Page 34 of Wilde's End
“Can’t see what?”
“You hooking up.”
Bold claim, considering I had him pinned to the wall earlier. “I do just fine.”
“Don’t believe you.”
“Don’t care.”
Booker looks gleeful. “You might have met your match, Wilde.”
I glare at them both and head for the door. “I’m going to wait outside. Hurry the hell up.”
I don’t know which of them it is that says bye because the door slams behind me at the same time. So what that I have a simple life? It’s the whole point of moving out here. It’s hard work, way harder than life in the city, but it’s quiet, cut off, and I’m free to focus on the important things. Make sure the town is safe. That we have everything we need. Then, once a month after my fight, I go and get a release.
It works for me.
And this weekend, I’m going to need it more than ever.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
HUDSON
This is the weirdest fucking doctor’s office I’ve ever been in. Considering where we are, I should probably count myself lucky that they even have one out here, but now the pain is gone, I’m feeling less lucky and more irritable.
I have no fucking clue what happened. I’m getting snapshots of broken windows and Sutton’s text and grabbing the bike to find Wilde. Did I find him? I mean, he obviously found me, but … I might not be in pain anymore, but thinking fucking hurts.
“Why can’t I remember what happened?”
“Concussion,” the doctor says.
“No way. I would have been wearing a helmet.”
He clucks his tongue against his teeth. “Helmets don’t prevent concussions. They prevent your head being cracked into two.” His eyes look a honeyed brown through my sunglasses as they roam from my chest up to my hairline. “You avoided a lot of blood in that lovely blond hair.”
As much as the words should sound like a good thing, there’ssomething in his tone that makes me take him in again. He’s a larger guy with fluffy brown hair and round, pink cheeks, like he sunburns easily, that give the impression of him being much younger than I’d assume for a doctor. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-six,” he answers, turning back to my chest. There’s a gash concerningly close to my nipple that he pokes his finger into. “Need stitches for this one.”
“Okay …” This guy is definitely weird. “I’m thirty-three. By the way. Except I look older than you. You barely look twenty.”
A smile curls at his lips. “That so?”
“You can’t tell me no one has said that before.”
He stabs me suddenly with the needle, tugging the thread through before leaning in close to my face. “First rule about the End is not asking questions about our beginning.”
I search his eyes for any sign he’s joking. “Your beginning?”
“Our backgrounds. Where we came from, who we are, who our families are, why we’re here. None of that matters.”
Too many words for my swimming head. “It matters. What if you have a murderer move in next door?”
“More people for me to patch up?”
My eyes widen. “Was that a joke?”
