Page 65 of Mara
Would someone be lucky enough to inherit mine?
I stood for a moment, rolling my shoulders, stretching my fingers, testing the space. A new environment required a newrhythm, a new set of rules. I needed to understand the pulse of this place, the way it breathed, the way it watched.
Wellard was quiet beneath the surface. On the outside, it was all screaming and mumbling, the dull shuffle of medicated feet dragging across tile, the occasional bark of an orderly reminding some fucker to shut up.
But underneath?
Underneath, it breathed.
It whispered. A
place like this held things no one wanted to name. Things they buried under paperwork and prescriptions, hoping they’d never have to face them.
I had seen places like this before.
This particular beast I hadn’t had the opportunity to explore. My entrance was as fast as my exit, only able to snatch Gigi, get that thing out of her, and skip off to fuck Mara’s face while she desperately searched for her dear sister.
I moved toward the cot, the paper-thin mattress crinkling under my weight as I sank onto it. It was uncomfortable as shit, but that didn’t bother me. I wasn’t here for comfort.
My gaze drifted upward, locking onto the small, blinking red light nestled in the ceiling’s corner. Watching. Always watching.
Good.
Let them look. Let them try to understand. They wouldn’t. They never did.
The shadows stretched long through the narrow window, slanting lines across the floor like prison bars cast in light. The sun was setting. And somewhere beyond these walls, deep in the woods where the world had forgotten to look, she was still there.
Mara.
A slow, creeping pleasure curled through my chest, unfurling like smoke in my lungs. They thought they had taken everything from me. Dragged me from the trees, slammed me into thepavement, tore me from the masterpiece I had left behind in the dirt. They thought steel bars and padded walls would change everything.
They were wrong.
She was still out there, waiting.
I exhaled slowly, letting my head rest against the cool concrete wall behind me, eyes fluttering shut as I listened to the steady hum of Wellard. This was just another kind of hunting ground. Different rules, different prey, but I would learn. I would wait.
And when the moment came…when the pieces shifted just right…I would be ready.
Ready for her.
The wind howled through the trees, whipping my hair across my face as I gunned the throttle. Jinx’s motorcycle roared beneath me, eating up the darkened road ahead. My fingers clenched the worn leather grips, knuckles aching from the cold and the rage curling through my veins.
I shouldn’t have been driving this fast. I didn’t even know how to drive one of these damn death traps, especially on these slick backroads. Not while my head was still pounding from the hours I spent stumbling through the woods, trying to understand, trying to figure out what the fuck had happened.
One moment, I was with Jinx…the next, he was gone. Sirens screaming in the distance. The crunch of boots. Headlights cutting through the trees. And me, left behind in the dirt like some fucking afterthought.
What the fuck did he do?
I planned to go back to the NICU to check in on my nephew. But first, I needed to get back to Wellard. I wanted my clothes. These scrubs were garbage. Covered in blood, dirt, and more blood.
My teeth ground together as I took a sharp turn, the back tire skidding before catching the pavement again. The lights of Wellard loomed ahead, perched on the outskirts of the city like some rotting monument. The place had always looked more like a prison than a hospital. Tall, lifeless, unwelcoming.
I cut the engine in the staff lot, throwing my leg over the bike and yanking off the helmet. My boots hit the pavement hard as I stalked toward the entrance, my half-shredded uniform still filthy from the woods, my hair tangled, my pulse hammering like a war drum.
I didn’t care.
All I cared about was getting inside. Finding out what they’d done to him. Finding out what they knew.
