Crash & Carnage by Emma Slate

Chapter 32

I yawned,my mouth stretching far enough that the bones of my jaw popped. When I opened my eyes, I tried not to startle when I saw Amanda checking on my IV bag.

“Hey there, sleepy head,” she greeted with a soft smile. “I thought about waking you, so you weren’t jumpy when you saw me, but you looked so peaceful, I didn’t have the heart to do it.”

“Thanks.”

“But I do feel it’s my duty as your friend to tell you that you sleep with your mouth open.” She grinned.

“I do not.”

“You do. You might want to work on that. It’s not very attractive.”

“Like I’m worried about being attractive right now.” I wrinkled my nose. “What time is it?”

“A little before six. I haven’t seen Boxer for a while.”

“I sent him away. He was in desperate need of a shower. Like desperate, desperate.”

“How are you feeling?”

“My hand is about a seven on the pain scale.”

“Okay. We can work on that, but that’s not what I was asking about.”

“I knew that’s not what you were asking about. I don’t really want to talk about it. All I do is talk about my feelings—it’s all I’ve done for the past many hours. I’m exhausted. Please don’t take it personally.”

She paused for a moment and then said, “Your hair looks good.”

“One of the Old Ladies used to cut hair.”

The door to the hospital room opened and Freddy came in, carting a plant in a clay pot. It was tall and thin, but very leafy. She wasn’t in her usual 1950s garb. She was dressed way down in a pair of skinny jeans, slouchy sweater, and subdued makeup. Her platinum blonde hair was pulled up into a messy top knot, the too short tendrils pushed behind her ears.

“Hey,” she greeted, looking from me to Amanda. “I know visiting hours are almost over, so I won’t stay long.”

Amanda glanced at me for confirmation, and I nodded.

“Holler if you need anything, Linden,” Amanda said. “And by holler, I mean use the call button, it’s easier.” She shot Freddy a smile on her way out. And then Freddy and I were alone.

“Nice plant,” I said, breaking the ice.

“Yeah, I heard plants really liven things up.” Her mouth quirked up into a grin as she set the leafy plant on the bedside table.

“Yeah, I heard that once too,” I said.

Her eyes landed on the cardboard to-go container with a Pinky’s sticker on the top.

“Strawberry rhubarb pie,” I explained. “I’m saving it for a midnight snack. The Old Ladies brought it to me earlier.”

“Oh. Oh, I see.” Her eyes surveyed me from my head to toe. “I’m digging the hair.”

“It wasn’t my first choice, but it was either this or leaving it the way it was. And leaving it wasn’t an option.”

“Mia told me,” she said softly. “About the state she found you in.”

“You’re not here to apologize, are you? Because I’m done with the apology side of my life.”

“Why would you think I was going to apologize?” She finally took a seat next to the bed, realizing we were about to dive into it.

“Because that’s what people do when they don’t know what else to say, or they have some sort of misplaced guilt. Mia doesn’t feel guilty, and it happened right outside her bar. So, you shouldn’t feel guilty about helping her out that night and leaving me alone.”

“Okay,” she whispered.

“I really mean it, Freddy. Don’t waste any time feeling guilty. There’s too much other stuff to worry about, okay?”

“This was because of the club, wasn’t it,” she asked after a long moment of silence. “What happened to you, I mean.”

“Yes.”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “I thought so.”

“How attached are you to your life?” I asked her suddenly.

“How attached am I to my life? What a weird question.”

“Freddy,” I began.

“I like it here. I like it here a lot. I enjoy my job, I finally feel like I have a good group of friends, and I’ve got the casual thing with Bishop.”

“Damn it,” I muttered.

“Why?”

“Bad shit is about to go down,” I said bluntly. “And if I were you, I would leave. I would go somewhere else and start over.”

Her eyes widened.

“Trust me. Stay as far away from the club as you can. Things are going to be very different soon. And I don’t want you getting caught up in it because you have ties to the club.”

“Fuck,” she muttered. “What’s coming down the pipeline? You know what, never mind. It doesn’t matter, does it?”

