My eyes fluttered open and I came to as my body jerked to the side. We were no longer outside the lodge, but in a vehicle. A vehicle that was moving very quickly, judging by the way I was being jolted across the seat. Joker kept his eyes on the road, sneaking glances over at me every few seconds.

I wanted to know where Twitch was, but I couldn’t find the words in the heavy fog that had settled over my entire body. The radio played nothing but intermittent static in the background, as if the music was gasping for air.

It took me a minute to realize that the sound was coming from me.

Joker brushed moisture off of his cheeks and shook me to stay awake. I stared up at him in confusion. Bikers didn’t cry, did they?

The light bounced in and out of the truck as it broke through the trees and I watched it, mesmerized by the colors. It didn’t matter how many times I saw it; the sunrises and sunsets were always different. The colors were similar, but slightly varied in shade.

I’d broken my arm when I was eight, attempting a back handspring on the trampoline with my next-door neighbor. The doctors had to put me under to reset my radius, and I remembered lying on the table and being told to count backward from one hundred as they administered the anesthesia.

That was how I felt now—disconnected and drowsy.

I’d never had blow affect me like that before. I’d also never had my face forced into a pile of it. What had Clint said it was laced with?

I lost my train of thought; still seeing the colors of the sunset as they burned through my eyelids. Joker shook me again, harder this time, and my eyes reluctantly opened to stare through the passenger window.

Joker was going to fix everything. He was going to get me help—perhaps I was finally going to meet that elusive mountain doctor. If I stared hard enough, I could just make out the edge of his cabin back in the trees. Charm would find Blade and this whole thing would be something we laughed over during dinner tonight.

The vehicle shook again and my body collided with the stick shift before hitting the seat back. A vehicle was really nothing more than a coffin made of metal and glass.

People who live in glass coffins shouldn’t throw stones.

I smiled at the thought just before my body began convulsing again.

I awoke beside the back wheel of the truck, just as the last rays of daylight began to fade away. I slowly eased myself into a sitting position and found that I felt much better. Maybe I’d vomited all the drugs up. I tentatively touched my forehead, but it was smooth and dry. Joker must’ve gotten the bleeding stopped. I knew he’d come through.

“Joker?” I called out, as I used the wheel well to stand up. I could hear his heavy breathing near the front of the truck as I cautiously approached him.

The poor guy was probably traumatized—it had to have brought up memories of Rae for him. He was on his hands and knees on the asphalt, huffing and puffing.

“Joker? I’m feeling better. I’m so sorry I scared you.” I reached out a hand to touch his shoulder, but it passed through and I stared at it in confusion before stepping around him.

As I did, my other hand came up to my mouth in a gasp. It couldn’t be. Wetness hit my cheeks as I shook my head from side to side. Joker wasn’t on his hands and knees in shock. He was on his hands and knees doing CPR. On me.

There was absolutely no scientific explanation for this—no reason that I should be having an out-of-body experience.

Tears fell from his own face and onto the body that once belonged to me. My face was ashen—cheek bruised and swollen. A stream of dried blood ran from my hairline down to my nose, while white powder clung to my cheek. Joker somehow managed to avoid touching it as he puffed air into my lungs. The eyes that had wanted to remain closed were now wide open, yet unseeing. He continued doing chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth, even as the red and blue lights lit up the highway.

A police officer jumped out and immediately radioed for help, before taking over for Joker when it became apparent that the biker was tiring. An ambulance arrived within minutes and they lifted me off the asphalt.

I couldn’t feel any of it.

I pinched my arm, but my body had gone numb. I feared that this was a nightmare that I wasn’t going to wake up from. Before I could make the choice of whether or not to stay behind with Joker, I was pulled into the ambulance with my body.

The paramedics slapped tape pads onto my chest as the robotic voice of the defibrillator filled the small cabin. “Shock advised. Please stand clear.”

This was going to snap me out of this state. I hovered near the back of the ambulance, wringing my hands. My body gave a small jolt, but nothing happened.

 “We’ve got a pulse,” one called to the other.

It didn’t make sense to me—if I had a pulse, then why was I here and my body there?

We arrived at the hospital in Kasselhessen and they rushed me through the sliding doors, but I fought to stay back—to make sure Joker was okay.

He arrived and tried to follow after them, but was stopped by the nurses. “Sir, you’ll have to stay out here. Can you tell us what happened?”

He began signing, ‘She’s been hurt—I don’t know if she took something.’ He stopped and his shoulders shook with silent sobs.

“Was she in a car accident?”

He shook his head, clearly growing frustrated by the fact that no one knew what he was trying to communicate.

The nurse gave up her questioning and wrapped an arm around his shoulders before leading him to a private room. Within minutes, another person arrived to translate for him. He signed everything he knew, which was sadly not much. He hadn’t seen Blade—the only people who had were all dead. They assured him that they were doing everything they could to save me and left him alone again.

Where was Twitch?

I wanted to believe that he was okay—I needed him to tell the others who was responsible for this. Why would Joker have left him behind?

