“Fuck, there’s an ambulance now,” Brock said, slightly more controlled.
I followed his eyes. Impressively, for something that had happened only seconds before—or felt like it—there was already an ambulance rolling down the way. We’d caught something of a break for the moment, having medics in the nearby vicinity.
But there was no fucking mistaking what had just happened.
The Bandits or one of our other enemies had planted a fucking bomb in the Reapers bar. They’d set it up to try and kill Cole and whichever one of us they could get. And they had almost fucking succeeded.
Sheriff Davis had been right. Things were suddenly a whole lot fucking uglier.
And it was readily apparent that if they were willing to set off a bomb in the heart of downtown Albuquerque, in a relatively calm and peaceful part of the city, there was no fucking telling what they would do in Santa Maria.
“He needs medical attention!” Brock shouted, pointing to Cole as some medics got out of the ambulance.
The medics hurried over to Cole. We gave them all the space that they needed. One of them asked if we needed any medical attention, but we pushed them away. No, we did not—and if we did, we’d show signs of it soon enough.
“We fucking follow him,” Brock said as we all gathered around him. “I don’t want there to be any setups at the hospital. If they are willing to do this, they’re certainly willing to do something at the hospital.”
Everyone agreed. But something didn’t sit right with me.
“Lilly and Roger,” I said. “There’s bound to be something with them. We need to keep someone behind.”
Brock bit his lip.
“Good point,” he said. “Mason?”
“You got it, boss,” he said.
“Get up to their floor if you can. If you can’t, stay in the lobby. If you hear anyone ask if they can go to the top floor, you follow them. I don’t fucking care how much shit you get. You will not let anyone see Lilly and Roger alone at any moment. Understood?”
Mason nodded and hurried inside.
“To the rest of you all,” he said, “let’s get on our bikes.”
* * *
We arrived at the hospital just minutes later. Brock parked his bike in the emergency vehicle spot, ignoring the pleas from others to park elsewhere. Steele stayed behind to move the bike to prevent it from getting towed and causing even more problems than we had now.
We got to an emergency room, impatiently waiting for news. The nurses did not look overly panicked, but none of us were especially willing to take that as good news. Maybe it was their job to stay calm while the world around them descended into chaos.
And then I saw…
Her.
The girl that Brock had hooked up with almost a year and a half ago, the girl that I’d offered to give a bike ride to but had refused.
When I’d offered that ride, I knew she wanted nothing to do with us ever again. And yet, when I looked at her, I couldn’t help but feel like there wassomethingmore there. She didn’t look at me with disdain, or at least not natural disdain. She looked like she didn’t want to believe she was seeing me differently, but she was.
All the same, though, I had not seen her in the year since, and aside from one conversation when Brock came back after his arrest, she never came up again. At least, not any conversation I could remember.
But here she was, and she was in a doctor’s outfit.
And even though she was dressed in full professional attire, she looked as gorgeous as I could remember. Her caramel-colored skin, her curly hair, her slender body with curves in just the right spot…
And then she looked up, saw us all grouped together, and her shoulders slumped.
“I’m not going to look at a patient with a peanut gallery, most especially the Bernard Boys,” she said.
“We’re not the Bernard Boys anymore. Call us Black Reapers.”