“No. It doesn’t matter.”

She nodded slowly. “If you could go back and do it all over it again, knowing what you know now about the club, would you choose differently?”

“Yeah. If I could do it all over again, I would walk away. I never would have gotten involved. I love Boxer. I really love him. I love the Old Ladies. I even love the loyalty and the family aspect of the club.” I pointed to my injured hand. “But this—this is who I am. Who I was. And I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to perform surgery again. The love of my life cost me the other love of my life. And I don’t know yet how to reconcile that. I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to forgive him or forgive myself fully. But I do know I have to find a way to live in this new reality because this is what I’ve got.” I shrugged. “Being a doctor was always more than just a job. It’s what got inside my soul and lit me up. It was my purpose—and now, I might have to find a new purpose.”

She stared at me, her eyes filling with tears. “I’ve never had that kind of passion for anything in my life. It was easy to walk away from college and my degree in engineering. I envy you for that, Linden.” She blew out a breath of air. “Sometimes I wonder, if I’d loved engineering, would it have been enough to get me through the darkness?”

“Did you ever get counseling?”

“Yeah. For a little while. It felt weird to talk about it. Because even though it was bad, and even though it affected me, I still wasn’t hurt, you know? My physical body hadn’t been violated.”

“No, maybe not, but it’s still a form of rape, Freddy. Someone drugged your drink and took your memory for a while. They took it without permission. That’s rape. And until you deal with it, you’re not going to move on. You’re not going to connect or fall in love or have a beautiful life, and I want that for you. I want that for you so much.”

“What about you? What are you going to do? Are you going to leave Boxer and the Blue Angels behind and start over fresh?”

“No. For better or for worse, I’m here. I’ve made my play. I’ve chosen Boxer and the club.”

“Would it be different? Would you leave if it wasn’t your hand that had been injured?”

“I don’t know. That’s one of those questions I can’t answer because I’ll never know. It’s the what if game, it’s the if only I’d turned right instead of leftgame.”

“What happened to you?”

“I was kidnapped,” I said baldly. “Kidnapped and tortured and sent back broken as a warning to the club.”

“What kind of warning?”

“That none of us are safe. Even the women and children.”

“My God,” Freddy muttered.

“You’re special. There’s something inside you that you haven’t figured out yet. I just want you to be alive so you can discover it. If you can’t do it for yourself, then do it for me. I couldn’t bear to see you get caught up in this shit. Leave, while you still can.”

“Okay,” she whispered. “I’ll go. My parents have been asking me to visit. I’ve been putting them off because I just can’t seem to…”

“You’ve got parents who love you? Stay with them. Don’t hide from their love. Let your mother dote on you. Watch TV with your dad. Talk. Make some meals. And figure out what it is you really want. You’re young. You have your whole life ahead of you. Don’t waste it.”

“You’re talking like your life is already over.”

“No. My life isn’t over. But it has taken a detour.” I smiled slightly.

The door to my room opened, and Amanda stepped inside. “Hate to break up the party, but visiting hours are officially over.”

“All right, I’ll go.” Freddy rose. “Don’t want you to have to throw me out.”

“Oh yeah, you look like just the type who needs to be wrangled by security.” Amanda winked.

Freddy leaned down toward me. “Can I hug you?”

“Yeah, you can hug me.”

She gently wrapped her arms around me and gave me a light squeeze. “I’ll keep in touch.”

“You better.”

Freddy shot Amanda a smile on her way out.

“Do you need anything? Are you good?” Amanda asked me.

I thought for a moment, smiling at her. “I’m good.”

* * *

It was the middle of the night, and I couldn’t sleep. The TV was on low in the background, and I was watching a 1980s romantic comedy. The antics of the heroine who had gotten herself into a case of mistaken identity had me chuckling every now and again.

I didn’t used to enjoy romantic comedies, but now I realized how much the world needed them. The lightness, the laughter, the happily ever after. Life so rarely looked the way you thought it was going to. But in cinema, in the world of love, everything always worked out. It was a beautiful lesson to remember—that sometimes, some dreams really did come true.

