None of those felt appropriate.
So I settled for the truth.“I hope you feel better soon,” I said.
His eyes held mine for a second, then he blinked once.
I chose to take that as a thank you.
Pearl squeezed his hand again before letting go.Anchor gave the rail one more tap, and Push nodded toward him.“Later, brother.”
Bob’s eyes followed us as we left.
The second the door clicked shut behind us, the hallway felt too bright again.Too normal like there wasn’t a man lying inside that room who had been dragged into whatever horror show was happening on Skull Island.
We were quiet all the way to the elevator.
Even Pearl didn’t say much.
When we reached the parking lot, the sun was higher and warmer, bouncing off windshields and concrete like the day had no idea it was supposed to feel heavy.
Anchor stopped beside his bike and looked toward the hospital entrance.
“Hopefully next time we come here,” he said, “it’s to bring Bob home.”
Pearl slid her hand into his.
Nobody argued.Nobody made a joke.There wasn’t one to make.I looked back at the hospital, then at Push.His expression was locked down, but I could see it now.The weight behind his eyes.The anger beneath the quiet.
This had shown me something different about the Kings of Anarchy.
I had seen them as suspicious, dangerous, and controlling.
Now I had seen them worried, and somehow that mattered most.Because men like that didn’t hurt women like Erin and leave bodies on their own shore as warnings.
They weren’t soft.
They weren’t saints, but they weren’t killers.
Whoever had hurt Bob, whoever had killed Bernice and those other people, whoever had made my sister disappear, that was the person we were looking for.And for the first time, I fully believed the club and I were pointed in the same direction.
We climbed back on the bikes.Pearl wrapped herself around Anchor like she had before, and I got on behind Push with less awkwardness this time.My arms went around his waist, and he didn’t have to tell me to hold tighter.
The ride back to Skull Island felt different.
Maybe because riding behind Push felt less like being transported by my captor and more like being carried toward answers, which was dangerous thinking.
The island rose ahead of us beyond the bridge, all trees and water and secrets.
I tightened my hold on Push when we crossed back over, and if he noticed, he didn’t say anything.
We rode past the haunted house and toward the clubhouse.In daylight, the place still looked unsettling, but now I knew what waited inside.
Coffee.
Pearl’s pancakes.
A couch that attacked innocent concussed women.
And answers hopefully.
