Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 75833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
I didn’t make plans for what came after we found them. Not yet. For now, I held Melody, and I waited.
She jolted awake thirty minutes later, breath catching like she’d been falling in a dream. “Is she—”
“No update.” I rubbed up and down her arm, careful around the road rash. “You slept.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“You needed to.” I tilted my head. “Water?”
She nodded. I got up, stretched the knots out of my back, and grabbed two from a vending machine that wanted to rob me. Pinky leaned a hip on it and gave the machine a look that changed its mind. He cracked a grin when I snorted.
I brought the water back to Melody and sat. She twisted the cap with hands that still shook and drank in small sips, like even water needed permission right now to enter her.
“I keep seeing it,” she said after a moment. “Not the impact. The time before it. When Tiny was smiling and Lyric was leaning into him and I thought, ‘this is what safe looks like,’ and then—” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Like the world played a joke.”
“Safe didn’t vanish because two cowards decided to aim their truck wrong,” I said. “Safe is a net with a lot of ropes. You fell. We caught you. We’ll keep catching you.”
She looked at me like she wanted to believe it and was afraid to. Then she squeezed my fingers hard enough to hurt, like testing the rope herself. “We might not have caught Lyric. And they’re not done, they will come again,” She couldn’t finish.
“They won’t get this far,” I explained. “But if they do?” I held her gaze steady. “They’d learn what fucking with an ‘old lady’ means carved in bone.”
Color touched her cheeks despite everything. She took another drink and leaned against me, the top of her head fitting under my chin like a thing designed.
The doors finally opened and a surgeon stepped out. He was older than the last doc, hair gone to steel, eyes red at the rims like he’d been in the fight with her. He scanned the room, found our cluster by the wall, and came our direction.
We stood as one without even talking about it. Enzo appeared at my shoulder like he’d been conjured. The surgeon stopped in front of us and slid his mask down.
“Family for Lyric Truman?” he asked.
“Yes,” DK said, and the word came out like a truth, not a legal technicality. “How is she?”
“She’s alive,” he said, and a sound went through us like a pressure valve letting off. “She lost a lot of blood. We removed a ruptured spleen, repaired lacerations to her liver, and addressed some internal bleeding. She’s critical, but stable for the moment. The next twelve to twenty-four will tell us more. She’s headed to ICU.”
Melody’s knees gave and I got an arm around her waist quick. Relief is mean like that—it knocks harder than dread.
“And Tiny?” I asked, throat tight. “Braxton Davis.”
“Neurosurgery is continuing to monitor,” the surgeon said. “The bleed’s not expanding at the rate we feared. That’s a good sign, but I’m not going to lie to you—head injuries are unpredictable. We’ll know more by morning.”
“Can we see her?” Melody asked, voice small but sure. “Just for a second?”
“Once she’s settled in ICU,” he said. “One at a time, limited time, and you keep voices low. She’ll know you’re there even if she doesn’t respond.”
“Thank you,” DK said, and the doc nodded and left.
Melody turned into me, pressing her face into my chest, and the sob that tore out of her felt like it came from the bottom of the ocean. I held on and let it wash through us both. It wasn’t over. Not even close. But we had a grip.
When she calmed, DK’s phone buzzed. He scanned the screen, then lifted his eyes to mine. “Cops confirmed plate to BJ’s father,” he said. “They’ve got a BOLO out. They’ll put plainclothes on the hotel and around here for a day. We’ll do our own.”
“Church call it.” I ordered.
“Ten minutes,” DK said as he began typing the mass message. “Out in the lot. I want you in it, Thrasher, Mel will be in with Lyric, “he softened, and that alone could’ve brought a weaker woman to tears, “you’re coming with us only as far as the door. Pinky’ll sit with you. When ICU lets one in, you go. We’ll rotate after. We gotta make some plans.”
She nodded, wiping her cheeks with her wrists like a kid, and then she straightened her spine. She looked small and scraped up and more dangerous than anyone who’d ever tried to put her in a box. I kissed her forehead hard enough to anchor me, then handed her to Pinky like I was giving a man a treasure to guard. With his parole, he couldn’t be tied up in what came next. Having him visible in this hospital would make shit even better for him when it hit the fan.