One day until the Election…
“We’ll take good care of him!” the surgeon promised as they wheeled Brooks out of sight and into surgery, leaving us standing dazedly on the helipad of Walter Reed as a light rain began to pour above us.
Dawn was just breaking and I was exhausted.
“We need to go see Dallas,” Maverick urged me gently, his hand on my elbow.
“I can’t see him like this,” I said, gesturing to my bloodstained hands, face, and clothes.
I hadn’t even been able to think about the man who I’d bludgeoned to death with that pipe. Every time I got close to it my brain seemed to screech to a halt and reload like it was protecting itself.
“Go and shower first and get those wrists looked at, we’ll tell Dallas about Brooks,” Zeke said, pressing a kiss to my forehead that was so gentle that my lips started to wobble again.
“Thank you for coming to get me. If Brooks dies…” I trailed off, not even able to verbalize such a horrible thought.
Maverick wrapped his arms around me. “Brooks is far too stubborn to go anywhere. Especially with the promise of Little Red Riding Hood on the line.”
I laughed weakly against his chest.
We parted ways once we were back in the hospital, a kind nurse letting me use an empty room to shower and change into a pair of hospital sweats and a sweatshirt.
Once I was clean I felt more human and less feral than I had back in that place. I combed and braided my hair, pulling my battered boots back on since there was nothing the nurse could do about that and stepped back into the room, unsurprised when I found my mother already waiting for me.
“Hi Mom,” I said, wondering which Athena Holloway I was going to get tonight.
The last time I’d seen her I had been flinging expensive objects at her and her cabinet secretaries and she had been livid.
But that had been pre-kidnapping, so I was hoping that had given her some time to cool off.
“So, I wanted to let you know, before you say anything, that I’m not going to be separate from my pack anymore. I love them and they are going to be around a lot more and—”
She cut me off mid-rant, her arms wrapping around me tightly as she held me in a shuddering hug.
“I was so worried, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”
I held myself stiff for a moment, remembering the hell that she had put me through for the past three weeks, but then I found myself melting into her hug and letting myself cry.
We sat together on the hospital bed and she let me cry my eyes out until they were puffy and swollen.
“Your wrists are pretty raw,” she said after a while as she looked at both of them.
“They had me zip tied, so I had to break them.”
“Lesson number three,” my mother said with a nostalgic chuckle. “Ash was always convinced you’d be kidnapped one day. He’s probably in the ether somewhere telling me he‘told me so.’”
“The lessons worked better than I ever thought they would. I even set a distraction fire. Set the whole place ablaze.”
My mother’s brows lifted.
“Good, serves those bastards right for messing with my daughter,” she said, sounding impressed.
We sat comfortably for a moment and I almost hated to ruin it by bringing up my words from earlier. “And I was serious about the guys earlier, Mom. They’re my pack. So you’re sort of stuck with them whether you like it or not.”
“I’ve come to terms with it,” my mother said with a shrug as if she hadn’t put us through the ringer over the past three weeks.
“What?” I asked, reeling back away from her. “Just like that?”
“They saved you, Lennon. Ran right into hell for you—not to mention the only reason we got you back was because of this.”