The door to the hospital room opened. I frowned in confusion, wondering if it was Babs peeking her head in to check on me. She was the nurse on duty for the night.

It was Boxer.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “And how did you get past Babs?”

“Woman, please,” he said. “You’re still doubting my charms?”

“No, I’m not doubting your charms, but it is the middle of the night, and there are such things as visiting hours.”

He shrugged and looked at the TV. “What are you watching?”

“Something fun.”

“Can I watch with you?”

“Sure.” He came around to the side of the bed and gently lowered himself next to me. He put an arm around me, tentatively, like he wasn’t sure if it would be accepted.

I leaned my head against his shoulder, my eyes drooping shut. Boxer’s comfort in the moment was a natural sedative.

“I couldn’t bear the thought of you sleeping here alone,” he said finally. “I just wanted to be with you.”

Emotion rolled through me, and I blinked back tears.

“I’m surprised you’re awake,” he said.

“It’s harder to sleep without the morphine.”

“You’re not taking morphine?”

“I am, but my dosage is way down. Enough to dull the pain, but not enough to really knock me unconscious.” I paused. “I’m afraid of what waits for me in my sleep.” I turned my head and sniffed him. “You showered.”

“Glad you noticed.”

I breathed in the scent of his cologne on his skin and tried to hold it in my mind. Every now and again, I’d take a deep breath and remember the scent of sandalwood and the acrid stench of my fear. I didn’t need to physically be in that jail cell to still be there. I exhaled slowly, letting go of the memory for now. Knowing there would never be a day that I could forget it completely, but maybe it didn’t have to poison everything good for the rest of my life.

“We had church,” he said.

“Yeah?”

He reached for the remote that rested on my lap and then muted the television. “They’ve agreed that you can be the one to end Dante.”

“Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you for giving me that.”

“You sure about this?”

“No.” I let out a long exhale. “But there will be nights that I lay my head down on a pillow, and a few hours later I’ll wake up screaming from what he’s done to me. And when I wake up, I need to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s gone, and that I did it.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time and then he asked, “What’s the name of the town?”

“Valley of Hearts. That’s where I was kept. Valley of Hearts.” I turned my head to look up at him. “When do you leave?”

“Couple of days,” he said. “It’s gonna take some time to plan. Gotta talk to Mateo Sanchez and the Idaho boys. What we’re about to do will be insane.”

“The Idaho boys? You’re going to involve them?”

“Yeah. A lot of them are ex-military. We need that.”

“This is so much bigger than Waco, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, darlin’. Way bigger than Waco.”

* * *

The next few days crawled by. Even with visits from the Old Ladies, I still found myself with a lot of downtime. And the problem with downtime was that you had time to think. Thinking led to self-examination.

It took you down a rabbit hole that was dark and deep. Into places long forgotten, some even previously undiscovered.

I thought a lot about my parents. I wasn’t sure how I was going to deal with them moving forward. I was already estranged from my father. And my mother had blown our chilly relationship to smithereens when she’d invaded my privacy. But now, if I reached out to them, how was I supposed to have a relationship with them? How was I supposed to explain my substantial injuries? How was I supposed to justify any of this?

And it wasn’t even as though I missed them—more like I mourned the loss of what never had been. Perhaps it was better this way. Perhaps this was how it was supposed to be. Maybe it was easier.

I wasn’t even sure I was still able to practice medicine—and becoming a doctor had been such a sore point with my mother. I couldn’t tell her anything about my life. Not without revealing far more than I was comfortable with.

The truth of the matter was I didn’t want a relationship with either of them. Even when I hadn’t been involved with Boxer and the Blue Angels, I didn’t particularly care for them to be in my life. I didn’t see the purpose of trying to reconstruct a bridge that had been blown up with emotional grenades. I was trying to rebuild a life; I was trying to rebuild a life that made sense to me, and my parents had no place in it.

