The nurse opened the door, and I rushed inside, not giving two shits about the pain in my hip. Skins said I was lucky. After we’d cleaned away the blood, he said the bullet just skimmed the surface, but I’d managed to tear the wound when I moved around, making it worse. The asshole stitched it up without any anesthetic, and he was lucky I didn’t punch him in the fucking mouth.
Skins was still at the house, there were no fatalities, but we still ended up with our fair share of injuries. We were damn fucking lucky.
I just wanted to get to Meyah.
She was sitting at the edge of a hospital bed—one that had those weird stirrup things which women placed their feet in to have babies—answering questions the nurse was asking. I was confused for a moment, given that Skins had told me she was fine.
It didn’t stop me, though, and she looked up just in time to see me coming. Her face instantly falling, and her arms reaching out for me. She opened her legs, and I slipped in between them, taking her face in my hands and swallowing her emotional sob.
I just needed to taste her, to touch her and know she was in one piece. It wasn’t enough for me to hear it from someone else.
She gripped my club cut in her fingers pulling me as close as humanly possible before she slipped her arms around my waist and linked her fingers at my back as if she wasn’t going to let me go again. I gently pulled my lips back, and she whimpered, squeezing me a little tighter.
“Sorry,” the nurse apologized softly, stepping up beside us. “I just need to check Meyah’s leg. If it’s okay, I can get her out of here, and you can take her home.”
“You gotta let me go, fury fists,” I muttered, pressing my lips to her forehead and stepping back. She slowly and reluctantly released me. “How bad is it?”
“They’re making sure she hasn’t lost too much blood.”
I turned to find Romeo sitting in the corner of the room, his arms folded across his chest, sunken back into the most uncomfortable looking hospital chair. His eyes were narrowed on Meyah.
“I’m fine,” Meyah snapped, and when I turned to look at her, she was glaring back at Romeo with just as much intensity. “It was just a scratch. I must have caught it on the corner of something.” The Nurse cut what looked like a torn piece of Romeo’s shirt from her leg, dropping the now blood-soaked and stained sky blue material into the wastebasket beside her.
“Looks like it’s finally clotted. It’s not very big,” the nurse noted, checking the size before moving toward the cabinet that held the bandages and disinfectants. “What happened exactly?” The tone she used, even though she fought to make it sound casual, was suspicious of the situation.
Meyah licked her lips. She was nervous, her eyes scooting between Romeo and me. “I think I caught it on a nail or something sticking out of the side of the house,” she rambled. “My aunt, she went into labor, and my uncle was yelling, and we were panicking, and I just wasn’t watching where I was going.”
The story was plausible.
“And the grass stains and grazes on your back?” the nurse continued to question, and I could see by the look in her eyes she’d have no problem taking this shit further if we didn’t—
“Look, lady,” Romeo growled. “This isn’t exactly the way I wanted my brother to find out I was fucking his girlfriend out in the backyard while he was helping out with the wedding, okay? So if you could just mind your own fucking business next time that would be fucking fine and dandy.”
The nurse’s cheeks instantly flushed, her mouth moving, but no sound coming out.
“Romeo!” Meyah gasped, looking absolutely horrified, but soon clicking on to what was happening. If the nurse called the cops crying abuse, there would be a lot more questions to answer, and right now, our asses were hanging out a little further than we’d like them to be. “Ham, I’m really sorry. I… um… I just…”
Meyah was a horrible actress which was probably one of the things I loved about her the most. Her inability to lie or make out like she’s feeling any emotion other than what she’s feeling.
I held up my hand to stop her blubbering. “We’ll talk later,” I scolded before turning to face Romeo and pointing at the door. “A word… oh, young brother of mine.”
“I’m very sorry,” the nurse continued to apologize as we made our way out the door, the sentiments continuing toward Meyah as I pulled it closed behind me.
Romeo was instantly hit with the force of a small rocket in the shape of our little sister. She wrapped her arms around him, and buried her face in his chest, clutching his dirty torn shirt in her hands. Op, Chelsea, and Blizzard weren’t far behind her, making their way up the hallway, no doubt in search of the newest member of our family.
Romeo detangled himself and pushed Phee gently back. “I need to get out of here. I’ve watched Meyah, now y’all are here, I have shit I need to handle.”
I reached out and grabbed a handful of his shirt, not letting him get away that easily. “You’re not leaving this place on your own,” I argued, my body tense and poised, waiting for him to take a swing at me.
“Let me fucking go, Hamlet.”
“Like hell.”
He turned the tables quickly just walking toward me, forcing me backward until my back hit a wall. “Don’t you get it,” he barked, keeping his voice low and his eyes focused on me. “That was all him. He gave me a week according to Meyah, and that week’s up tomorrow. He got sick of waiting. Got scared I wasn’t going to hand myself in. Took an opportunity to make a fucking point.”
Optimus and Blizzard stood to the side, but Chelsea grabbed Phee’s hand and pulled her behind them letting me know they were prepared for the two of us to explode.
“Stop it!” Phee cried, holding tight to Chelsea, her eyes a mixture of pain at seeing us fight, and annoyance where she wanted to smash our heads together.