She shrieked, “I was shot? SHOT?”
I stepped into her line of site. “Keep it together, Ember. Yes, you were shot. Twice, actually, but neither are severe wounds. You just need a few stitches. Try to calm down so Patch can get that done.”
I felt it deep in my chest when she wordlessly nodded, laid her head back down, and let just one damn tear fall from her eye.
Phoenix continued to run his hand over her hair and spoke softly to her, “It’ll be okay, baby. Everything will be okay. I promise.”
Her breath hitched when she tried to talk. She was killing me. Never before had I felt someone else’s pain and fear, but at that moment I felt hers. She was trying so hard to be strong. I was damn proud of her for that.
“I need you guys to talk to me. About anything. Just distract me. Please.” She sounded desperate. It made me wonder if something else was going on with her. She was naive to the ways of the world and incredibly innocent, but even with the way she was raised, she was not weak. It wasn’t the time or place, but I would be discussing this with her in the near future.
“What would you like to talk about?” Phoenix asked.
“I don’t care. Anything. Just talk.”
I saw Patch draw some fluid into a syringe from a small vial. “Ember, I’m going to give you a little something for the pain and a little something to help you calm down. Might make you a little sleepy, but won’t knock you out completely.”
“Okay, I think I would like that.”
He patted her shoulder gently and gave her the medicine through the IV in her hand. When the hell did he do that?
Patch chuckled, “It was the first thing I did, brother. You were too busy checking her over for yourself to notice what I was doing.” He shrugged and went back to working on her arm. Damn, I guess I said that out loud.
“Tell me about your family, our family. Do we have any other living relatives?” Ember looked to Phoenix, her face filled with hope.
He softly smiled at her, “My grandparents. They moved to a beachside retirement community in Florida about eight years ago.”
Ember yawned, “What about your parents?”
Phoenix frowned slightly, “My mother and father died in a car accident when I was 15 years old. My father’s parents were deceased when my parents were married and both of my parents were only children. So, for our immediate family, it’s just me and my grandparents, and now you.”
“Are there any cousins?”
“Yeah, a few. Two of them live not too far from here. They are the President and Vice President of the Devil Springs chapter of Blackwings.”
“So it runs in the family?”
Phoenix chuckled. “My grandfather’s brother started Blackwings MC. When he died, his son, Hawk, became the president. When Hawk died, his sons were too young to take over the gavel, so it was offered to me. Not long after that, Gram and Pop decided to move to the beach, so they gave me their house and this land. I took a vote and we decided to move Blackwings here. When my cousins were old enough, they got a chapter of Blackwings up and running in their hometown where it originated.”
She smiled as he spoke. Her eyes were closed and it was obvious that whatever Patch gave her was working. Moments after Phoenix finished speaking, we heard a soft snore. Phoenix smiled warmly at Ember and reached down to hold her hand.
“All right, her arm is done. Her side shouldn’t take as long. Dash, hand me the bottle behind you,” Patch instructed.
He set to work and since Ember was clearly asleep, I figured it would be okay to speak freely. “How’s Duke doing? Anything new?”
Patch looked up, “Yes and no. They weaned him off the medication used to keep him in the coma, but he hasn’t woken up yet. He is breathing on his own, so that’s good, but until he wakes up, we won’t know how much, if any, damage was done to his brain.”
“Is that normal? To not wake up once they stop the medicine,” I asked.
“I wouldn’t say it is normal, but it’s not uncommon. At this point, nothing we can do but wait. Have the detectives found anything?”
Phoenix shook his head. “No, I talked to them this morning. They’ve got nothing. They believe someone was trying to send a message. What that message is and to whom it was directed, we don’t know.”
I completely agreed. “What kind of message do eight fucking stab wounds send? You’d have to know what that meant to know who sent it.”
Ember mumbled something. Her face scrunched and her brow furrowed. Even her little hands balled into fists.
“What did she say?” I asked.
