It lived under my skin now, sharp in my ribs, hot in my palm, throbbing behind my eyes. Every time Doc shifted me, wrapped something, checked something, or told me to hold still, I hissed like a feral cat and immediately regretted having nerves.
“Breathe,” Regan kept whispering.
“I am breathing.”
“You’re swearing more than breathing.”
“Then I’m multitasking.”
That made her laugh, but it came out broken.
I hated that sound.
I kept drifting after that. Not asleep exactly. Not awake either. More like floating under dark water while voices moved above me, warped and distant.
JD’s voice.
“…before dawn. They need to be gone before anyone serves paper or starts asking why nobody’s answering phones.”
Edge.
“I’m going.”
“No,” JD said.
That one came clear.
A low, dangerous silence followed.
Even half out of it, I knew that silence. Edge did not like being told no. Especially not when I was the subject of the sentence.
“I’m not sending my wife and my daughter across open land without me,” he said.
River answered this time, sounding exhausted. “And what happens if the warrant comes and you’re not here?”
Another voice. Callum maybe. “Looks like you ran.”
JD again. “Exactly. The clubhouse needs to look like the clubhouse. Men present. Business as usual. Irritated but cooperative enough not to hand them obstruction in a pretty box.”
“Cooperative,” Edge repeated like the word tasted poisonous.
“Pretend,” JD said.
Nate muttered somewhere, “Outlaws doing theater. This’ll go great.”
Someone told him to shut up.
Maybe Callum.
Maybe everyone.
I faded.
Came back.
“…search warrant,” River was saying. “Not maybe. Definitely. The second those parents talk to lawyers, they’ll want the bike, the clubhouse, her room, anything that ties us to the scene. We all have to be here when it hits.”
Edge’s voice went colder. “They’re not searching her room.”