I didn’t see much of Boxer during the days. He checked in with me via text on the burner phone he had given me, but I knew he was dealing with club business and coordinating with Mateo Sanchez and the Idaho boys about what was about to go down in Mexico.

Every night, he slipped into my hospital room, and we fell asleep watching television, his arm around me. And in the morning, the nurse on duty would find us in bed together, though she never put a stop to it.

Late one morning, I said to Boxer, “I have a newfound respect for you.”

“What do you mean?” he asked as we shared a piece of banana cream pie. I was pretty sure Boxer was keeping Pinky’s in business by bringing me and the entire floor food.

“I mean, it’s hell lying in a hospital bed watching nothing but bad TV and not being able to move around and live your life.”

“You’re ready to live your life?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said, “but I think I’m ready for what comes next. By the way, what is coming next?”

“The boys and I are leaving tomorrow morning. Early.”

I nodded, my heart in my throat.

“We have cabins,” he said. “In the Kisatchie National Forest in Louisiana. It’s about a six-hour drive. They’re off the grid, and you won’t find them on any map. It’s private land run through an LLC by our attorney, so there’s no link to anyone from the club. While we’re gone, you, the other Old Ladies and the kids are gonna stay there.”

“Are we?”

“Yes.”

“Why can’t we stay at the clubhouse?”

“We want you all out of Waco. Peace of mind, since only the club knows about the cabins.”

“Okay,” I said.

“No fight?”

“About safety? Never.”

“The cabins have everything. Food, water, all the medical supplies you’ll ever need. We’ve had the cabins for years, and they’re always stocked and ready to go. You can never have too many escape plans. You can never have too many backups.”

“When you say off the grid…”

“Generators and solar for power and a pump for the well. It just means we’re completely independent of the system. We don’t need anything from the outside world. Lots of bugs if you’re outside, but AC and running water inside. Comfortable beds, all of it. They’re quaint, but clean and in good condition.”

“What about you?” I asked him. “Will you be safe? I know you like to take risks, Boxer. And I know this is about so much more than just the women and children. Because it’s about me now. It’s personal for you. Please, please, keep your head. Keep your cool. Keep calm and for the love of God, come home to me. Because I swear to God, if you die—”

His lips covered mine before I could even get the next words out. His tongue slipped into my mouth, effectively obliterating any words or thoughts or feelings I had. That was one thing that was always the same between us. Lust came roaring back. Blazing through my veins. But my body was in no shape to enjoy him. Not the way I wanted. Not with the violence that I was ready to unleash inside me. That would have to wait until I was healed.

He pulled back and cradled my cheeks in his hands. “I’ll come back to you.”

“I won’t survive your death. I’m not being dramatic I—” His mouth covered mine again effectively shutting me up. A few moments later, he lifted his lips from mine.

“One thing that hasn’t changed,” he grinned, “your inability to stop thinking.”

“I won’t survive you dying. I won’t,” I vowed again, as though I could ward off his death by admitting I was too emotionally fragile at the moment to live through it.

“You won’t have to survive that,” he promised. “I’ll be careful. More careful than I’ve ever been in my entire life because, damn Linden, I have to come home to you. There is no other option. And I’ll bring him to you. I’ll bring you Dante.”

The hospital door opened, but Boxer didn’t move away from me even though we’d been caught in an intimate position.

“Sorry to intrude,” Peyton said. “But I have your discharge papers.”

“Finally,” I muttered.

“Chief Nelson wasn’t taking any chances. So he kept you here a little longer than normal.”

Thirty minutes later, Boxer was helping me into a dress. Nothing fancy. Black and cotton that barely touched my skin and allowed me to move comfortably.

“I’m not letting you push me out of here in a wheelchair,” I protested. “I’m not an invalid. My legs aren’t broken. Just my hand.”

“You’ve been supine for days,” he reminded me. “I don’t want you to get lightheaded.”

“Boxer,” I warned. “Did I give you grief about your limitations when you were my patient?”

“Actually, yeah. You did. You gave me a lot of shit about my limitations.”

