“Hey, Presley,” Cheryl said. “How’s Ariel?”
“Still waiting for her to wake up,” I said. “How’s it going out here? It sounded pretty busy earlier.”
“Girl! You missed a good one,” Cheryl said. “They found three guys outside the front doors. Somebody beat the hell out of them.”
“Really?”
“Yes! All three had the usual associated injuries, but the one guy,” she paused and shook her head. “Somebody did a number on him. His jaw was broken in two places, but that wasn’t the worst. Both testicles were ruptured! Both! Dr. Quincy had to come in and remove them. She said there was no way to save them. Makes you wonder if he did something to someone. Or someone’s daughter.”
Like my daughter! Shit! Shit! Shit!
“Or maybe he was cheating on someone or with someone. Or it could have been one of those social media challengesgone wrong. Wasn’t there one where guys were having baseballs thrown at their nuts by a pitching machine? It could’ve been something like that.” I stopped myself from continuing to talk and overselling my point. I just needed to lead her away from the absolutely correct first conclusion she jumped to.
“Yeah, I bet you’re right,” she said.
“Well, I'd better get back,” I said and tried to walk away casually.
Thankfully, I didn’t have time to dwell on what Cheryl thought happened because Blaze started waking up minutes after I returned.
As expected, she opened her eyes, groaned in pain, and threw up. Her dad moved faster than I thought possible and managed to get the basin under her mouth in the nick of time. “My head,” she croaked. Then her eyes popped open, and she glanced around the room while frantically trying to sit up.
“It’s okay,” Annabelle soothed. “Relax.”
“Where am I? What’s going on?”
“You’re in the hospital,” Annabelle explained.
“What? Why?”
“What do you remember?” Phoenix asked.
She closed her eyes and grimaced in pain. “I don’t … I can’t remember anything.”
“That’s okay. What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Eating dinner with Raven,” she said. “Raven! Where’s Raven?”
“She’s right here,” Annabelle said.
“I think something happened, but I don’t know what. Why are we in the hospital?”
Phoenix sighed. “You two were at a party, and someone drugged you. Raven managed to call Flint before she passed out.”
“No,” she cried. “No, no, no. Oh, I’m going to be sick again.”
“He got there in time,” Annabelle assured her. “Well, he got there before anything major happened.”
“What does that mean?” Blaze asked weakly.
Ink stepped forward to answer her. “Me, Dice, and Edge tagged along. I called Raven on the way. She passed out, but I could hear what was going on in the background. It sounded like a guy was trying to force you to suck his dick, and you bit him.”
At that, Blaze threw up again.
“We’re assuming he hit you before he moved on to someone else. When we got there, you were on the floor with a red cheek and a bloody nose.”
“Is that why my face hurts?” she asked.
“Probably,” Ink said.
