Page 53 of Chaos Luck Wrath

Layne noticed his drawn-out blinks and the way he wiped the sheen of sweat from his head with the back of his hand.

“Gage, are you okay?” She reached over, placing a hand on his bicep.

His foot pressed the brake to roll to a stop for a yellow light. Layne’s voice sounded so far away like he was in an underwater cave. His breathing grew shallow while attempting to swallow the pooling saliva in his mouth, willing himself to stay conscious as he struggled to maintain clear thoughts.

Gage’s hand dropped to the shifter, attempting to push it into Park but missing the knob.

Noticing that his eyes were fluttering, she cursed and shook his arm harshly. “Hey! Stick with me!”

Somehow, she heard the impact a microsecond before she felt it. An unexpected force slammed into the back of her car, launching it across the intersection and only stopping when the front of her vehicle collided with a pole. Another impact hit the backend again, crushing the Beamer further against the pole.

The hit was strong enough that airbags popped off after the first hit, providing a little bit of buffer from the way they both were violently jerked around inside their seats. Fortunately, seat belts kept her and Gage from suffering worse injuries.

Moments after the wreck, Layne was slumped in her seat with a small line of blood trickling from a minor head wound a couple of inches above her eyebrow. It was unclear how long she had lost consciousness in the aftermath of the incident.

Trying to open her eyes, she squinted at an imposing light shining directly on her face. The door on her side of the car was wide open, a presence looming there over her. Her head was pounding and for a brief moment, she couldn’t even recall where she was or what had transpired.

“What…?” Layne groaned as she turned her face away from the bright light. She lifted her hand to try and shield her eyes.

A hand roughly grabbed her by the hair, turning her so that the light continued to blind her vision. “Stupid little bitch,” the faceless voice said with such an air of disdain.

The voice was rough like sandpaper, prompting all the hairs on the back of her neck to stand on end. It elicited fear to perk up from her gut, telling her to sound all her alarms. Yet, her body wouldn’t coordinate the efforts on behalf of her head.

The flashlight came down harshly, striking her across the face. The hit knocked her back into her seat. Layne noticed Gage still in the driver’s seat, slumped over the steering wheel passed out.

She winced, squeezing her eyes tightly with the pain radiating from the side of her face. The man who had been speaking to her cursed as he seemed to talk to himself, “Fucker and his timing.” Something fell into her lap.

Turning her head back towards the man, Layne’s eyes strained as they opened back up to see the outline of a man jogging back to a pickup truck waiting next to her car. Her body wanted to drag her into the dark of unconsciousness again, but she willed herself to try and see the person responsible before it did so.

Just when she thought she wouldn’t be able to hold out any longer, the man turned and looked over his shoulder at her. A fucking evil smirk on his face. The same face she thought she had seen at the club.

No. Fucking. Way.

The man climbed into the heavy-duty pickup with front-end damage before it peeled off, the tires squealing against the pavement as it did so.

Her head was spinning through its haze as she tried to distinguish what was truth and reality. Did she simply hit her head hard enough to land in some mental ward where nothing was real anymore? None of this made sense and that made her head ache even more.

Rolling her head to look back over at Gage, her hand shakily reached out. Her fingertips barely rested against his side in an attempt to provide comfort via touch for them both.

Joey’s voice sounded miles away as he shouted her name. Hearing him, she knew she was safe—they both were.

She surrendered and her eyes fell shut.

Chapter Twenty-Three

GAME

“I’m getting really sick and fuckin’ tired of doctors and hospitals,” Layne griped as she sat in a chair next to Gage’s gurney in the emergency room. She removed the ice pack from her forehead.

After she had raised all hell refusing medical treatment, they were now just waiting on Gage’s discharge papers after being stuck there for several hours. Unfortunately, coming to the ER wasn’t ideal, but the NYPD was a bit too quick to arrive on the scene shortly after Joey did. It seemed the new brass was making a stink about response times.

“Baby, I wish you would have let the doctors check you out.” Gage sat on the edge of the makeshift bed, looking about as worse for wear as she did.

She looked down at the cold pack that was doing little to alleviate her headache. “It’s just a bump. I’m not the one who got roofied.”

Joey pulled the small bag out of her hand and gently applied it to the side of her face where the flashlight had struck her. “But you were its intended victim,” he countered.

As the stinging cold pressed to the tender spot on her face, she gave a light hiss of pain as she winced, trying to pull her face away. Joey’s hand held onto the side of her head, preventing her from evading his efforts to alleviate the swelling.

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