The door to the small waiting area flew open and Rooster burst in, wide-eyed and panting. “Gunner told us—is she okay, J?”

He shook his head and lowered it back down to his hands.

Rooster sank down into the chair closest to him. “The guys are right behind me—what the hell happened?”

“Blade happened. He drugged me and—” My voice broke off in a sob, although neither man appeared to hear me.

“It fucking sucks, doesn’t it?”

I jerked my head to the side and saw Axel sitting in a chair a few feet away from Joker and Twitch. “Oh my god, Axel. You’re okay!” I ran over and embraced him.

He laughed. “Yeah, about that. Spoiler alert—I don’t make it.”

The smile faded on my lips. “But, you’re here,” I protested.

“Neve, I am here, but I’m the only one who can hear and see you. What do you think that means?”

“I think it’s a dream. Just some extremely vivid and realistic dream, right? I’ve heard of this happening in times of extreme stress. I’m probably in a coma—that’s it. My brain has imagined this entire situation as a way of coping with my trauma.”

He shook his head and replied, “I don’t think so.”

I swallowed against the lump in my throat. “But they got a pulse. They found a pulse on me! How can you be stuck here if you’re dead?”

He looked around. “Well, maybe it’s a waiting room—get it? Because we’re stuck in an actual waiting room.”

“That can’t be it—dead people don’t have a pulse! Maybe I’m just having a psychotic break brought on by the overdose.” It sounded crazy, even to me, but if it meant I wasn’t dead—well, I would’ve believed in just about anything at this point.

He chuckled to himself. “Alright, let’s go with that. I was never much of a hippie or new-age guy, but I bet we could rustle up some healing crystals down in the gift shop and give ‘em a whirl.”

Rooster paced the room, speaking tersely into his cell phone, while Joker stared a hole through the door. Maybe Axel was right—any minute now, a doctor would come in and tell them that I didn’t make it. The thought was too painful to dwell on—I needed a distraction.

“How’d you know that something was wrong?”

He leaned back and where I expected the chair to squeak, there was silence. “I’ve had a bad feeling about Blade for a while now—obviously, I couldn’t voice that to Charm, seeing as to how I was just some lowly prospect. After the shit he pulled with you at the clubhouse that day, I kept an eye on him and, when the alarms were tripped at the storage building, I told Charm I’d handle it. I expected to see cops swarming the place, but there was nothing. I thought about it and realized that the alarms provided the perfect diversion, leaving you completely alone. I was too late though.”

I mulled over his words. He’d actively gone after the leader of another MC for me. “Why’d you do it?”

He laughed heartily. “Why’d I do it? Neve, you’ve singlehandedly turned this club around. Everything you touch becomes something else—something better. I didn’t get it at first; thought you were just another club whore wannabe. It wasn’t until Twitch mistakenly referred to you as Rae that it clicked though. I always had a soft spot for that girl—she was a fucking mess, but there was just something about her.

“I realized you must be pretty damn special if every member of Charm’s group was willing to vouch for you. When the guys said he was claiming you—well, that just made everything concrete. I respect the hell out of Charm and he’s not a man to fuck with.”

My chest tightened at the mention of his name and I wondered if they’d told him. If I ever woke up again, would he believe that I didn’t willingly use?

The door opened and the men’s heads popped up expectantly as Blade calmly walked in. He was wearing a beanie over his hair, probably trying to cover up where Joker grazed him with the bullet. Axel and I were on our feet instantly. We shouldn’t have worried—he wasn’t able to see us either.

“I came as soon as I heard,” he exclaimed.

Rooster furrowed his brow. “And how the fuck did you hear about it? Where have you been? You were supposed to be following us down to the Springs.”

I watched as his throat twitched slightly from nervousness. He’d waltzed into a pit of cobras, pretending to be a snake charmer, and I prayed that they’d see right through him and his lies. Unfortunately, he recovered before the others noticed. “Axel…I overheard him mention Neve and the plans he had for her. I tried to hang back and follow him, but I was too late. One of the others directed me here. Is she gonna make it?”

Axel growled and lunged for Blade, falling right through him and onto the linoleum floor. “Motherfucker,” he screamed. He got right back up and began throwing punches, all of which easily passed through Blade’s body.

It was at that point that the doctor walked in and looked around at the motley crew scattered throughout the waiting room. Axel gripped my shoulder in his hand and I held my breath, awaiting my fate.

“I understand you’re here with the female patient…” He trailed off, waiting for someone to give him my name.

Rooster stopped pacing. “Neve. Neve Ryan.”

That was most certainly not my last name.

The doctor nodded. “And you are?”

Rooster pointed at Joker, conveniently leaving Blade out. “We’re her brothers. Her husband should be here in the next five—”

The door flew open and Charm burst in, his eyes wild. “Where is she?”

Rooster cleared his throat. “As I was just saying, here is her husband.”

Charm grabbed the doctor by his forearms and began shaking him furiously. “I need to know if she’s alright! She has to be okay!”

