He rolled his eyes and reached into his pocket. With a shaking hand he got a handful of cash out of his wallet and passed it over. “I still have my gun.”
“Good for you,” I said, gathering up what we needed after taking the cash. I hurried to the checkout and put everything down. The kid at the register didn’t even look up as he scanned everything through. I glanced over at Mace and saw him standing near the door, watching me.
To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure why I hadn’t sounded the alarm. He was right, he’d kidnapped me, held me against my will, and his MC was waging war against mine. But something was stopping me from getting help for myself. The kid rung me up and I paid and bagged everything then went back to Mace.
He was looking at me as if he didn’t recognize me. I wasn’t sure if it was because he had lost too much blood and was disorientated, or if he was just shocked I hadn’t tried to run.
We were heading back around to the bike when I spotted a liquor store.
“Stay here,” I moved before he could stop me. There were a few people in there but only one person looked at me, a young college kid who eyed me up and down, then winked. I turned away from him and grabbed a couple of bottles of vodka.
Mace was leaning his shoulder against the wall when I came out. He looked like a drunk. A couple of people passing by were watching him.
“Come on,” I swung his arm over me again and we headed back to the bike. I didn’t know where we were going to go next, but cleaning him up in a dirty parking lot wasn’t a good idea.
“There’s a motel a few blocks from here,” he told me.
“I don’t think you can ride,” I pointed out as we reached the bike.
“Don’t have a choice,” he sighed. “It’s not far.” He eyed me looking at the two bags clutched in my hand. “Why are you doing this?”
“Already told you.” He shook his head. “Mace, stop arguing before you fucking bleed to death. Let’s get to this motel.”
It wasn’t easy but he rode us the few blocks. I checked us in, with him watching through the window, then we rode around to the room, I’d requested a corner one if they had it. Once I’d got him inside, I wentout and wheeled the bike around the side. It was really fucking heavy, and my strength was starting to wane. I still had things to do though.
Mace had started to lose it too because he hadn’t bothered keeping an eye on me. He was half propped up on the edge of the bed, looking like he was on the verge of passing out.
I hurried over, dropping the bags on the bed, tipping them out. The bottles clinked together, and I grabbed one and unscrewed the top. I took a few swigs and winced at the taste and the burn. Mace was looking at me with an arched brow. I held out the bottle. He took it and tipped it to his mouth. He didn’t react like I did, guess he was a hardened drinker.
He winced and groaned through me getting his cut and T-shirt off. I tossed it all on the floor and for a moment, both of us looked down at the leather with the Kingsmen patch on the back. He clenched his fists but offered nothing else.
I looked back at the wound, my eyes roving over him. Shit he was cut, I’d never seen an eight pack in real life, but he had one, although it was slick with sweat and blood. He had some tattoos but nothing like Hudson, there were a few quotes and what looked like abstract artwork, and a long, narrow crucifix on his chest.
I went to get some towels from the bathroom. I wet one and brought that and a dry one back into the room. I hadn’t really paid much attention to the surroundings, but the place was nice, considering a room for the night wasn’t that expensive.
“Use the vodka to clean it.”
“You’ve done this before?” I asked.
“Maybe.”
“Right, okay.” I hadn’t thought of myself as squeamish, blood never really bothered me, but this wasn’t like anything I had seen before. The wound was ragged and there was a lot of blood. I tried not to gag as I cleaned him up, then poured the vodka over the wound at his insistence.
He winced and his back arched, the muscles in his abdomen flexing. I caught as much of the off spill with the towel as I could and carried on cleaning until it was just the wound visible.
“It’s a graze, but it went deep without actually going all the way through,” he said. “Probably because I was moving so fast when it hit. We were lucky it didn’t go through you first.”
“Yeah, real lucky.”
“It’s not as bad as it looked, just bled a lot,” he ignored my comment.
He sat back, taking sips of the vodka as I worked, wincing at times but mostly he just sat quietly. I used sterile strips to close it over as best as I could, put a large dressing over it then for good measure wrapped a bandage around it, circling his waist four times and securing it with tape. I helped him into the bed. When I was done, he twisted his torso, seeing how much he could move, then he got up.
“What are you doing?”
“We can’t stay here.”
“You are in no shape to drive that bike, you need to rest and take these,” I thrust the pill packet at him then went into the bathroom for a glass of water. He was reading the box when I came back. “Just take them,” I said.
