“Yes, you can. Do it for her. Do it for Ari. Live for her. Make her life mean something. Give her that. Do that for her,” Roxy cried, moving to stand in front of me. “I loved my baby girl. She was mine too, and God help me. I miss her every damn day. You just have to find a reason to live, Ghost. Find it and live for her.”
I couldn’t stop her as she carefully took my gun from my hand. In the next instant, she had her arms wrapped around me as I sobbed. God help me. I couldn’t stop myself from hugging her back. I cried openly as she wept with me. I didn’t care who watched. I prayed they would never know the pain I felt—the all-encompassing ache of never having what I wanted most. “I loved her,” I finally admitted, saying the words out loud. It should have made the hurt go away, but it didn’t.
It made everything worse.
So much worse.
“I know, my sweet boy. I know.”
Twenty-Two
Bullseye
Two months later…
I woke up to bright lights shining in my eyes. Blinking a few times, I let my eyes adjust to my surroundings. My body felt stiff and sore all over. I could barely move my left leg. It hurt like a mother fucker. God, I was so thirsty. Moving my arm, I saw an I.V. attached to it and moaned. Fucking great.
Lifting the sheet covering me, I spotted the small tube sticking out of my dick. Great. A fucking catheter. I hated those things. I wasn’t going to be able to piss right for days now. Laying the sheet back down, I tried to get my bearings. My head was still a bit foggy, but I knew what I needed to do.
I needed to talk to Ghost.
He needed to know what I saw. I still couldn’t believe it myself, and I witnessed it. I just never thought I would ever see something like that. It was unbelievable.
Looking about, the room I noticed how sterile it was. Void of any identifying marks, except for the man snoring in the corner.
Healer?
Fuck. My head was killing me.
What the fuck did he do to me? Oh, that’s right. He stuck a tube up my dick. The fucking asshole. Paybacks were a bitch. What the hell was I doing back in California. Last I remembered, I was in Tennessee, searching for Malcolm Wagner. How the hell did I end up back here?
“Healer?” I rasped, my voice sore and dry. Fuck I needed some water. Maybe if I played nice, he would bring me some. Healer wasn’t like most doctors. He didn’t give a shit. He kept his patients sedated until they could walk out on their own. The man didn’t have a compassionate bone in his fucking body.
Healer jerked, the chair he was sleeping in sliding out from under him as he landed on the floor. “Fuck. Son of a bitch,” he cursed. If I weren’t so damn thirsty and sore, I would have laughed. I watched as he got to his feet and walk over to me.
“Hey, man. How are you feeling?”
“Like shit. I’m thirsty.”
Instead of pouring me a cup of water, he handed me a bottle of water. Yep, nothing changed. He was still a dick. After struggling to take the cap off, I took a long drink then asked, “What happened?”
“Poison dart.” He deadpanned as if it were an everyday occurrence. The man had no sympathy, no bedside manner. He was gruff and to the point. He didn’t believe in mincing words or sugar-coating anything. The man was a robot. How he became a doctor, I would never know.
“How did I get here?”
“Plane.” He said, putting his stethoscope in his ears as he listened to my heartbeat.
“A what?”
Sighing, he enunciated his words. “A.747.Medical. Transport.”
“Jesus Healer, can you give me something more?”
“Well, you were shot with a poison dart. A Doctor Roxanne Franks sliced the wound, which I wouldn’t have done. Drained the area and gave you the antivenom, but you had a reaction to it. After a lengthy call, Dr. Franks agreed to have you transported back home, so I could take over.”
“Bet she didn’t like that.”
“Nope. Hated it. Cursed me to hell and back. She even threatened me.”