She was wearing a hospital gown and blue non-slip socks that the hospital had provided for her.
She was staring at me, waiting for me to make the right decision.
“What the fuck are you doing out of the hospital right now?” I let her father drop to the concrete steps again.
There was a sharp inhale from two directions—both Elizabeth from the house and Barry from the ground—when they saw her.
I managed to hold in my groan of disbelief, but just barely.
“I knew you would come here,” she said. “I don’t have any broken bones.”
Like that made it all okay.
I walked to her and realized that she still didn’t have her eyes open.
Meaning someone had to bring her here…
“I brought her.”
I looked over, just now realizing that I’d never looked away from Silver, to see Jasper standing in the yard.
He pointed at his truck, and I swallowed hard. “Thanks.”
Jasper nodded.
I turned back to Silver and said, “Can I pick you up?”
“No.” She winced. “I don’t think I could handle that right now.”
Fuck.
“Okay,” I said carefully. “Let’s get you back to the truck. Jasper, can you drive my bike to my place and get your truck from the hospital?”
“Done,” he said, then turned back to a prospect.
“Get the cameras,” I heard him say to the prospect, then placed a phone to his ear. “Make sure that you wipe everything, Apollo. Then you need to work on everyone else’s video cameras on this street. They’re rich, so there’s no way that they don’t have them. He needs absolutely zero trace of being here. We’re fucking lucky no one saw him.”
Damn right I was.
But I wasn’t done yet.
“We’re going back to the hospital,” I said as I caught her hand. “Come on.”
Her whimper even when I did that made my stomach sour and my heart physically flip inside my chest.
I hated hurting her.
No, hated wasn’t a strong enough word for what it felt like that I’d caused her pain.
Total and utter obliteration.
My heart was in fucking shambles right now.
“No.” She cleared her throat but didn’t pull her hand away from mine. “I don’t…it makes me nervous being there. I shouldn’t have sent you away.”
That made my heart feel a little bit better, but only barely.
“I won’t leave your side, but you’re going back, baby,” I growled.