I glared at him. “Well, stop giving me shit about mine.”

He smiled. “Alright, woman, alright. Let’s just take it slow, okay?”

Boxer grabbed the plant Freddy had brought me, and then we left the room.

I smiled in surprise when I saw Acid sitting in a chair in the hallway. He rose when we came out.

“Hey,” I greeted. “I didn’t know you were here. I thought you went back to Waco when the Old Ladies did.”

“Nah. A few of us stayed behind and traded shift watch,” he said.

“Shift watch?” I looked at Boxer. “Have I been guarded this whole time?”

“Damn right,” he said gruffly.

“Oh. I didn’t realize. Thanks. Both of you.”

With his free hand, Boxer grasped my elbow and gently guided me to the elevator. I lifted my right hand and wiggled a finger at Peyton and Amanda. They had been working almost around the clock, checking in on me. I was grateful for them. Not just for their friendship, but for the caliber of their characters. They were both truly special people, and the hospital was lucky to have them. They made their patients’ lives better, and they made my life better too.

The day was chilly, but the sun was bright.

“You’re cold,” Boxer noted as I shivered next to him.

“A little bit,” I admitted. “I’m not used to having a bare neck.”

“I love your bare neck.” He dragged a finger across my skin, making me shiver for an entirely different reason.

Boxer helped me into the truck and then handed me the leafy plant, which I placed in my lap.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said as he climbed into the driver’s side, “but I had Joni and Mia go to your condo and pack you some clothes before they headed back to Waco.”

“How did they get in without a key?” I asked.

“Ramsey.”

“Ah. Well, thanks for taking care of that for me.”

“No problem.” He gripped the steering wheel so hard that I heard the squeak of the material under his fingers. “He called.”

“Who?”

“Dante. He said he had you and then he hung up. I had no idea where you were and it drove me bat shit.”

Boxer turned on the engine and got the heater cranking.

“I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like for you,” I said.

“You’re the one who had to live through it, Linden. I’ve got nothing on you.”

We drove in pensive silence as I looked out the window. There were discount signs and people in parking lots. Everything seemed so normal. The world still turned. People still went out to eat. People still laughed.

I was the one that was different.

An hour and half later, he turned down his street and then drove the car into the driveway. He cut the engine, and I unlatched my seatbelt.

“Wait. Let me help you.”

It was a slow-moving process. He took the plant from me and then helped me out of the truck.

“Don’t freak out when you see the place,” he said, dropping my elbow so he could use his keys to unlock the door.

“Why would I freak out?”

He sighed. “Just promise me.”

“Okay, I promise.” He pushed open the door and flipped on the light, and then he moved to the side so I could enter.

My breath caught.

There were holes in the walls like someone had gone berserk. The furniture had been split open, stuffing coming out of the seams. Broken picture frames were haphazardly strewn about and an old sledgehammer rested in the corner.

“What happened,” I asked, mouth agape. “Did Dante order this? Is this cartel retaliation?”

Boxer shook his head. “No. This is how I took out my anger after he called.”

“You destroyed your home,” I said. “Why would you do such a thing?”

“Says the woman who smashed an entire kitchen’s worth of dishes.”

“Touché.”

He set down the plant in the hallway and then went to the bedroom. I followed at a slower pace. The linens and comforter had been torn to shreds, like he’d taken a blade to them.

“This house was just a house before you came into my life,” he said. “But now, every room in this place has a memory of you. Fucking on the living room floor. Cooking breakfast in the kitchen. I had thoughts about our future and what our life would look like together. I was so fucking angry that Dante took that from you. From me. From us.” He shook his head. “The idea of coming home to this place every single day, knowing you’d slept in my bed, knowing that your perfume would eventually disappear from my pillow had me going ballistic.”

I sat down on the edge of the mattress. “So, you took a sledgehammer to the walls, and battered your furniture? The Boxer equivalent of setting things on fire. Starting over, huh?”

He nodded. “I haven’t slept here since you’ve been gone. I’ve been at the clubhouse. It was easier that way.”

