Page 58 of Forced Proximity
“What message?”
“To my club president,” he rasped. “Can you go find him? Can you tell him? Tell him when he finds my Elaine, to make sure that she’s not left alone for a while? She will be heartbroken. We’ve been together since we were sixteen. Only separated out of necessity. I don’t think she’ll take this well. We’ve been together longer than we’ve been apart, and she’ll…”
His voice broke.
“What else?” I asked.
“Tell Webber that I’m finally free.” His eyes closed and he loosened his grip on my arm. “Go find my wife, please. If I can, I want to talk to her one more time before I’m gone.”
I moved away, but stopped when I saw the shears coming out to cut the leather vest from his large frame.
“NO!” I called out, stopping the nurse. “Don’t cut it.”
“I have to cut it!” She started to go again.
But I was already taking the shears out of her hands. “No. These cuts are sacred to them.”
I may have been frightened as hell of the Truth Tellers, but I was intrigued enough to look into motorcycle clubs’ customs, rituals, and anything else that pertained to the life.
I knew that they loved their vests.
“We have to!” She reached for them again.
“We can’t,” I said. “This is no different than any other religious stuff we follow. We can get the vest off without cutting it.” I dropped my voice. “He already has no arm, darling.”
She paused and then nodded.
It took three of us to get the vest off and set nicely in the corner of the room.
His eyes met mine once again before I took off, and I could tell he was thankful for my intervention.
I smiled tightly and left the room, looking for the love of Knight’s life, but came up empty.
I did, however, find the paramedics stopped into the refreshment room grabbing a snack.
“Excuse me,” I said quickly. “The woman that was with him. Is she okay?”
The closer one shook his head.
“Nope.” The paramedic smiled sadly. “It was a really bad wreck. Eighteen-wheeler pulled out in front of them. Gave them zero time to react.”
“The biker did what he could, but in the end that wasn’t enough. He hit a guard rail and lost his leg and his arm in the impact. His wife…let’s just say she had wounds incompatible with life,” the second paramedic murmured.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“She was cut in half.” The first paramedic winced. “Died at the scene. Justice of the Peace pronounced her dead on the side of the road.”
“Dammit,” I muttered. “Thanks, guys.”
“No problem,” he said, but I was already halfway back to the trauma room.
I entered and found that there were more than enough people surrounding him and helping him, so I went to his head and cupped his cheek.
“Knight,” I said sternly.
His eyes opened, and he looked in so much pain that my entire being bucked. “She okay?”
