Page 89 of Intrepid

Sera’s roommate darted toward me, a look of panic coloring her face. “Oh, my God! Is she okay? What happened?”

“She’s passed out.” I didn’t bother to stop, and the girl and her friend with the braids trailed after me.

“She took off again!” The frustration in her voice skated down my back.

I wanted to rain hell and tell her she should’ve been watching her, but Sera wasn’t a child. She didn’t need a babysitter.

Though, it was clear to me that she did need someone to take care of her.

I loaded her into the back of the Prius, as Bea and Simone scrambled for the driver and passenger seats. “I’ll follow you back,” I told them.

“Ty, I’m so sorry about this. She had a shitty day, and we were just trying to make her feel better.”

Giving a curt nod, I slammed the door and headed toward my bike.

30

Sera

Agony pounded through my head, and I squeezed my eyes tight in a poor attempt to ease the ache. When it didn’t work, I blinked them open to a dimly-lit room, and something warm and soft, like skin, beneath my cheek.

Wait. Warm skin?

A flashback of the guy with the beanie added another stab of throbbing pain.

Oh, God, I didn’t …

I lifted my head and held my breath, staring at those familiar, diamond-blue eyes. “Ty?”

Another lightning bolt of pain struck my skull, and I grimaced, pressing my fingers into my temple. As the ache subsided, I swung my attention back to Ty, noticing the tight clench of his jaw and the pissed off expression on his face.

“What are you doing here?”

“Thought you planned to study.” His words arrived clipped and venomous, only adding to my confusion.

“I’m sorry, did I … piss in your Cheerios tonight?”

“It’d be nice if you could stay out of trouble.”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you remember anything about last night?”

“I remember feeling sick. I went to go to the Porta-john but there was a long line. So I found a place and …. I don’t remember what happened after that.” I frowned, trying to ligate the black void inside my head with what little I did remember. “How did you get here? Last I heard, you had something for work.”

“I found you passed out.”

“Oh.” I pushed to a sitting position and rubbed my forehead, trying to remember how I’d gotten to bed. As pissed off as he looked, I certainly wasn’t about to ask him if he knew. “I had some jungle juice … and … I guess it didn’t … sit well.” Another round of nausea struck, spinning the room around much too fast to sit still. I scrambled across the bed and ran toward the bathroom, reaching there just in time to expel the orangey-red fluids from my mouth. Acids burned my throat with a second heave. And a third. My stomach pushed the poisonous liquor from my system, until all that remained was the sour stench beneath my nose, and I flushed it away.

Clutching the edge of the sink beside me, I pulled myself to my feet and flushed my mouth with water. The sour taste still lingered, though, so I swished some mouthwash and did a quick brushing. The tangy juice flavor gave way to harsh mint that burned my tongue. My face had gone sickly white, lips thin and shiny. I couldn’t stand to look at myself.

Every muscle in my body vibrated, and my chest tightened with the shivers. I couldn’t get warm. The blue of my fingernail beds was enough to have me flipping on the hot water, and I let it run over my hands. Though it offered some warmth, it still didn’t eliminate the chill settling across my bones.

Shirtless, Ty stood leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, a bottle of water coated in a frosty layer clutched in his hand. The angry scars on his skin didn’t steal away the fact that he looked so damn good, all the carved muscles of his chest and biceps leading down to the deep grooves of the V that disappeared into his jeans. He still seemed incensed, with that fiery angle of his brow, but when did he ever not look mad? Even when he smiled, his broody brows refused to relent their pissiness.

A square of gauze on his arm took my attention to where a faint strip of red bled through. “What happened to your arm?”

He didn’t bother to look down at it. “Cut myself.”