Page 6 of Sinful Empire (Mount Trilogy 3)
“No!”
Keira
I don’t remember passing out, but when I wake up in a room dominated by white walls, an industrial gray floor, and the scent of antiseptic, I know I must have lost consciousness.
I jerk up in the hospital bed, my head swiveling from side to side. Bad move. The thumping gets worse, and so does my fuzzy vision.
But through the haze, I make out another bed lying empty a half-dozen feet away from mine.
Where is he? Thoughts of Lachlan being dragged away by strangers play like a nightmare through my brain. I have to find him.
Leads are attached to my chest, and I rip them off. The steady beeping of the equipment shrieks with an alarm.
I’m still attached to an IV, but I tear off the tape and prepare to yank it out. The door flies open, and a woman I’ve never seen before enters.
“Stop. You rip that out and we’ll just have to put another in. He insisted we not take any chances with you. Overkill all the way, in my opinion, but I’m not the boss.”
“Where is he?” My fingers grip the tubing like I’m a psych patient with a knife to my wrist. “Tell me, or I’ll have this out before you can take another step.”
Her head jerks back at the vehemence of my threat. “Docs are with him now, patching him up. No need to tear yourself apart and get him pissed at me because of it.”
My hand goes limp.
“Patching him up? How bad is it?” I remember the tear in his shirt and the blood pumping from the hole in his side. “What happened? Where am I?”
My memories are even more shattered than the night I got drunk in Dublin. The night I danced with Lachlan in a pub.
She responds to my questions out of order. “You’re in the clinic in the compound. We’re self-sufficient here. Mount was shot, a through-and-through. You’ve got a hell of a concussion on top of superficial cuts, bruising, and a decent-sized laceration on your right side. You were lucky it wasn’t deeper. Didn’t need sutures, just Dermabond. We cleaned you up and ran a bunch of tests. You’re going to be just fine.”
I look down at the blue hospital scrubs I’m wearing as though I can see through them. “Cuts and bruises and a concussion? Shouldn’t that hurt more?”
The woman, who I now assume is either a doctor or a nurse, laughs. “Honey, you’re doped up on enough painkillers that you should be feeling like a champ. Just . . . don’t rip the IV out. It’s messy. We’ve cleaned up plenty of blood already today.”
Enough about me.
“How long until he’s back? How bad was the gunshot? He’s going to be okay, right? He said he’d be okay. He promised.”
She studies me like I’m some kind of wild creature, and right now, that’s exactly what I feel like.
“He lost a hell of a lot more blood than you did. Didn’t even bother to try and stop the bleeding, and he knows better than that.”
My foggy memory recalls him giving me his jacket to stop my bleeding. Possibly at the expense of his own life.
“He’s not going to die.” It’s not a question. It can’t be, because I’ll lose it.
But the nurse or doctor, or whoever the hell she is, agrees. “No. You’re right. He’s not going to die. He’s too damn stubborn. Even the devil would send him right back.”
A tiny sliver of relief works its way into the panic crushing my chest.
“You’re sure?”
She gives me a nod. “He’s got a couple overqualified docs working on him. Only the best for Mount. But the stubborn ass wouldn’t let them touch him until they were done treating you.”
“What?” My voice breaks.
“He pulled a gun on them and everything.”
That sounds exactly like the man I know and love.
