Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 40484 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 202(@200wpm)___ 162(@250wpm)___ 135(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40484 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 202(@200wpm)___ 162(@250wpm)___ 135(@300wpm)
“What the hell were you thinking?” Trig muttered and wrapped the bleeding forearm with the clean fabric, as if his presence here was normal and should have been expected.
No hellos? No how-have-you-beens? Really? Five years had passed since their parting.
El flinched at the sight of one of the wounds in his arm spreading to bleed more right before it disappeared from sight. His arm felt oddly numb, as if shock had fogged his mind and wouldn’t allow him to clash with the reality of the self-inflicted pain.
“I… They’d torture me, so I… I thought it’d be better— Why were you in my attic?” he demanded with a deep breath, still dazed by what he’d witnessed.
“Why are those people after you?” Trig barked, ignoring El’s question. He pushed back his dark hair, which kept falling into his eyes. He wouldn’t have had that problem if he’d kept it long enough for a ponytail, like he used to when they’d still been together.
“I owe them money, okay? I had a business opportunity, and it went sour—” El simmered with anger when Trig’s lips thinned in response. “Don’t look at me like that! It seemed like a good investment at the time!”
Conflicting emotions washed over El when he looked at Trig, but the unexpected visitor at least distracted him from thinking of the slashed forearm. Trig had always been the more reasonable one, but the confidence and decisiveness he now oozed felt unfamiliar. It was as if he’d truly become a man while El had remained a boy in need of someone else’s help.
Trig’s usually calm features twisted, and he rose, dragging El with him. “A doctor needs to have a look at this.”
El had no strength to resist his firm grip, but that didn’t mean he liked it. So maybe he would have been toast if Trig hadn’t showed up, but he could take it from here. “Ridiculous. It’s just a few cuts. I’ve got bandages… somewhere.”
“Oh really? You can barely move your fingers,” Trig snarled, putting his hand on El’s nape. It was so big and warm El wanted to lean into its touch just as much as he longed to run from it. They were over. He didn’t want Trig’s help.
His gaze zeroed in on the patches attached to the front of Trig’s leather vest, and seeing them added fuel to a fire El thought was long extinguished. Trig had left him to become a member of a one-percenter motorcycle club, so what gave him the right to barge in here and pretend he cared after five years of silence?
With newfound fury, El shoved at Trig’s chest. “I’m fine!” Pain shot up his arm, as if the force put into the shove awakened numb nerves in El’s flesh. He gasped for air when blood rolled from under the T-shirt wrapped around his wounded forearm. Black spots appeared in his vision, and—he dropped.
Firm arms caught El before his bony knees could have hit the floor, but reality became fuzzy after that. The intact part of the ceiling emerged from the darkness for only a moment, leaving him to float on the surface of a terrifyingly still sea. A dark voice called his name from under the water, but its call was dull, and he ignored it, breathing in the scent of leather and fresh air.
A bang made El stir, awakening him to a dark sky, and the faint crescent moon peeking from behind a cloud.
For a moment, he was confused as to how he’d gone outside, but when his head rolled and met soft leather, he realized that Trig was carrying him.
“Okay, okay, I’ll drive to the doctor,” El mumbled, half-lucid.
“You’re not driving anywhere in this state,” Trig grumbled, but he couldn’t have been gentler when he helped El into the passenger seat of the old car with rips in the upholstery and trash littering the back seat. He even put El’s jacket in his lap. Once again, El was ashamed of his financial situation, but Trig didn’t seem to care about the state of the vehicle as he spoke into an earpiece. “Yeah, it’s not me who needs help, don’t worry. Just send me the contact to the doc,” he said, sliding in front of the wheel.
“I know where to go! There’s a free clinic close by,” El complained, increasingly agitated by the chaos his life had been plunged into. He wasn’t an organized person at the best of times, but three dead men in his house, a ruined ceiling, a slashed arm, and an ex demonically proficient at killing were more than enough to unhinge his reality.
“Could you repeat that, prez?” Trig asked, placing his hand over El’s mouth to shut him up. Unbelievable. “No, I doubt he has any insurance.”
The audacity! If only El wasn’t so weak, he’d have bitten those meaty fingers and made a run for it. As he sat there, forced to endure yet more proof of Trig’s involvement with the Coffin Nails MC, he couldn’t help but notice that Trig still wore the simple thumb ring El had given him years ago. Just a metal band with some skulls, but it had the date they met engraved on the inside, which made it a special memento.