“Why did you bring me here? Why did you show me this?”

“Because there are ugly parts of me too. Because Dante taking you, changed me, too. This is no longer my haven. Now this is just the place that reminds me of everything I almost lost. And I don’t want to live here anymore.”

“Okay,” I said quietly. “Then we’ll move somewhere else.”

He paused. “We?”

I looked at him. “Yeah, Boxer. We.” My smile was sad. “It’s too bad. I really loved your house. It felt…homey. I didn’t have that growing up. This was going to be…”

He walked to me and placed his hand on my shoulder, urging me to stand before gently pulling me into the wall of his chest. “We’ll make the new place just as homey. I’ll even let you pick out the couch.”

I grinned against the side of his neck. “What if I like floral patterns?”

He laughed. “You don’t. But if you did, I’d suffer through it. No lace curtains, though. That’s where I draw the line.”

“That’s my line too,” I assured him. “I’m also not someone who likes doilies and useless knickknacks.”

“So, I’m not in danger of living with a cat-figurine-obsessed lady?”

“Definitely no cat figurines. Maybe frog figurines. I could do frogs.”

He paused for a moment. “A lot of changes have been happening in your life. You sure you’re ready to live with me fulltime?”

I nodded.

“I’m a bit of a handful,” he warned.

“Pot, meet kettle.” I pulled away from him, frowning.

“What?”

“I’m concerned.”

“Sit, I don’t want you tiring yourself.” When I sat on the bed, he went on, “What are you concerned about?”

“Are you sure moving in together is a good idea?” I asked, worry marring my expression.

“You afraid you’re gonna get sick of me.”

“No.”

“You afraid I’m gonna get sick of you?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Me. I’m the problem.” I raised my injured hand. “This is going to take time to sort through. I might never have it fully sorted.”

“All right. So what?”

“So what?” I asked in exasperation. “That’s a lot to take on.”

“I thought that’s what people did in relationships. For better or for worse, richer and poorer, and all that mumbo jumbo.”

I paused. “You think marriage is mumbo jumbo?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“And yet you want to live together?”

He sighed and began to pace. “Marriage is a piece of paper. It’s an institution created by lawyers. A business arrangement.”

“Wow. That’s cold.”

“I’m not wrong,” he pointed out. “But choosing you, day in, day out, choosing a life with you, there’s nothing cold about that. And that’s what I’m saying, Linden. I don’t believe in marriage. You want to get married? Fine we’ll get married, but I don’t have to do it to feel secure in this. What about you?”

“What about me?” I evaded.

“How do you feel about marriage?”

“If you get married, there’s a possibility of divorce,” I said.

“So, by not getting married you don’t have to worry about that?”

“Contracts can be dissolved, rings can be removed, even ink can be lasered off. What’s the guarantee that any of it will last?”

He walked toward me and leaned down to cradle my cheek for a moment before letting go. “There’s no guarantee about any of it, Linden. You just have to live each day as it comes. Live in the present. The future will take care of itself.”

“I don’t like the idea of marriage in the general sense,” I said slowly, looking up to meet his eyes. “But I kind of like the idea of marriage to you.”

He smiled. “Is that a proposal?”

I snorted and pulled away. “No.”

“I accept.”

I stilled. “You accept?”

Boxer nodded. “Yeah. I accept.”

“I didn’t ask,” I said in exasperation.

“You didn’t? Sure sounded like you were asking.”

“Boxer,” I began.

“Marry me.”

“What?”

“Marry me,” he repeated.

“But I don’t—and you—”

“Linden,” he said quietly. “We’re not your parents, darlin’. So, marry me and we’ll figure it all out.”

“Shut up,” I said.

“Hey,” he protested.

“Not you. My brain. I was telling my brain to shut up because it still thinks it calls the shots.” I shook my head and then smiled. “Yeah, Boxer. I’ll marry you.”

He leaned down to gently kiss my lips, and then he pulled back, a big goofy grin on his face. “We better get going or we’ll be late.”