Page 9 of Rogue

Melody

Hunter asked if I need a ride somewhere before they left the Rogue Angels MC clubhouse, but I’m the last person who would stand in his way while he went to find Trixie. So, I just told him I’m fine here and how much I hope he finds her safe. Their love story spans the last decade, but too often it’s just as sad and hopeless as it seems to be this morning. With her in need of help and him trying to find her before it’s too late.

But maybe I also stayed because Rogue needed sutures of the kind the paramedics weren’t able to give him. Though all my hard work on that front went right out the window and into the dirt soon after it was done. About an hour after Hunter left, Rogue convinced the paramedics to give him a cocktail of uppers that could keep him up for a decade, at least, and then his entire MC rode out to help Hunter and the rest of the guys.

I was happy they did. At first.

But they left hours ago and the walls of this clubhouse bar are starting to close in on me. It’s a big room, dark wood tables dotting the space and a blue light that reminds me of a dark, moonlit night washing over everything. Outside, it’s inchingtowards noon, but all the windows of this place are shuttered so no sunlight is getting in. The paramedics are still here, but we’re not talking. We’re just waiting for the bodies to start arriving. And I hope it won’t be anyone I know.

When I finally hear Harleys returning my hands are shaking so hard, I’ll probably be unable to take anyone’s pulse, let alone perform anything more complicated than that.

I run out of the bar into the glaring sunlight of the parking lot anyway. But I don’t recognize any of the men and women who arrive first. None seem hurt though. Except for a few superficial cuts and what looks like bullet grazes. I let the paramedics handle those as I keep my eyes on the gate for more arrivals.

Seconds turn into minutes and then start dragging like hours.

But then Rogue finally rides in, followed by his VP, and finally Chance, Jax and then Hunter with Trixie.

I run up to them.

“Is she all right?” I ask, but don’t need to go on because she smiles at me.

“I’m good now,” she assures me as I help her off the back of Hunter’s bike.

I check her pulse and her pupils, then listen to her heart.

“I’m all right, Mel,” she says. “I just need a bath and some food.”

“I’ll get you started on IV fluids,” I tell her but she shakes her head.

“They need your help more than I do,” she says, meaning the Rogues. “Seriously, I’ve been through worse. I’m OK.”

And I know she has. Much worse. So much I don’t even want to think about it.

“And you three?” I ask the guys. “How’s your arm, Jax?”

“The stitches are holding,” he says. “But Rogue over there seems to be bleeding pretty bad again.”

I look where he’s pointing.

Rogue is sitting in the back of the ambulance, shirtless, a paramedic peeling away the bandage I placed over the stitches just a few short hours ago. It’s deep red and dripping blood.

“That stupid stubborn man,” I say. “I told him this would happen. I’ll just go see…”

“Go ahead, we’re fine,” Trixie says, giving me a very curious kinda look.

Rogue’s eyes also seem to be searching for me and he grins when he spots me making my way towards him.

“You were right, Doc,” he says. “I tore up all your pretty stitches.”

He definitely runs hot and cold. Before he left here this morning, he seemed cold as ice. Now, he’s looks genuinely happy to see me again.

“Let me take a look,” I say and the paramedic moves aside for me.

Rogue wasn’t kidding about carrying a lot of scars. His chest and stomach are crisscrossed with them. Some of them are covered by tattoos, and some make the tattoos unrecognizable.

“I’ll have to redo these,” I say after washing out the wound in his side with saline. “You sure tore them good.”

“Sorry,” he says, a playful light dancing in his green eyes. They’re the color of a mountain lake at noon right now. And just as deep. “I was trying to be careful.”

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