Page 6 of Reconciling the Consequences

“Um, excuse me.” A male voice called out from the open bay door.

Johnny whirled to see a gangly looking man with shaggy hair and glasses standing in front of the F-250. The guy was holding several plastic bags marked with Mourningside General’s logo. “What do you want?” Johnny grunted.

“This is all her stuff from the hospital.” The man held up the bags.

“Who the hell are you?” Johnny stalked toward the guy.

“I’m just an Uber driver.” The guy squeaked, raising his hands in surrender.

“Jesus.” Kevin hissed and headed toward the guy. He pushed Johnny aside and grabbed the bags from the kid. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, no problem.” The kid squeaked again before he ran for his little Nissan Altima.

Johnny sighed and cleaned up his mess. Thankfully they had finished with the oil change already.

Johnny didn’t glance back at Kara until he was driving down the road with Devil and Rockstar riding in formation behind him, but then he wished he hadn’t—her skin was ashen and she looked dead.

He kept his eyes on the road and focused on moving forward. It was all they could do now.

Karawokeupincomplete and utter agony. She groaned and whimpered; her ribs and knee were on fire. They throbbed to the beat of her heart and only picked up tempo the more distressed she became. “Easy, baby.” Kevin’s deep rumble came from her right.

She popped her eyes open to find she was in an unfamiliar bedroom. The room had gray walls with white trim and a large picture window half covered by navy-blue curtains. The king-size bed she was lying on was soft beneath her. She’d been tucked tight beneath the sheets and blankets and propped up against a mountain of pillows, her left knee elevated under another stack.

She turned to find Kevin lying next to her on the bed, his head propped on his hand as he faced her. “Hurts.” She whimpered.

“I’ve got your meds right here.” He nodded and held out a handful of pills.

The sight of the three horse pills in his hands was a welcome relief. He handed them to her and then held up an insulated stainless steel cup, her cup—the one with the straw that she carried everywhere. She took a sip of the ice-cold water and groaned. It tasted divine.

She took another sip and tossed back her pills, grateful to be propped up on the mountain of pillows. She breathed through the pain and hoped the pills would kick in fast. “Where are we?” she asked, closing her eyes.

“Our house,” Kevin answered. “We took you home with us.”

Kara didn’t know what to think of that, then decided she wasn’t going to think about what it might mean. Those were problems for another day. She hummed in response.

“I read through your discharge papers,” Kevin continued, his voice thick. “We’ll keep up with your meds so you don’t feel the pain like this again.”

“Please.” She whimpered, a tear slipping down her cheek.

“Fuck, baby.” Kevin groaned. “I’m so sorry. I should have been there. You shouldn’t have been alone.”

Kara snapped her eyes open and looked at Kevin, taking in his disheveled appearance. His black hair was past due for a trim; the usual well-kept locks were in complete disarray. He had dark circles under his eyes, as if he hadn’t been sleeping, and his right eye had the yellow bruising of a healing black eye.

“Why didn’t you call me?” she asked, thinking back to the week before her attack. The three of them had practically ghosted her after their weekend sexathon at her house.

Kevin reached out and grazed his fingers gently over the skin of her face. “I wanted to. I wanted to every single day.”

“But you didn’t.” She snapped.

“You’re right, and you have every right to be pissed about that.” He agreed, nodding.

Kara rolled her eyes and turned her head away. She hated when men did the whole, “your feelings are valid” thing. No fucking shit, bro. She knew she had a right to be pissed off; the placating just pissed her off more. “Leave me alone,” she said. She didn’t have the energy to deal with whatever bullshit explanation he was going to come up with.

“I’m sorry, Kara. If you would just let me explain,” he started again.

“No, Kevin.” She snapped, opening her eyes. “I expected better from you. Me and you, we started this thing together, just the two of us. I thought I meant more to you.”

Kevin sat up carefully so as not to jostle the bed. “I know. I fucked up. I should have called you and told you what was going on. With the shit going on with the club, we didn’t want you to get involved. We thought it would be better,safer for you, if we kept you out of it.”

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