“I’m not going without you.” Chevy slides his arms under my knees, along my back, and lifts me, cradling me against his chest as he walks toward his family. I’m too exhausted to argue. Only have the strength to slip my arms around his neck and rest my head in the crook of his neck.

“We’re almost there,” he says again. “Almost home. They see us and they’re coming for us now. We’re going to be okay.”

Okay repeats in my head, circles over and over again. Somehow I don’t think Chevy and I will find a way to be okay again.

CHEVY

THE NURSES SEPARATED me and Violet in the ER and I’m about to lose my mind. Being wheeled from place to place, IV in my arm keeping me grounded most of the day, too much time wasted in an MRI machine searching for a concussion that didn’t exist. Five staples in my head later and I’m wheeled back to my room with promises of being discharged.

The nurses are pissed Pigpen gave me a fresh pair of jeans and a T-shirt to change into. The hospital gown wasn’t cutting it.

I did allow the staff to numb my head for the staples, but I’ve refused pain medication. Don’t need my brain fogged. Need to think straight. Need to be in control.

I’m seventeen, which means pediatric ward, and I’m having a hard time digesting pictures of clowns holding kittens. I’ve had a gun held on me by an illegal motorcycle club. While having the hell beat out of me, I caught glimpses of the only girl I’ve ever loved running into the line of fire...for me.

When that bang reverberated against my skin, my soul crumbled because I thought she was dead. I thought I was dead. And if I wasn’t dead, I wasn’t sure how I could go on living without her. Kittens and clowns don’t make sense to me anymore. Feels abnormal in dark reality.

The aide turns the corner and outside my room are men in Reign of Terror black leather cuts and my mother. From the way she’s shaking her head and finger, black hair swinging from side to side, she’s furious and she has a right to be. I went missing, I scared her and Mom doesn’t handle scared well.

“I want you out of his life.” Mom points in the direction of the elevators. “I want you gone. I want all of you gone.”

“I understand you’re upset, Nina.” Cyrus holds up his hands in an act of submission. “But I have every right to be here.”

“Right?” Mom’s eyes bulge from her head. “You have no rights.”

Not in the mood to play referee, I place a hand on the tire of my wheelchair. The aide looks down at me and I say, “That’s my dysfunction in the hallway. Mind leaving me here for a few?”

He’s a young guy, probably in his twenties. With an expression of you-would-have-fared-better-being-born-to-wolverines, he backs me up without the beeping and offers me a weak fist bump before heading to the nurses’ station.

I’m angled so they’d have to really search to see me, but I can watch them.

“He was kidnapped!” Mom leans into Cyrus like she’s willing to punch him in the gut. “Do you even understand what that means? He was held against his will. My son had an MRI performed, is getting staples in his head because a rival motorcycle gang you have a problem with took him against his will and hurt him. As far as I’m concerned, you lost the right to see him the moment they laid hands on him.”

“He’s my grandson,” Cyrus states calmly, and I swear Mom’s hair stands on end.

“And he’s my son. Not yours. You lost yours and don’t you forget I know why you lost James. Not many people in town can say that, can they? But I know and I will not make the same mistakes you did. Leave now or I’m telling the police to shove you out.”

The area near the staples in my head pulses. James. My father. The Riot said he was a traitor. The pulse turns into a pound and I rub at my head, trying to avoid the cut. What did Skull mean by traitor? What does it mean for me, if anything, if he was?

Thinking of what Skull told me about my father, my mind wanders. I’ve never questioned anyone on my father’s relationship with Mom or his family. Felt the tug-of-war strings being pulled at an early age, so I decided to stay neutral. Bringing up my father meant inviting people to make me choose a side.

“Excuse me.” A nurse in Hello Kitty scrubs who couldn’t weigh a buck twenty wet enters the fray and cracks a clipboard against the wall to gain everyone’s attention. According to her name tag, her name is Becky. “All of you need to either take this outside, away from the hospital, or stop. This is a hospital, a children’s floor for that matter, not a bar.”

I wince on Mom’s behalf.

Nurse Becky scans Cyrus, then my mother. “I don’t have a problem calling the police on either of you.” She then surveys the rest of the guys in the hallway. “Or on any of you. That was your first and only warning.”

Becky walks away, Mom and Cyrus communicate through glares and my aide returns. “That help?”

Yes. No. “For the short-term.”

“Pain meds, bro. It’s the way to handle the long-term.” The aide wheels me back around the corner and this time Mom, Cyrus and the rest of the crew hanging in the hallway notice. Most of the guys offer some sort of greeting, my grandfather looks at me like he’s proud and my mother smiles in sadness.

They create a clog my aide won’t push through and I’m stuck in the hallway. Mom on one side. Cyrus on the other. Tug-of-war.

“You okay?” Mom’s face turns an ugly shade of gray as her eyes wander over my head. On top of scared not being her thing, neither is blood.