Page 37 of Riot Act
They want to keep me at the hospital for three days. Three. Fucking. Days. I’ve been on shorter psych holds. I wait until they remove the catheter—Remy takes great pleasure in making me wait until midday the next day—and then I’m fucking out of there. Doesn’t take long to charm one of the nurses into grabbing my shit for me. I flirt with her a bit and the next thing I know, my cell, my keys, and my clothes have been returned to me.
I bail without signing anything or telling anyone what I’m doing, and I don’t fucking care. My throat hurts, which is super weird. And, of course, my hip and back hurt. Like,reallyfucking hurt. My pain threshold’s high, but the sharp, stabbing knife of pain that hits me with every beat of my heart makes the breath catch in my throat.
I jump in the Charger and peel out. Ten short minutes later, I pull up in front of Riot House, and my entire back and left side is on fire, and my head is pounding. I grab my cell and my keys, leave all of my other shit in the car, then stagger up the steps toward the front door. It’s locked—the boys are out somewhere.
I walk through the foyer and hit the stairs without bothering to scope out the ground floor. I need to be vertical, STAT. It’s all I can think about. My synapses strobe. A flight of stairs stands between me and my bed, but I can handle that. What’s one flight of stairs, anyway?
Step.
Step.
Step.
One foot in front of the other.
I hold my side, digging my fingers into my groin the whole way up, a little worried that my insides might be unraveling. I make it up to my room. Just. Too tired to peel my clothes off, I collapse on top of the king-sized mattress, hissing when the impact sends pain rattling all the way up to the roots of my teeth.
Exhaustion claims me. When I wake up later, Wren’s standing at the end of my bed with my cell phone in his hand. He scowls at me as he talks into it.
“Yeah. Thanks. I’ll make sure he takes them. Yeah. I’ll make sure he goes. Thanks.” His vivid green eyes flash daggers at me as he hangs up the call. I think he might be about to hurl himself onto the bed and wrap his hands around my throat. “I thought you were on a shoot,” he growls. “Imagine my surprise when I heard your cellphone blowing up in here.”
Uuuhhhh fuck. I did tell him I had a shoot in the city. I drag a pillow over my face, blocking him out. At least if hedoessuffocate me, I won’t have to see how pissed off he is.
“No explanation, then? Nothing?” I don’t need to see his face to feel his fury. “No, sorry I lied to you guys? No, sorry I didn’t say anything about checking myself into theperilouslyshit hospital down the road, for major fucking surgery?”
I tear the pillow away, eyeing him grumpily. “It wasn’t major surgery. And you would have made it weird.”
“I wouldnot.”
“What do you think you’re doing right now?”
“You know I’m gonna kick your ass, right? And when I’m done, Dash is gonna finish you off.”
“Have at it, dude.” I groan. “Can you just, like, wait a couple of weeks, though? I feel like hammered shit already.”
Evaluating my pathetic, curled up position on the bed, he arches an eyebrow. Bemused doesn’t even begin to cover his expression. “You wanna tell me what this is all about?” He nods to where my shirt has hitched up, exposing the gauze dressing on my side—evidence of my evil, uncharacteristic act of benevolence. “And why I just spent ten minutes on the phone, assuring someone called Remy that you’ll go to the hospital for a checkup in a week’s time? He was rambling about all kinds of meds and stretches and shit. What have you done to yourself? Are you fucking dying?”
I rub my hand against the top of my head, biting back another grin. “Would you be sad if I was?”
He tosses my phone so that it lands next to me on the bed. “For at least a day.”
“Gee. Thanks.”
“Nothing personal. Funerals bring me out in hives. And school’s annoying enough without all of the girls going into fucking mourning.”
I’d laugh if I didn’t already know just how much pain that would cause. “For me? I’m pretty sure the female population of Wolf Hall would throw a kegger in honor of my demise.”
“Bull.” He throws himself down into the chair by the window, not bothering to sweep the pile of clothes off it first. “You’re like catnip to every girl in a fifty-mile radius.”
I yawn, risking the tiniest of stretches. “Impossible. I treat them all like trash.”
“That’swhythey like you. I know of at least one girl who’d gladly sell her own soul for a night with you. Wait—” Wren narrows his eyes. “Didn’t you already fuck Pres? At the last party. Before…”
Before our psychotic English teacher tried to murder a bunch of us? Before either Wren or Dash officially shackled themselves to their girlfriends? Ahh, the good old days. It just goes to show how much time Wren has been spending with Elodie if he’s calling Presley ‘Pres’ instead of by her full, obnoxiously long title.
And surprise, surprise. Here the troublesome redhead is again, cropping up like a bad penny. Why is the universe so dead set on bringing up Presley Maria Witton Chase every opportunity it gets? Haven’t I had enough of her to last me a lifetime already? I should fucking think so.
God? All-powerful, All-seeing Universal Being? Whoever’s fucking listening. No more suicidal redheads, please. Thanks.
