They were all dead.
I pulled out my gun and checked that it was loaded just as the door opened.
A nurse hurried inside, her eyes going wide when she saw all six foot three of pissed-off biker pacing the hospital room with a gun in his hand.
“Sir,” She held up her hands, her eyes wider than saucers.
“Where is she?” I demanded.
The nurse blinked quickly. “The patient?”
“Rowan,” I snapped. “Where. Is. She?”
Her startled expression shifted slightly. “Oh, she’s not… She’s fine.”
My chest tightened, my gaze never leaving her face.
“She’s gone down for an X-ray,” the nurse explained quickly. “They took her about fifteen minutes ago. You were asleep and she said not to wake you. She was quite insistent about it.”
I exhaled slowly, my pulse still hammering in my ears. “Take me to her.”
The nurse hesitated. “Sir, she’ll be back very soon. If you can wait here.”
“Take me to her,” I repeated, my voice low, “now.”
Something in my tone made her rethink arguing with me anymore.
“All right,” she said nervously. “It’s this way.”
We stepped out into the busy hallway. The hospital corridors stretched out in long white lines under harsh fluorescent lights. Everything echoed faintly. The squeak of rubber soles, distant voices, the occasional beep of machines coming from patient rooms.
We passed a flustered-looking nurse pushing a cart stacked with metal trays and syringes.
Another hallway held rows of equipment: heart monitors, IV stands, oxygen tanks, all lined up neatly against the wall.
A man in scrubs pushed a gurney past us with a patient hooked up to machines and an oxygen mask over his mouth. Both of them looked at me briefly before quickly looking away.
Hospitals had always felt like a strange to me. They were too quiet and too clean. And there were way too many people trying to pretend nothing bad ever happened inside these walls.
I had always been a man that preferred honesty, even if that honesty killed me.
We turned one corner, and then another, and anyone else would have gotten lost in the maze of hallways. But I had been born with a personal navigation system in my body, and I had already memorized the way back to Rowan’s room.
Finally the nurse pointed toward a room with a large glass window.
“They’re in there.”
I didn’t even slow down. Instead, I stalked past the nurse and toward the room.
Rowan sat on a narrow table inside, one arm resting carefully across her lap and the other in a sling across her chest. A technician adjusted the large X-ray machine beside her. Her green hospital gown hung loosely around her slender shoulders, her dark hair slightly messy like she’d just woken up.
She looked so small and fragile—nothing like the fierce woman I’d seen riding horses across her ranch yesterday, or the one arguing with me and showing no fear and no mercy.
The door opened behind me and the technician glanced up, a scowl creasing his features.
“Sir, you can’t be?—”
Rowan turned and her eyes widened slightly. “Tex? What are you doing?”
