Page 38 of War

“Good girl.”

Heat blossoms up my neck and over my cheeks, despite my urge to return with a snippy retort.

“Kit, get the door.”

She nudges my IV pole closer, and I take control of it while she holds the door for Callan.He wheels me out, almost colliding with nurse Laura.“Oh, I have your orange juice!”she exclaims.“Where are you going?”

“Visiting another patient.I’ll bring her back,” Callan informs her.

Wide eyes travel over Callan’s face and down the length of his chest to his calloused fingers on the handles of my chair.Shifting from one foot to the next, she nods, a hand coming up to rub the back of her neck.I know exactly what she’s feeling.Just looking at him makes me weak too.“Okay, I can leave this in your room for when you get back,” she says, holding up the carton.

“Thank you.”I nod.I don’t tell her that I won’t be coming back.

Callan continues down the hall toward a double door with Exit blazoned in red above it.“I hate hospitals.They remind me of sickness.”Kitty shudders as we pass through the automatic doors.

“Did you really just say that?”Callan groans.

“What?”She scoffs.“They do.”

“Maybe because they’re full of sick people, genius.How the hell do you function through life?”

“How do you with that giant chip on your shoulder?”she fires back, gaining stares from a passing nurse and a man cradling his arm.

“So, does anyone else know your dad is alive, or just you two?”I ask, interrupting their bickering.Harley and I never really argued or got snippy with each other.I wonder if it’s a brother-sister thing.

“Grease knows.We couldn’t risk telling anyone else,” Kitty answers.

“You don’t trust anyone else?”I look back at Callan.

“That’s not it.We had to take those precautions because we thought it was a deliberate attack.An assassination.The best thing we could do was keep quiet until we had answers.”

“Loose lips sink ships.”Kitty winks down at me.

“You can never know what people overhear, especially with club sluts coming and going.If no one knows, they can’t let it slip or discuss it.”

“Won’t they be pissed you’ve been lying?”I rub around the sticky tape keeping my IV in place, trying to alleviate the itch building there.

“No, they’ll have their pres back and understand why we did what we did,” Callan says.

We slow at an elevator.Kitty presses the button, and the doors open straight away.Wheeling me inside and hitting the button on the panel, we begin descending.

“I feel I should warn you now, Rogue.Dad’s not happy about you being here.”Kitty shoves her hands into her back pockets.

My stomach bottoms out.I didn’t expect a parade, but I hope he gives me a chance.The situation is unusual.We’re navigating it as we go.

“What did he say?”Callan intervenes, the leather handles creaking under his tightened grip.

“Not much, just that you shouldn’t have brought an outsider here.”

My chest deflates.An outsider.Is that how they all see me?

“She’s not a fucking outsider.She’s one of us—a King.”

Kitty shakes her head, holding her hands up in surrender.“His words, not mine.You both know how I feel.”

“And what did you tell him?”Callan asks.

“That she’s one of us.Saved Cutter’s life for Christ’s sake.”

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