The nurse must have seen my panic, “Doctor Camden, you may want to explain to Miss Thompson what it is that happened and go from there.”

  He exhales, “Miss Thompson, to be perfectly honest you are lucky you are alive right now. Your,” he clears his throat, “boyfriend saved your life with CPR, but unfortunately you were already suffering from an epidural hematoma that caused the aneurysm building in your right hypocanthus to burst from the continual abuse your skull had taken which compounded an already dangerous scenario. You were rushed to the hospital, and we were able to stop the bleeding by some miracle, however with the extensive damage done to your body, internal bleeding, cracked ribs, as well the trauma to your brain we put you in a medically induced coma. You’ve been asleep for the better part of a month and a half. We took you off the drip two weeks ago. Since then your ribs have healed nicely, your dislocated tissue around your shoulder has had time to reset properly, your bullet wound will still take several more weeks to heal all the way, but you should feel less pain now at the site,” he looks back to the nurse for a brief moment, and she shakes her head at him and rolls her eyes. He looks back at us and focuses back to Tank, “Any other questions?”

  “Why can’t she move her arms freely?”

  The doctor rubs the bridge of his nose, “Everyone is different, but I suspect that she just needs time for her body to heal more, and most, if not all her former ability will return.” He removes his hand from his face, and I wonder if he hates his job this much why is he even here. “I’ll order some tests, and I will come back to discuss more with you then,” with that he leaves.

  The nurse stays and she’s looking directly at me, “I’m sorry. He isn’t usually like this. He’s recently had a death in the family and refuses to stop his routine, which includes his work. Can I do anything for you? Any of you?” She then looks between the three of us.

  “I bet she’s thirsty,” Tank says.

  When I nod, the nurse smiles and leaves us. I look between the guys again and the tears start to come. My fingers twitch at wanting to touch each of them in turn and ask them all the questions my mind is screaming at me to ask. I’m grateful however, that we are all alive. I’d be in worse shape if I were in the doctor's shoes, I doubt I could function, let alone go to work to have other lives in my hands.

  It's a few days later when Echo sits at my bedside and tells me a short recap of what happened, and I finally lift my arm to his cheek. We sit in silence as he leans into my palm and holds it firm under his own to keep it there longer than I can manage on my own. When Tank comes in to see the two of us, he can’t contain his tears and I use my other hand to wipe them away.

  My first word is of apology days after I’ve gotten used to touching and then talking with my hands. We had been listening to Tank retell how I was rushed back to surgery the moment I had arrived, Tank had to wait, pacing the hall outside of the double doors just to see Echo going in right after me. Eventually due to blood loss he passed out himself. I couldn’t escape the feeling that it had all been my doing, that I had allowed them to be hurt because of my prior decisions. In that moment desperate to say I’m sorry for putting them in this situation I forgot to speak with my hands and opened my mouth. Thank goodness I had. In a matter of a few days I’m saying simple than complex sentences.

  I learned so much. Axel wasn’t dead as I had thought when I beat him with the pipe, however he is now. The injuries I gave him were too severe. Apparently, the same detective from the last crime scene I’d been a star in wanted my statement, but thankfully due to my own apparent injury and Echo’s and Tank’s testimony I had been within my rights to defend myself. Though the guy I shot in the garage I hoped will fall under the same reasoning, he did shoot at me first after all, I just happened to be a better shot.

  When I had remembered the back door and how I was unable to escape through it, Tank told me Echo went in on a day I wasn’t home and fixed it thinking it would keep me safe. The same day he didn’t show up to work and Tank ended up kissing me.

  Echo lost his eye because of what Axel did. He’s still deciding if he likes the pirate look or if he will eventually try to get a prosthetic. I’m okay with whatever decision he makes, but I kind of liked the idea of being claimed by a pirate. Him hunting for buried treasure...I'm sure I can get some red lipstick to mark the spot. Tank already said he'd play along and with the nerve damage in his right leg, he would most likely have a permanent limp. He already shared with me how good his sailor mouth is even beyond the cursing.

