Sin & Suffer

Glancing up, I noticed Mo loitering. “Get me a damn blanket.”

“Right.” Mo touched his temple in a halfhearted salute and took off into the house that’d been ransacked for its mattress.

Pressing my thumbs into my eye sockets, I wished I could pop the pressure in my head. Just lance the shit and let the pain trickle out somehow.

Keep it together a little longer.

Dropping my shaky hand, I cupped Cleo’s cheek. “Thirty minutes is too long.”

Cleo moved minutely, sending my heart racing. Her lips parted as a breathy moan escaped. Her forehead furrowed either in pain or nightmares.

Fuck this.

I couldn’t sit here and do nothing. “Where’s that damn blanket?” I muttered.

Almost as if he’d heard me, Mo appeared and tossed me a bundled up black duvet.

Crouching over Cleo, I gathered her shoulders and did my best to wrap her and hide her nakedness. Once I’d covered her front, I draped the rest over her sides and tucked it tightly beneath her. I hated the finished effect—she looked as if she were dressed in a shroud ready for a funeral pyre.

Standing upright, I towered over her. The next part would kill me. I needed to pick her up.

Don’t do this.

I ignored my inner voice. It was my job—my right—to be the one to carry her away from here. Screw my head, fuck my concussion. I would battle through the pain because sure as shit no other man was touching her.

Ducking, I scooped my arms beneath her neck and knees and inhaled hard.

“Kill, you sure about—”

“Mind your own goddamn business,” I growled. With a grunt of agony, I stole Cleo from the ground and hoisted her into my arms.

She hardly weighed anything, but even the slightest pressure sent my head blaring with sirens and more pain than I thought I could endure.

Shit, I hated being so weak!

Blinking back dark spots, I turned to face Grasshopper and Mo. “I’m done with hospitals and doctors. Get me a car. I don’t care how you do it. Beg, buy, or fucking steal it, but don’t come back without one.”

Grasshopper clenched his jaw, the urge to argue bright in his gaze. My fists tightened around Cleo, fully prepared to sock him in the jaw even with my woman sprawled in my hold. “I’m not asking, Hopper.”

“Fine.” Running a hand through his mohawk, he nodded at Mo and jogged toward the blown apart entrance. Once he’d bypassed the bikers, who all looked at a loss of what to do, he broke into a full-out run.

Good. One thing I could stop worrying about. Grasshopper was reliable and fast. I had no doubt I would have wheels and driven away from this town before the ambulance arrived.

Can you drive?

Once again, I ignored my brain. My flickering vision would make it dangerous to navigate at high speeds. It wasn’t rational for me to drive. But that cool-headedness I always prided myself on was missing.

All I focused on was getting Cleo home by me.

Healing her by myself.

Proving to her I was worth all the shit that just happened. And all the crap to come in order for me to win. I needed to ensure she couldn’t live without me, so when she found out the truth, she might somehow forgive me and not leave.

I have to do this.

I had to if I had any chance of deserving her.

Hoisting Cleo higher in my arms, I looked at her beautiful features. Her full lips were smeared with blood—whose blood? Her temple was bruised and a large bump decorated her hairline. It drove me to distraction thinking we both suffered the same injury—both incapacitated by a concussion at the hands of my asshole family.

Matchsticks came closer, peering into Cleo’s heart-shaped face. “She gonna be okay?”

I narrowed my eyes. “She better be.” Cocking my head at the compound behind me, I ordered, “Grab her some water. She has to wake up.”

Matchsticks nodded. “Right.” Sprinting to the nearest house, his gut wobbled and bounced. A few moments later, he returned with a plastic pink cup brimming with water.

I shuffled Cleo so her head tipped back a little over my arm. “Feed it to her gently. Don’t make her choke.”

Matchsticks tipped the overflowing water in the general direction of Cleo’s mouth.

It went fucking everywhere.

“Goddammit, what are you trying to do? Drown her?”

He froze. “Sorry, Kill.” Tipping some of the water out, he tried again, this time lucking out and managing to get some into her mouth.

Cleo mumbled incoherently, moving her chin away.

“Cleo, you need to open your eyes.”

Another moan.

Anger sneaked over my concern.

“Buttercup,” I snapped. “Open your fucking eyes.”

Men moved past me, forming small groups to ransack the compound. I let them go. I was too wrapped up in Cleo to care.

The pounding in my head never ceased as I wrapped my arms tighter around her. I forgot about Matchsticks and Dagger Rose. I forgot about what I would have to do to make my father pay. All I focused on was the girl who owned my heart.

Pressing my forehead against hers, I begged, “You have to open your eyes, Buttercup. I’m a fucking mess without you. You can’t do this to me. I won’t let you. Do you hear?”

I groaned as my headache became endlessly heavy, compounding deeper and deeper until I felt like Atlas trying to hold up the world.

Tucking her against my body, I moved past Matchsticks and left behind the smoking ring where Cleo had lain. Marching to the gates, I found Mo, who was busy coordinating the gathering of oil, gasoline, and diesel. In his hands, he held an assortment of lighters, matches, and a long rope made of knotted sheets that’d been soaked in what I assumed was bourbon thanks to the empty bottles by his feet.