Page 67 of The Devil's Pair

“Oh,” Briley said, keeping her voice small. “I don’t know. I mean – I suppose it’spossible. He did hit me right in the head.”

“Twice.”

“Yes. Twice.” She waited a beat, then continued. “Can a hard hit to the head hurt a baby? I mean – is it like a shock to the whole system that thebabyfeels too?”

“Oh, my God. I don’t know.” He shot a look over at her again, and she didn’t even have to try too hard to have tears brimming in her eyes. “Does your stomach hurt?”

“A bit.” She bit her lip, then gave a small gasp and doubled over. “Ohhhhhhh.”

“What? What?” Michael was trying to watch the road while also looking over at Briley. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know,” she whimpered. “Everything hurts suddenly… my head, and my stomach, and my back.”

“Shit.” He pushed the accelerator flat on the floor and she was suddenly worried that he’d kill all of them in his rush to save the baby’s life. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”

“But –” She gave another low moan, wondering if maybe she shouldn’t have majored in Drama. “But what do I tell them about my head injuries?”

“Fuck.” He stared ahead, thinking hard. “We can’t have them thinking that I hurt you. They’d never let me stay for all the tests and checks.”

“I know.” She gave a small sob. “Ineedyou there, Right-Guardian. Webothdo.”

“And I can’t deliver you into unknown hands without staying and keeping watch over Gideon’s heir.”

“No, definitely not.”

“I might have to wait outside the examination room, out in the hallway,” he said reluctantly. “You can tell them that you were… mugged. Maybe someone struck you and stole your purse and phone, and I’m just a good Samaritan who was driving by and brought you to the hospital.”

“That – that’s a very good plan,” she said slowly, thinking that it actuallyreally was. “I’ll feel much better knowing that you’re close by. I’ll feel protected and safe.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” he said. “Let me just think now where you could have been mugged, and where I was coming from and going to when I saw it happen. They’ll ask all kinds of things like that, after all, and it has to make sense.”

“Yes.” She gave another small gasp of pain, put her hands over her stomach. “Aaaahhhh. It’s hurting more now.”

“We’re thirty minutes away,” he told her. “Hold on. Let me decide what to tell the police. ”

She closed her eyes and held her breath, hoping against hope that she would be allowed to be fully alone with a doctor, a nurse, a goddamncleaning woman… anyone that she could pass a note to, or whisper a few words in their ear. It seemed too good to be true right now, though, so she just held her own hands tightly, hoping that Crusher hadn’treallyhurt the babies. She didn’t feel any pain at all, he hadn’t touched her abdomen, so she was pretty sure that they were OK. Still, a hospital visit would be very welcome now, for more than one reason.

Something was nagging at her, though, some detail that she’d surely overlooked. It wasn’t surprising, considering that she’d concocted this entire hare-brained scheme in twenty minutes whilst still fuzzy from the drugs, tied up and blind in the back of a van, after seeing Rebel murdered. All she’d been thinking about was getting Michael invested in her pregnancy; she’d been working on the assumption that he’d doanythingto save Gideon’s son, so she hadn’t really looked much beyond getting him baited and hooked.

Now that he was, she needed to nail down justwhatwas making her feel such disquiet.Whywas she suddenly not feeling awesome about being in the hospital, when what she wanted was to be around other people? Something about the tests – or maybe it was about the –

The police.

She sat straight up, so quickly that Michael jumped. He looked over at her, and she knew that she didn’t have to fake the look of terror that was stamped across her face.

“No!” he exclaimed, assuming the worst. “You can’t lose Gideon’s son!”

She barely heard him over her own buzzing, spinning thoughts:

I killed Gideon, and he knows that. If I get him arrested at the hospital, if I tell them all about Crusher and the cult, you’d better fuckingbelievethat he’ll spill everything on me.

And not just me – Dux and Drake, Ice and Viking, and Violet. The whole of the MC, maybe, because who knows how much he knows? And what happens when they run my ID?

Shit. I’ve got to get away from him. Now. Any way that I can.

Hold on, babies… this is gonna get bumpy.

She took a deep breath, then let out the most blood-curdling shriek that she could manage. She threw her head back, as if overwhelmed by the pain, and gripped her stomach.

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