Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 82930 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82930 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
At the sound of bikes, Dirty knew no one had brought a car, and that was what they needed.
****
Petal sat in the hospital waiting room. Kim was there, as was Rosalie, and the whole club. Or at least most of the club. She had noticed in the past couple of hours, men came and went, to relieve one or the other. She figured they all had jobs to do. Simply stopping was not the plan.
She’d not expected Dirty’s call, at least not so soon, and she had just finished the pancakes he wanted her to eat. They had tasted good. She didn’t know how he knew she hadn’t eaten breakfast, but she wasn’t going to argue with him.
Dirty had said he needed her to bring the car. One of the men was hurt bad, and she had to hurry. She told Tanya to man the diner, and she had gone without a second’s hesitation. Dirty had given her the directions, and when she arrived, she did not expect to see the man she did. She had never met Fritz, but he looked like he stepped out of a horror movie. Blood had covered his body, and he’d struggled to speak.
She knew it was going to take a lot of cleaning and scrubbing to remove the blood from her car, but she didn’t care. The man had needed medical attention.
Dirty paced the hospital waiting room, then he’d come sit with her, and get up and pace some more. He was angry and trying to contain it.
“Do you want some coffee?” Petal said, getting to her feet. She looked around the room and a few men raised their hands.
“I’ll come,” Kim said.
“No, it’s fine. I’ll go,” Dirty said.
Kim nodded. She was helping to settle the men. They were all angry. Fritz was one of them. They had made a vow to protect him, and he’d done everything to keep them safe. She heard them all say it, without saying the words directly. The men had failed. They didn’t know Fritz would be attacked.
She had no way of consoling them, no way of telling them it was going to be okay. She didn’t even know if it was going to be okay.
Walking down the long corridor, she passed the vending machine. There was a lot of coffee to buy, and she made her way toward the cafeteria.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“No,” Dirty said. “I shouldn’t have called you.”
Petal stopped and reached for his arm, getting him to stop. “I’m glad you called. I want to help.”
“Everything you do for the club puts you at risk.”
“I hate to break it to you, but I am already involved. They know who I am. My lies aside, I’m Rosalie’s best friend. I work at the diner that is owned by the club. I’ve got connections with you, and one of my friends is Myth. I’m part of this club.”
Dirty grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her in close. His lips went to her neck as he pressed his face there. She breathed him in. it felt good to finally have him in her arms.
“I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She closed her eyes, and even as they were waiting for news, this felt good. She knew it was wrong to feel anything right now, but it did feel so good. She didn’t want to stop holding him.
The hospital seemed to fade away and it was just the two of them. Of course, that didn’t happen for very long as notifications and requests for doctors came over the speakers. Petal pulled away. “Come on, let’s go and get some coffee. Tell me about Fritz.”
Dirty took her hand and she couldn’t help but smile as they headed toward the cafeteria.
“He’s … great. He is so … I don’t know. The man’s a machine with a computer. Terrible with a gun, and trust me, he cannot fight either. He tries, though. The man is like a machine in his own way. All he wanted to do was be a patched-in member of the club. He proved to the guys time and time again that he has our backs. Nothing was meant to happen to him.”
“This is Daemon’s club again, isn’t it?” Petal asked.
“Yeah, it is.”
“What happened to that house he took us to?”
“Nothing. There was nothing there. It was like a pit stop for them. Fritz was working on finding out who the leader was. The guy that took you was no leader.”
“That makes sense,” Petal said. “You’ll find them.”
She knew without saying the words that they were going to find them and then whoever did that to Fritz was going to pay.
****
Fritz was stable. For now.
Not one, but five teeth had been removed, and Warden didn’t need to be told it was without anesthetic. He had broken ribs, one of which had nearly punctured his lung. A broken leg, shattered bones in both his hands, to stop him from typing. Warden didn’t know why they had left him alive, but either way, he’d been left to hang there and bleed out. Did they mean to allow him to die slowly, waiting for the club?