  Echo also had a complete psychiatric work up due to him waking up in the middle of the night during his stay at the hospital and knocking out one of the nurses that tried to restrain him. It seems he couldn’t grunt his way out of it, soon after he started his weekly sessions with a psychologist here in town. I wasn’t even aware in such a small town there would be one, but I’m glad for his sake there is. According to Tank he’s doing much better at night and has only had one episode since being at home.

  Though it wasn’t apparent at first, I too would have a lasting disability from that night. It wasn’t until several weeks later and everything else had returned to normal that it was obvious. Sometimes in mid conversation I would forget what I had been meaning to say, a stilting in conversation of about fifteen to twenty seconds before I would give up and choose a different word to try and compensate. The most frustrating is when it happens in middle argument, though it’s a small price to pay.

  Vince and Sara had a beautiful baby girl. They named her Camila Grace, the first name in remembrance of Vince’s mother, and Grace because Sara loved the name. They would be having a cookout soon to introduce her to friends and family, and somehow, I was invited to come along.

  Axel hadn't fucked around when he said Ric had called in a favor to the Scavengers. As long as the cops don't hear of their activity or raid them because of the Lost Angels then I’m free to stay in living status and there would be no war. I’m obviously not allowed back in their territory, but they shouldn't have worried. Though it left me wondering why Ric would ever agree to those terms with so many other lives at stake. My life’s not worth all of those girls being taken from their homes forced to live lives as slaves.

  Axel had worked separately from them, and the guys that helped him were punished. My imagination is most likely a kindness to what reality they had faced. It turns out he did kill Mrs. Armistead with the methods he chose to get what information he could from her. A life for a life I suppose. I hope she is able to find peace wherever she is now.

  The last week I was in the hospital the girls came to visit me. Brook being out of the hospital several weeks before had been to stop in almost every day while I had been in a coma and then afterwards, so it wasn’t a surprise that when Emmy visited, Brook was already at my bedside. To my delight they were fast becoming friends. They brought me coffee when the guys weren’t looking, told me all the gossip that I was missing. Apparently, it’s been outed that Tank, Echo and I were an official thing.

  Rumor also has it that Ric tore the guys a new asshole for keeping it from him, though I suspect it was after he threatened to rip their balls off if they hurt me. Emmy said it was more of a fatherly outburst than anything, very dramatic and she wished she’d had popcorn to watch the guys’ faces turn white.

  So, when I saw Ric when he came to visit and take me home, I gave him a hug I should have given him when I first got home. Yes, home… this is what this place is to me, who these people are to me. I had a father, a sister, a friend, two lovers, and a permanent home to have them all come visit me in. I also gave him the words of thanks and love that he was due.

  He pulls back from my embrace and takes a seat. He is about to say something but I cut him off, “Ric, I've lied to you,” I rub the tears from my eyes and swallow my pride, “...I'm sorry that I left, but it wasn't for a job like I told you the second time you came to save me,” I hold up a hand since I can see his protest. when I see his mouth close, I look down and watch my fingers fussing with the edge of the sheet, “I found out where my biological dad was, I was young and stupid…”

  “I know,” he places a warm hand over mine. My eyes snap up to find his.

  “You did?”

  He nods, “Of course we searched for you. When we found you, I figured if that's where you wanted to be who was I to stop you?” I grip his hand before he can pull away.

  “It wasn't, he wasn't, I just didn't know how to find my way home after I made the mistake of leaving,” tears fill my eyes as I remember how lost I had felt, and then the years I missed by making that one decision.

  He wraps me in another embrace, “I know. So did you when you lied to me. You were ashamed of me knowing what really made you run and why you felt you couldn't come back. But, kid, you were mine the moment I let you into my home, and into our lives.”

  “I'm so sorry.”

  “It's alright,” he pulls back and put his hands on my shoulders, “but as long as there isn't a next time. I'm too old for the chase and rescue game. I love yah, kid.”