The doctor took a step back, clearly terrified of the hulking biker. “If you’ll just have a seat, Mr. Ryan. We’ve got Mrs. Ryan in ICU. Her lab work showed high amounts of cocaine and fentanyl in her system. Based on the lack of any visible puncture wounds, it’s my belief that the drugs were inhaled.

“We noted some facial injuries and a couple of cracked ribs as well, but nothing that will require immediate treatment. We were able to get her heart back into a regular rhythm, but she isn’t breathing on her own, so she’s on a ventilator for now. We’ve got her mildly sedated in order to monitor the amount of oxygen she’s receiving and she’ll be weaned off periodically to try and get her to start breathing on her own.”

Charm fell into one of the plastic chairs near Joker with a loud exhale. “She’d gotten clean—it doesn’t make sense. Where’d she get the drugs?”

Blade stepped up to the doctor. “What happens if she doesn’t start breathing on her own?”

That’d work out just peachy for him, wouldn’t it?

The doctor looked back at Charm. “In the event she doesn’t respond to being off the vent, then she’s kept on it indefinitely until you make the decision to take her off.”

Charm sprang up out the chair to confront the doctor once again. “What does that mean? What the fuck are you sayin’?”

Rooster rubbed his hands back and forth across his eyes before answering, “It means we’d have to make a decision to keep her alive with a machine, or let her go.”

Joker dropped his head back down and his shoulders shook with sobs, while Blade looked relieved at the prospect of me never waking up.

And me?

I tried to process what that would mean—to be stuck in a realm somewhere between life and death. To watch the people I loved most grieve for me, day in and day out.

Charm pounded a fist against the wall above the doctor’s head. “That can’t happen. You do whatever you can to save her!”

The doctor nodded shakily. “We are, I promise you. Mrs. Ryan did have Narcan in her system—whoever had the foresight to give her that may have saved her life.”

Too bad the asshole who gave it to me only did it to get information before finishing me off for good.

The men looked over at Joker, but he shook his head. Charm cleared his throat. “If you didn’t give her the Narcan, then who did?”

Yes.

I silently pleaded for them to put the pieces together, but it was a rhetorical question. They’d have no way of knowing where to even begin to look.

After assuring the bikers that he would bring them up to see me soon, the doctor excused himself. The room was so quiet that each tick of the second hand from the clock on the wall was magnified.

Maybe the doctor was used to treating the bikers—he hadn’t even questioned them about my injuries.

Wasn’t that policy?

Shouldn’t there have been cops swarming the place by now?

“I can’t believe she went back to using,” Blade noted, and Rooster was out of his chair and on him in a second.

He pinned him up against the wall, holding him in place by the throat. “Look, Dick Tracy. Do us all a favor and get the fuck out. You didn’t know shit about Neve. Don’t. You don’t know shit about her. Way I see it, we got bodies back at the clubhouse that tell a much different story. And last time I checked, your ass was missing from our little caravan down south.”

He was already speaking about me in past tense; that didn’t bode well for me coming out of this.

“Rooster,” Charm’s voice was monotone, as if it didn’t matter to him whether Blade lived or died.

Rooster let go of his neck and cut-off before taking a step back. “Fuck this. I need a drink.”

The door rattled as it slammed shut behind him and Blade soon made the excuse of checking on his club before leaving Charm and Joker alone. I looked around and realized that, at some point during the drama, Axel had disappeared.

He’d gone over and left me behind. I didn’t even get to say goodbye. Didn’t he have unfinished business? Weren’t spirits supposed to stay behind until it was resolved?

“What’d I miss?”

I jumped and clutched my chest. “Axel, what the hell? I thought you’d crossed over!”

He smirked. “Nah, apparently, I get to see everyone’s reaction to me dying. Not gonna lie—seeing Amber break down was the cherry on top of the fuckin’ sundae. She’s regretting not moving in with me now.”

I shook my head. “You’re happy that she’s distraught over your death? That’s sick. I adore Amber.”

He pulled me into a side hug. “Ah, Neve. Think of it as getting to witness karma in action. I asked her to move in; she suddenly had to rethink our entire relationship.”

I frowned. Amber hadn’t mentioned any of that to me. She and Axel had been high school sweethearts; ending things now made no sense. In all honesty, nothing in my life was making sense at the moment.

He continued, “Now, what’s going on with the lying douchebag murderer? Did Charm kill him yet?”

I shook my head and watched as Joker typed feverishly on his phone. A moment later, Charm’s phone dinged. He pulled it from his pocket and read it over before nodding.

“One? You’re sure?”

Joker nodded and held up one finger.

“I can’t be certain, but I think that Joker just told Charm that there’s still someone out there who knows what really happened to me. Now, we wait and see how long it takes for the trail to lead back to Blade.”

Axel stretched his arms over his head and looked around the room. “Well, what better place to wait than a waiting—”

I held my hand up. “Stop. That’s never going to be funny.”

He rolled his eyes and sarcastically replied, “Get trapped with Neve in the afterlife, I said. It’ll be fun, I said.”