Page 49 of Rogue

Because it makes all the other sacrifices I’ve made and continue to make worthwhile.

Two of the women Rogue brought in last night didn’t make it. One more isn’t expected to last through the night. I want to be the one to tell him that. And at the same time, I never want him to know it.

My shift’ll be over in an hour and then I’ll have to tell him. And afterwards, I’ll make him feel better. I hope.

“Hey, Dr. Daydreamer,” Shelly says, startling me, and making me realize I’ve been staring at a medicine bottle I’m supposed to be putting away for a while now. “I’ve got a patient for you. I think he’s friends with that hunk you’re riding with these days.”

“Yeah? Did he say so?” I ask, sounding way too excited about the prospect of helping one Rogue’s men.

Shelly laughs. “No, he didn’t. And he doesn’t have those lovely angel’s wings on the back of his jacket. But he just looks like the type. A little rougher maybe. And he asked for you.”

She holds out his chart and I take it. “Why’s he here?”

“A cut on his hand he says won’t heal,” she says. “Said he’d rather have a doctor look at it when I tried to. I put him in the suture room for you.”

“All right, thanks,” I say and leave the drug lockup cage.

The biker is sitting with his back to the door in the suture room. He’s wide and tall, dwarfing the hospital bed Shelly told him to sit on. His dirty blond hair is wavy, brushing the collar of his leather jacket that’s unadorned by any club colors.

He turns to me as I open the door and grins. At first glance he looks more like one of the Devils than a member of Rogue Angels MC. His neck is covered by tattoos, snaking up his chin and a small, crudely cross adorns his cheek, just under the left eye. His eyes are deep and dark, the way a well is dark, and I’m guessing he’s seen a thing or two that I’d rather not know about. He has that air of a killer not at peace about it. I know it well. I’ve seen and felt it often in my old life. Men like that I always stayed away from. Too much darkness. Not enough fun.

“I’m Dr. Lockhart,” I say. “What seems to be troubling you?”

“I’m Zane,” he says, his gaze sliding down my body and his grin widening. “I have this cut on my hand that just won’t go away. It’s making it real hard to hold the handlebars, if you know what I mean.”

He holds out his left hand palm upwards.

“Well, first of all,” I say as I start to unwrap the dirty bandage covering it. “You have to keep your wound clean.”

“Easier said than done out on the road,” he says. “I’m sure you know what I mean. Melody.”

I lock eyes on his, the half-unwrapped bandage slipping out of my shaking fingers.

“Do I know you?” I ask even as I try to answer that question very hard in my mind. He does look vaguely familiar, like I’ve seen him before. But I have no idea where.

“You probably don’t remember me, why should you?” he says. “You wanted nothing to do with me back when we first met.”

“I don’t think we’ve met before,” I say, trying to keep my voice from shaking.

“Sure, we did,” he says and grins. The rest of the dirty bandage around his palm falls to the floor.

“I think I would’ve remembered you,” I say and chuckle, trying to hide just how badly this is weirding me out.

“We met years ago, back when you were still living at the Devil’s Nightmare MC clubhouse,” he says, making the laugh catch in my throat like a fishbone going down the wrong way.

Before I left the Devils warned me to watch my back, to be careful because whoever was after them might come after me too. The Prez, Cross even offered me protection down here in LA. But I said there was no need. That I’d quit being their club girl long enough ago for everyone to forget I ever was. Maybe I was wrong about that.

“You have me mixed up with someone else,” I say in the most shaky and unconvincing voice I’ve ever heard come out of my mouth.

“I go by the name Unholy, maybe you remember that better,” he says.

And hearing the name makes a piece of a very distant memory float to the surface of my mind. A picture really. Just a part of it.

He was younger then, yet his eyes were darker and colder than they are now. It must’ve been over nine years ago. I hadn’t been with the Devils long, less than a year. I wasn’t yet used to being around killers the way I later became. He frightened me so I turned him down. And as I remember, the Devils turned him down too, when he tried to join them.

“I’ll get a nurse to clean out your wound,” I say and back away to the door.

He stands up and lifts his hand. It takes all I have not to lower my head and cower. But he’s just showing me his palm.

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