  “Love yah too.”

  “Let's get you home,” he says with a smile and I am so glad to hear that said. I am so ready to get out of here.

  On the ride home I ask the question that's been bothering me since hearing of the deal made with the Scavengers, “Ric, why did you agree to not go to the cops… all those lives, those girls, they deserve better than that.”

  “A father's love can make a man do some crazy things…”

  “They have fathers too. Those men, if anything but the scum of the earth, wouldn't allow this to happen to their children. Even so those girls don't deserve what's happening to them. I can't sit back and not do something, the knowledge will eat me away to nothing,” tears are a new reality for me it seems. They didn't always come this easily.

  “You didn't let me finish. Despite my love for you it isn't a promise I intend to keep. Though I'm doing it on my terms. When my family and the club members’ families are out of harm's way, when I know every face of who is committing these crimes so close to home are recognizable, when I can trace every line up to the very top of the command is in my sights, that is when I will lay out my plan to burn bridges and know no one will be on the other side ready to repair it.” There is steely determination in the features I can see of his face, and without a doubt I know he means every word.

  When I'm finally settled back in at home, Tank and Echo take shifts watching me. I keep trying to tell them that the danger has passed but if I am honest, we are all still on edge. At least after the first few weeks they weren't walking around with assault rifles in their hands or knives strapped to their belts. Though it’s only because I demanded it when they almost shot a hole through Brook, who never in her life wanted to see another gun, I told them they'd have to play GI-JOE somewhere else, or battle down while in the house.

  Later that night when Brook left, they wouldn't stop hovering. I lured them both to the couch as I sat, when I winced due to the dull ache of my shoulder, and in mid-list of everything under the sun and moon they could think to offer me I snapped.

  “You've got to stop!”

  They look confused, “Stop what?”

  I roll my eyes, “You can't be serious.” When they still look confused, I continue, “The hovering, it's driving me crazy.”

  “Can you blame us?” Tank asks.

  “It's not that I don't understand, but it's not necessary to follow me around a house you can see the whole layout of by standing in the middle of it.”

  “If someone got in and we were on the opposite end…” Echo starts.

  I put a hand over his stubble, “There's no doubt in my mind you'd eat up that distance like a mad man seeing demons on his tail.”

  “Demons are everywhere, but they'd be dead ones if they tried to take you,” Echo says with conviction. I can feel myself soften.

  “I know you'll protect me,” I take both their hands and look between them, “You both will, but we've got to find a way to live again, this constant watch duty is not it.”

  “What do you expect us to do?”

  I shrug not really knowing, but a sense of norm would do us good, “Go back to work… for all of us,” I think back to my neurologist and in the time I stayed in the hospital his frigid exterior slowly melted away. He became more patient, and sympathetic to my situation. By the time I left he became a decent doctor and a nurse didn’t follow having to apologize for him to his patients. Our situations were vastly different, but I believed the remedy is the same. Routine is good, healthy it seems in taking steps back to normal, “And club business for the two of you.”

  When I look up to take in their expressions, I know I’ll have a fight on my hands. Brows furrow over their eyes, their mouths are turned down, and they’re searching my face for a joke they aren’t privy to, but this is no joke.

  “I think it would be good for us,” I try.

  “If anything happens to you...I’d burn the whole world down for retribution. Echo would be right beside me holding a torch too. Don’t you understand?” Tank tries to reason.

  “You both are my life. I'd die for you,” Echo adds on.

  I sigh not sure how I will convince them, “I understand because I feel those same things. I wasn't the only one put through hell. In the middle of the night when I clutch the gun on my nightstand with tears in my eyes I’m not only crying for myself,” Tank opens his mouth but I already know what he’s going to say so I brush him off with a hand. We all know it’s not my fault, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m not the only victim, “I know you may not see yourself as victims, especially living through a war, but that night you were too. If you recall, I’m not treating you like china on the edge of a precarious edge. I trust you to ask for my help if you need it instead of holding out my hand waiting for the moment you grasp it, but knowing you two, my arms would fall off before then,” that earns me a full smile from Tank and a smirk from Echo.

