Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
“Friends of the club,” I said, shrugging.
“Those sound like sexual assault attacks, though,” Sylvie said. And my mind flashed back to her still being fully clothed. Not that it meant anything. An attacker could have pulled her pants back up. “I wasn’t raped. I mean… I don’t know, maybe he would have but something stopped him. I was really not very conscious at the end. But they did the, you know, kit.”
Well, I guess that was a small silver lining.
“Did you get any DNA off of him?” I asked, looking down at her hands, so delicate-looking, despite the tattoos on her palms and fingers.
At that, her face went thoughtful, lost for a moment in the memories.
“No. I mean, I tried. But he was covered. Arms. Midsection. Neck. How was his neck covered?” she asked, looking confused. “It’s spring,” she added.
“Sounds like it wasn’t random,” I concluded. “Make sure you say that shit to the cops when they come to question you.”
“Ugh,” she grumbled, head falling back on the pillow.
“Yeah, know that feeling,” I agreed, smirking a little. “I already told him all I knew. Well, aside from the shit with that Doug guy that I found out afterward.”
“Okay,” she agreed, lost in her own thoughts.
“Told the nurse I was your cousin, by the way,” I said, then watched as her gaze moved over me, looking dubious.
“And she bought that?”
“Helped that you don’t actually have any next of kin,” I said, shrugging until I saw a slice of hurt cross her eyes.
“Thanks for checking on me. That was a pretty decent thing.”
“For an outlaw biker you mean?” I asked.
“No. Well, yeah,” she admitted, attempting a small smile. “What’s your name?”
“Voss.”
“Voss? Is that a name? Like a… real name?”
“You got a resident named fucking Perish, and you think my name is weird?”
“That’s fair, she admitted, raising one of her hands to rub her forehead.
“Headache?” I asked.
“They don’t want to give me anything decent until they see if I have a concussion.”
“Been there,” I said. “But the best shit for that kind of headache is to sleep anyway.”
“Right. Like I can sleep here,” she said, looking around.
“They likely won’t hold you more than a couple more hours. Once all the tests are in, they’ll tell you to follow up with your doctor. Place is too busy to let someone keep a bed.”
“Doubt I’d sleep at home either,” she admitted.
I had no fucking idea where this shit came from.
But then the next words out of my mouth were, “Think you could sleep in a biker clubhouse, surrounded by guys who would make sure no one could get to you?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Sylvie
The attack had been horrific.
Fast and painful and so disorienting that it felt like it was over in seconds, when I knew that it had to have stretched on for many long minutes.
But waking up in pain in an emergency room with no recollection of getting there… that was almost as scary, to be honest.
Because, clearly, that meant I had been knocked out for some indeterminate amount of time. And had no clue what had happened to me during that period.
The nurses and doctors had been nothing but kind, though. Kind voices. Kind eyes. Kind words.
Which, ridiculously, somehow made it all worse.
I didn’t do well with too much kindness when I was already feeling tender. I liked people who gave it to me straight.
When the nurse asked if I wanted the rape kit done, I’d been quick to agree even as my stomach twisted and knotted at the idea of that having happened even while I was unconscious.
So I’d gritted my teeth and curled my hands into fists until my nails bit into my palms and endured that procedure.
But I hadn’t been raped.
Small miracle, I guess.
Then it had been scans and stitches and the throbbing and shooting pain that somehow didn’t become more tolerable the longer I dealt with it.
One of those kindly nurses had asked me three times if I was sure there was no one they could call for me.
I don’t think I had truly felt my aloneness so acutely as I did under those blue-white fluorescent lights, lying on a stiff bed in a scratchy gown with pain and confusion and sadness and burning fucking rage coursing through me.
I’d always been able to overlook it in the past.
I was a busy woman.
I worked a lot.
Those people were like friends and family to me.
I had Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners with them.
They bought me a cake on my birthday.
But, in the end, they weren’t friends or family, were they? They weren’t people I could call to come and sit in the hospital with me, to hold my hand and assure me it was all going to work out.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, Russ would come. The man had a heart of gold. His heart was too big and too good for this world, honestly.