Page 44 of Rogue

Regret and self-recrimination are practically flowing off him. I take his hands in mine.

“You saved them, they’re here now,” I say. “We’ll fix them up.”

He shakes his head, his eyes glowing worse, seeming to beg me to make it all right.

“These six, maybe,” he says. “We left ten bodies on the scene.”

I wrap my arms tight around him, because simple hand holding just won’t do. “You did the best you could. I’ll take care of them now. You can leave them with me. They’ll be fine.”

The sound of the siren is head-splittingly loud, but he heard me just fine because I whispered the promise right into his ear.

He gives me a weak smile and a small nod as I let him go and run to the last ambulance. Only one victim is inside this one, barely holding on and barely out of her teens, her face angelic in the deep, death-like sleep she’s sleeping.

But I will do the best I can to keep my promise to Rogue. I will do the best I can to keep her alive.

19

Rogue

I should be back at the clubhouse planning the all-out hit on Clive, the man whose sick greed is the root cause of all this death and horror. That’s what needs to happen now. He needs to be destroyed. Or I should be with my cousin, persuading him that the LAPD needs to step up and help us do it this time. Instead, I’m sitting in the eerily empty waiting room of the ER waiting for Melody to come tell me if they succeeded in saving any of the women.

Her promise was sweet. It was exactly what I needed to hear. But it was also—most likely—an empty one.

So, I’m fully prepared to hear that the women are all dead as I see Melody approach the waiting area.

Her hair is sticking out like a halo from the braid she had it in and there’s a light glow to her face. Her lab coat and the pale pink sweater she’s wearing underneath it are both sprayed with blood and her eyes have that wild light of a woman on a mission as she strides towards me.

I meet her by the sliding door.

“Three were taken up to surgery, and two are in ICU and they’re still trying to stabilize the last,” she says.

“But they’re all alive?”

“For now,” she says and smiles weakly. Up close she looks exhausted despite the fire in her eyes and the glow in her cheeks. “It’s still touch and go. But they’re young… maybe they’ll pull through.”

“Thank you,” I say and wrap my arms around her, wishing I could just pick her up and carry her back home. Back to my bed. Or at least kiss her real hard. But most of the ER staff are out at reception now and they’re all looking at me.

“What time do you get off?” I ask her instead.

She disengages from my arms, but keeps hers on my waist. “Soon. But I’d like to stick around and see how the surgeries go. I’ll come to the clubhouse when I’m done.”

I smile at her and can’t help kissing her forehead. “Promise?”

“I promise,” I say and smile. “I should get back now.”

I let her go. “And I should go finish what I started.”

“Be careful,” she calls after me as I stride out of the waiting room.

I just wave at her without looking back. If I did, I probably wouldn’t be able to leave her here.

People are always worried about me. If it’s not Blade, Alice or Creed, it’s my mom, my sisters and brothers, or my aunts and cousins. But the plea in Melody’s voice as she told me to be careful cut straight into my heart.

And I don’t know why that should be. Maybe because she’s lost so much. And she seems so lonely. So alone in the world.

But she won’t be lonely anymore now. Not if I have anything to say about it. And I do.

I stopped by the clubhouse just long enough to pick up a copy of the fat file we have on Clive and his operations then came to the Flamingo Saloon to wait for my LAPD detective cousin.

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