Page 52 of Obey

We were taking him to the hospital, I reminded myself. They’d fix everything there. Our job wasn’t to worry about what was wrong. Our job was to get him to the hospital so they could fix him.

Once he was straight, we built a plan for getting him into the car while doing the least damage. I would get in first, in the back, and Remy, Frank, and Gem would work to lay him down with his head in my lap. Remy and Frank would be in the front seats with us. Mandy and Gemini would...

“Save anything with sentimental value,” Frank said, grasping Gemini’s good shoulder. “And get everything of Knight’s that you can. Particularly the things he won’t be able to replace.” He cast a sad look at the clubhouse—a look I didn’t understand—and then told me to get into the car.

I got in, confused about the look he’d just given the clubhouse, and held my breath as the men worked to get Knight into the backseat with me.

Mandy leaned in over him, used her hand to transfer a kiss from her mouth to his hand, and then looked at me. “I’ll gather your things,” she said. “You focus on Knight.”

“What?” I asked. “My things? Why?”

She looked at me like I might have lost my head. “So that they don’t burn.”

Okay, something had definitely happened to my brain in that explosion. Because Mandy was no longer making any sense.

“Burn?” I asked, sounding like a complete idiot.

She blew out in exasperation, but looked at me kindly, like she felt a little bit sorry for me. And no wonder, since I’d evidently lost half my brain cells during the fight.

“We’re outlaws,” she said quietly. “We’ve been in a massive fight with the cops, and we killed a whole lot of them. And that doesn’t even touch what just happened with Devil and his crew. We can’t stay here—and we can’t leave the clubhouse whole. Leave it here and the cops will flood it and take everything, and we’ll be in even more trouble.”

I took in the information, and realized exactly what she was saying. We were all in so much trouble that we’d never be able to come back. And if we couldn’t come back to protect the clubhouse, we need to make sure no one else could find what it might hold.

We were going to lose our home in more ways than one. If Knight survived—and that was a big if—he’d never see the home he built again.

My heart couldn’t break any further than it had already broken. But if it could, that would have done it.

And I couldn’t think about it right now. I couldn’t consider what it might mean to any of us or what might become of us. All I could think about right now was getting Knight to the hospital so they could do whatever it took to save him.

And then getting him away before the cops could figure out where he’d gone.

“Get us to the hospital,” I told the men in the front seat. “We have to get him patched up enough to get him on an airplane and get him someplace safe before anyone realizes he’s still alive.”

Remy, who was behind the wheel, gave me a stern nod, started the car, and took off down the road, Frank looking at his phone and reciting backroads we could take to get to the nearest hospital. Roads where the cops would be less likely to be patrolling.

Roads that might actually get Knight to someone who could save his life.

CHAPTER 24

KNIGHT

THE WORLD CAME BACK to me in pieces, like a puzzle where I only had half of the pieces I needed. None of the pieces connected, either. So the table where I was putting the puzzle together didn’t have a full picture.

It just had a bunch of puzzle pieces spread across the surface. And none of them made any sense.

I didn’t know where I was or how I’d gotten here. I didn’t know who was with me, or if anyone was. Maybe I was here by myself. Maybe no one else had come.

Maybe I was dead.

Could I be dead when there was so much light filtering through my eyelids? I’d never really considered it too closely, but I’d definitely thought that death would be dark rather than bright. I’d thought it would be uncomfortable, somehow, like jeans that didn’t fit quite right.

And were lined with spikes.

Instead, I felt sort of comfortably numb. Warm and dry and... I sent feelers through my body, searching it for anything that might be wrong, and realized that I wasn’t as numb as I thought I was. My leg hurt and I had an arm that didn’t seem to be working right. I moved my fingers experimentally and though they moved, there was something sharp and unpleasant about doing it. I felt bruised and broken, like nothing was quite responding to my commands the way I wanted it to.

But I was comfortable, despite the pain, like there was a curtain between me and whatever was hurting me. And I felt safe, which was...

Different.