Page 16 of The Queen of Nightmares

I wanted to go home. I hated being in the hospital after what I had experienced at the hands of Dr. Stein. Just being in the building brought back horrible memories. More than once, the man had sent me to the hospital. But Doc wanted to ensure that everything looked good before we could go, so he refused to allow me to leave until the lab processed my bloodwork.

I was staring at the deep, red scar that ran across the upper part of my forearm when the door to the room opened again. There was no knock, so I had assumed it was Jack returning already, but whoever it was entering was quiet and definitely not my biker President.

A thin, young woman wearing blue scrubs edged around the curtain as I eyed her. She had her head down, her short, dark hair concealing her face as she slowly walked toward the machine to my left that was monitoring my heart rate. I watched warily, wondering why she was acting so strangely.

My phone began to vibrate on the bed next to me. Jack had placed it there when he first showed up. He’d wanted me to keep it close in case I needed to reach him, not happy that I had left it behind at the clubhouse. The ringing distracted me from the quiet nurse. When I glanced down at it, I saw an unknown number from California. With a frown, I declined the call, figuring it was a sales call or something equally unimportant from my time living there.

I glanced back up to see the nurse staring at me from the corner of her eye. It was obvious she wasn’t there to take notes on my vitals. My hand moved to the call button on the side of the bed when she finally turned to look at me, a desperate look on her face.

“Please, don’t.”

I knew that voice. The woman looked different without the pink hair and the arrogant attitude, but there was no mistaking who it was.

“Daisy.” I picked my phone up, already preparing to call Jack, when she reached over and snatched the phone from my hand.

“Sally, please listen to me!” she begged in a desperate whisper, eyeing the curtain that was concealing the door.

I glared up at Daisy. I could admit that I was shocked to see her standing in front of me, alive and well. A part of me had expected Jack to kill her. She had been a spy, after all. The last time I had seen her, she had taunted him to kill her as she spewed toxic venom at him. The threats she made about her brother and what he was planning on doing to me would have been enough to have Jack end her life. So, seeing her standing in my hospital room alive and apparently doing well had my head spinning.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded, eyeing the phone she now held in her hand. I glanced at the door, knowing all I needed to do was yell out to have the Nightmare prospect running inside.

Daisy glanced toward the door again and swallowed before slowly reaching out to hand my phone back to me. “I owe Bones my life. I need to repay him.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but no words came out. I realized I should have asked questions back then, but I had thought at the time it was best I didn’t think of Jack as a woman murderer. Even if I could understand his reasonings, it would have been difficult to reconcile the act with the man I had come to love. Now, it seemed there was a lot more to the man than I ever could have imagined.

Daisy gestured to the phone I was holding with a trembling hand. “I understand if you want to call him, but I hope you’ll give me a few minutes to explain.”

I eyed her, really taking her in. She looked the same, but there were subtle differences. The thick makeup was gone, allowing her natural beauty to shine. Her hair was dark in what I assumed was her natural shade, making her pretty eyes pop with color. She looked healthy, even if she seemed spooked.

“You have five minutes,” I threatened, setting the phone in my lap and eyeing her with my best no-nonsense stare.

She gave me a small smile that wobbled just a little. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Bones gave me enough money to disappear after I told him everything I knew about what my brother had planned for the Devil’s Nightmares. I took the money and got on the first bus out of town. I made it to Tennessee, where I rented a small apartment and got a job at a bar.” She shrugged a shoulder and gave a self-deprecating smile. “It’s all I really know how to do.”

She sighed, rubbing her forehead before continuing. “Anyway, I have a cousin back here that I was worried about, so I decided to call her, making her promise not to let Oogie know I was alive. I’ve been hiding with her while I tried to figure out a way to get a message to you.” She paused and stared at me with a serious expression. “I found out that Oogie has someone else spying on the Nightmares.”

I inhaled sharply at the news. With all the security Jack had been implementing and the plans they were making to take out the Boogeymen, it could mean disaster for everyone if there was another mole in the club. If they knew too much, it could mean death for everyone.

“Who is it?”

She was already shaking her head before I could get the words out. “I don’t know. I wish I did, really. But Cherise didn’t know either. She just overheard her old man talking about it with some of the guys who had come over for drinks one night. Cherise thought I was dead, too, and had been pissed at Oogie for putting me in the position in the first place, knowing what would happen if I were caught.” She shook her head. “I should never have agreed to do it. I knew it was dangerous and that I probably wouldn’t make it out alive, but Oogie has a way of forcing the issue.

“When I told Cherise about what Bones did for me, she insisted on telling me what she could, hoping to help. Sally,” she looked at me with big eyes, “please know, not everyone is like my brother. Most of us don’t agree with how he runs the club or the other horrible things he does.” She shuddered and looked across the room to the window overlooking the town of Pumpkin Patch. The lights outside twinkled with the strange mix of Christmas and Halloween that the town seemed to thrive on. With Christmas just around the corner, the pumpkins decorating the town were more jovial than menacing, and much of the pumpkin artwork adorning the shop windows had Santa hats and other Christmas-themed items added.

“I can’t stay,” she said, glancing back at me. “Bones said if I ever returned, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill me this time. I really can’t blame him. But I needed to warn you. I couldn’t find a way to get to you after the fences were put up around the compound.”

“Are you the one that sent the box of insects to me?”

She looked shocked and took a step back, almost hitting the wall behind her. “No! I swear it wasn’t me. It’s something Oogie would do, though. He loves to terrorize.” She got a faraway look in her eye and shuddered again as if remembering her own torment at her brother’s hands. “I just heard that you were here. The town likes to talk, and gossip travels fast. I thought it would be my best chance to let you know.” She stared at me, her look intense and serious. “Sally, he plans to take you. I didn’t know how true my words were when I was threatening Bones that day, but my brother really does plan to take you. He thinks if he can get to you, he’ll be able to control Bones and force him to give up the club and town. If Bones is no longer the President, he will be able to take down the entire club. You have to keep an eye out at all times. Someone close to you is working for him. You can’t trust anyone.”

Heavy footsteps could be heard outside the door, and both of our heads jerked in that direction. “Shit,” she hissed and darted her eyes around frantically.

I made a split-second decision. “Quickly! Go into the bathroom!” I waved her in the direction of the open door. “I’ll find a way to get you out of here, I promise.”

She took a couple of steps toward the bathroom, stopped, and came back over to me with tears in her eyes. “Thank you, Sally. I really am sorry for everything. In case you ever need me.” Then she turned and darted into the small room right before the door opened. I closed my hand over the small slip of paper she had placed in my lap.

I quickly thought of how I should handle the situation. I hated lying to Jack or keeping secrets from him, but even though I had little reason to, I believed Daisy. She was putting her life on the line to save mine, and that made me trust her. There was a good chance that Jack would react violently to having someone who used to be such a threat so close to me, especially after what happened today.

As Jack stepped around the curtain while holding a paper cup in both hands, I smiled. He really was a good man. Better than anyone knew. He could have killed Daisy; instead, he gave her a new life. It made my heart swell with love for him even more than I already had.

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