  “Alright...I might see your point. I still don't feel good about leaving you here alone,” Tank says.

  “Bodyguard,” Echo says as if that's reasonable.

  I snort, “Not a chance in hell,” I scowl.

  “How about a friend then? At least until we get back in the swing of things?” Tank offers as a compromise.

  My nose scrunches up, “Fine, but you have a readjustment period of a week.”

  “Month,” Echo crosses his arms as he gets to his feet.

  I cross my arms and shake my head, “A week and two days.”

  Tank rolls his eyes as Echo bargains again, “Three,” this time a single eyebrow raises, and I know if I don't agree now, he'll find a way to make me pay for it. Probably a red ass too. It'd be a welcome change from the tender love they’ve been making to me since I got home. I felt like a real-life China doll. Not that I'm saying there aren’t times I want to be made love to, because I do, but a girl’s needs vary.

  Raising my own brow, I tempt the beast, “Two weeks.”

  As I wanted, a growl comes from him before he picks me up and hauls me over a shoulder, yet somehow being careful of my sore one. Tank chuckles as he follows behind us. Echo smacks me soundly on the ass before placing me on the bed.

  He’s impatient with his clothes and soon he’s naked tugging my clothes off for me. Gentle hands are tugging up my shirt, I’m surprised Tank has joined us so quickly. He is usually so meticulous with his clothes and I know he likes to watch before jumping in.

  “You should have just agreed with him.” He looks down at me. I stick my tongue out at him, and his smile turns into a grin, “Try that again and I’ll put it to work.”

  Another bear to poke, I like it, so when I stick my tongue out again, he’s quick with the zipper of his jeans. His erection is shoved into my mouth, his balls drape over my nose. He gives me a small reprieve as he shifts his hips back and forth, letting his balls glide up and down the bridge of my nose.

  Though I can’t see him I can feel Echo about to take advantage of my bottom half. His hands are running up and down my thighs making them open wider for him. The moment he enters my already drenched pussy, I moan around Tank. Tank’s erection jumps in my mouth, and there is a collective moan from both of them as they continue to pump in and out of me in a steady and maddeningly slow rhythm. Soon my impatience urges my hips to move in an unchecked grind, and my mouth to suck harder using my nails against Tank’s thighs to convince him to go faster. Despite my apparent eagerness they continue at their pace.

  “Renegotiation?” I can hear the smile in Echo’s voice. He even takes it one step further by pressing down on my hips, effectively stilling me as he slows his pace even further. I want to cry in frustration, but it comes out as a muffled whimper.

  “I think she might be intrigued,” Tank says as he grazes my erect nipples. I think about biting him, but the choice is taken from me as he leaves my mouth. Though he doesn't move far, his glistening erection is bobbing inches from my face as he continues to torture my nipples to aching peaks.

  “Two weeks… and two days,” I lift my head to see Echo raise an eyebrow, “What?! That's a compromise of two whole fucking days.”

  He smacks the inside of my thighs and I bite my lip as I wiggle to get closer.

  “What are you willing to barter for being reasonable?” Tank says as he pinches my nipples between harsh fingers, and I'm embarrassed at how loudly I moan.

  “For you both to fuck me like men that aren't afraid to break me. Chase after my racing heart, capture my soul, leaving me uncaring of anything once you’re done but to chase after sleep.”

  Chapter 25

  That might have been the sexiest thing that's come out of that sassy mouth all day. I look up at Tank and I can tell he's thinking the same thing. There's a twinkle in his eyes and I give into an urge. Pulling him to me by the back of his neck I kiss him. It's a simple kiss, but the rumble in his chest still makes its way through my body making my dick twitch inside of Lidia. There's a gasp and then a pleasure-filled whimper coming from underneath us. When I release Tank, he seems dazed, but I know he'll get used to the change.

 

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