aren’t my thing right now.
She’s gone and I’m fucking behind bars.
“Do you understand how this fucking looks, you dumb fuck?” Gremlin roars into my ear. “How this shit’s gonna look to your father?!”
Turning to face him now, I want to say something, but what can I say?
“Thanks for trying to get me in to see her,” I finally say before breathing out, “We were too fucking late. But thanks, man.”
He tried to get me in there. He honestly tried to help me see the girl I love.