Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 102929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
I didn’t have the privilege of graduating with my class or friends, but I’d sure as hell make sure Kraven did. Despite us only being a year apart, he’d always been my responsibility. I guess it came with the price of having junkie parents.
Shaking away my persistent thoughts, I securely wrapped my arm around her back to strap my helmet on her head. Keeping her upright after she passed out on my chest wasn’t where I thought this was leading, yet there we were. After I pulled her in tight against me and slid the hood over her head, I floored it out of the alley where my street bike was parked.
It was freezing, and hitting fifty in that frigid breeze wasn’t helping either. I drove through the backstreets to avoid being seen. How we were driving was highly illegal, and the last thing we needed was to get pulled over. I didn’t even know this girl's name, and the cops would have a field day with this unexpected situation.
My heart hammered out of my chest as I tried my best to go unnoticed. I hid her bruised and bloody face under my chin, keeping her nicely tucked under me until finally, I drove into our garage.
Kraven was nowhere to be found, though. Roland was already standing there with his arms crossed over his chest, and a dumbfounded expression spread across his face as I closed the garage door behind me with the clicker in my hand.
I hoped nobody followed me, but mostly, I prayed nobody was looking for her.
Notably, the cops.
“Boy,” he choked out in that disappointed regard he used on us often. “You better be playing with me right now.”
“Rola—”
“That better not be a passed-out girl in your arms.”
I immediately let out a long, heavy sigh, showing him that this wasn’t easy for me by any means. I was as conflicted as he was about the whole thing, and I couldn’t imagine how this appeared from an outsider’s perspective.
Shutting off the engine, I stared straight into his eyes, confessing the only truth I knew, “She’s hurt.”
“Juliu—” As soon as I pulled down the hood, revealing her beat-up face, his gaze went wide before shifting right to the gash on her eyebrow. “Fuck,” he said, and I didn’t blame him.
She looked like she had been run over by a bus, and he hadn’t seen the rest of her yet.
Feeling desperate, I blurted, “I’ll pay you.”
“Boy, don’t offend me,” he stewed, continuing to look her over from where he stood. “I don’t need your money.”
“I know.” I nodded, lifting her to stand. “But you’ll probably need to buy some supplies to fix her up, right? I’ll pay for them.”
I could feel his conflicting emotions throwing him for a loop while he hesitantly followed me inside. Each footstep sounded softer than the last. I needed to get her on a table, and time was not on our side.
After I gently laid her down on the dining table, I carefully removed Kraven’s hoodie so Roland could inspect the damage.
Another exasperated, “Fuck,” escaped his chest as he rounded the corner, his medical instincts finally kicking in as I knew they would.
I watched him go through proper protocol, trying not to shudder as he found more brutal injuries on her. Tons of cuts grazed her skin, but the ones on her forehead and forearm were the worst and needed stitches.
He grabbed a washcloth off the counter and set it on her head. “She’s lost a lot of blood, Julius.”
I nodded again, mostly because I didn’t know what to say. I barely knew how to feel. The effect she was having on me was an instant connection, and it couldn’t be ignored.
Besides, I didn’t want to ignore it.
“Boy…” Roland breathed out, shaking his head at me. “What part of my medical license being revoked do you not understand?”
“You’ve stitched us up before. Especially Kraven. What’s the problem?”
“The problem is I don’t know this girl from a hole in the wall”—he sternly pointed at me—“and neither do you.”
“Yeah, well, you’re sober now, right? Because you’re all she’s got.”
Through a clipped expression, he asked, “What happened to her?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Juliu—”
“Can you lecture me after you fix her up, Roland? Please.”
“Juli—”
“Come on,” I adamantly persuaded. “You took an oath to help people, and you know I can’t take her anywhere without getting in trouble myself. Nobody’s seen Joe for a minute, so he can’t be bribed to play good dad for the cops. You’re literally all she’s got, Dr. Matthews.”
He grimaced. It was quick, but I saw it. The truth was that Roland was a great doctor and a friend. He was just a bad drunk and suffering the consequences of that. He’d been looking out for us for as long as I could remember, battling his own demons like we all were.