Page 26 of Maddog

Not that I understood that, but I didn’t have to. I had to know he was on the way. Which meant, I really hoped he didn’t answer when I called him back.

I got up and dressed after unlocking the door for when Mom got there. She and Dad arrived five minutes later. I sat on the couch, my forearms on my knees with my phone clenched tightly in my hands. The second Mom hurried through the door, I was up on my feet and in her arms shaking and sobbing.

“It’s going to be all right, honey,” Mom said, though she was crying as hard as I was. “We’ll figure it out and get through it together. Blade will do everything he can to help us. You know he will.”

“I’m scared, Mom.”

“I know, sweetheart. Me too. Me too.”

I sat with my mother on the couch. She had her arms around me while we both cried silently. My dad stood guard at the door, watching for Blade to approach. Fifteen minutes later, the man in question skidded to a stop in a big, black Bronco in front of my house. He’d obviously hurried over the second Jax had called him.

I dialed Jax’s number, attempting to get him on a video chat instead of a call. I needed to see his face and look into his eyes. He didn’t answer so I glanced at the time. He better be here in less than twenty minutes like he said, or I was gonna kick his ass.

“What happened?” That was Blade. Dr. Donovan Muse. He was a member of Salvation’s Bane MC in Palm Beach, but his office was about halfway between there and Lake Worth where Black Reign was located. He must have hurried straight over. I recognized his medical bag immediately and a fresh flood of tears started.

“I’m sick.” I sounded as miserable as I felt. “Like last time.”

“When did it start?” He sat next to me and reached for my face, his fingers immediately seeking the lymph nodes in my neck.

“I woke up like this. Uh, achy. I woke up in a sweat, and I have no energy. I went to bed early and slept through the night. I shouldn’t be this tired.”

He pulled out his stethoscope and put it in his ears before warming the bell between his hands. “Raise your shirt for me, honey. You know the drill.”

I did. Thankfully I’d dressed and at least had a bra covering me.

Blade listened to my heart and lungs, then took my temperature, blood pressure, and oxygen level. “Your temperature is slightly elevated, but not horribly. Did you eat a good supper last night before bed?”

“I wasn’t that hungry. I had some grapes and a banana, though. And water.”

“How about during the night?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I didn’t wake at all until Jax told me he was leaving and wouldn’t be back until this evening. Something to do with ExFil but I was too sleepy to really process much more.”

“Any abnormal bleeding? Nose bleeds or anything?”

“No.”

“OK.” He stopped, smiling kindly at me. “You know I have to take blood, right?”

“Yes.” I gave a miserable sniff. I really wanted Jax here for this. I don’t know why. This wasn’t anything compared to what would come next if the leukemia had returned. I met Blade’s gaze. “Why would this happen now? Why?”

“First of all, sweetheart, we don’t know that anything’s happened. All we know for certain is that you have a slight fever and body aches. Which could be any number of things other than leukemia.”

“Yes, but the last time --”

He cut me off. “The last time you’d been feeling bad for a month and a half. Let’s not borrow trouble. OK?” Blade was firm but gentle. “First thing we need to do is get some testing started. Some of it I can get started now, some of it I’ll have to take to my pathologist. But I promise you, in twenty-four hours, I’ll have a definite diagnosis.”

I nodded and was about to surrender my arm for him to draw blood when there was a deep rumble in the background that intensified to a bone-jarring roar.

I put my hands over my ears and looked at my dad. Wrath had been leaning against the wall, looking out the front storm door. Which was when the windows on the house started to rattle. It felt like I was in the middle of the biggest, hardest, rock festival in the history of the world.

“What’s going on?” My mom had to yell to be heard over the horrible noise.

Wrath chuckled. At least that’s what it looked like. I couldn’t hear a fucking thing. He held out his hand to me, beckoning me over beside him. As I stood and made my way around the couch to the door, he pointed out the window. There, in the courtyard just beyond the houses, a huge-ass military style helicopter was slowly touching down in the grass.

“What the hell is that?” I tried to ask my dad, but he just shook his head and pointed to his ears. He couldn’t hear me.

A couple minutes later, the thing settled for a brief moment, then lifted off again. The helicopter went straight up, then banked as it turned and left the way it had come. Off in the distance, I saw a lone figure jogging from the courtyard toward the house. And I’d recognize that wonderful figure anywhere. “Jax,” I breathed.

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