Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Pain In The Neck

Psycho

I paced back and forth as I waited for Patches to look at my cousin. Trigger couldn't be dead. He just couldn't.

Patches was a literal witch doctor we kept on our payroll. I honestly had no idea what his real name was, and I didn't fucking care. I paid the guy serious cash to be at our beck and call, and thankfully, he'd dragged his ass out of bed as we drove the painstaking hour back to LaPlace to bring Trigger here.

"His healing ability should kick in, but this is a serious break. It's going to take hours, maybe days."

I breathed a sigh of relief. We had super-healing thanks to our supernatural bodies, but a broken neck wasn't anything we'd experienced. I'd seen broken legs and other bones heal within days, but a neck? That was fatal. Thank the goddess it would also heal—supposedly.

Patches told us to let him rest for a few days and left us a few IV bags of saline and needles, saying we needed to keep him hydrated if he didn't wake up within 24 hours. I plunked two grand in cash in his fist before he took off out of the compound and back to whatever coven he belonged to.

"I'm sorry," Charlie said in a whisper as she sat next to his bed in our one-room infirmary. "It's my fault." She had black tracks of mascara dried on her cheeks from her tears.

"How in the world do you figure that?" Menace asked, pulling a dip can from his back pocket and smacking it in his palm.

"I should have gone out there alone, let him take me, then you guys could have tracked me." Wizard had put a small rice-sized tracker inside her earring earlier.

"Absolutely not. That wasn't an option. The tracker was only in case the fucker would have gotten away with it. All this did was make me more determined to get this guy and take him and his cronies out for good." I set my jaw and folded my arms across my cut.

"Still," Charlie said, looking down at Trigger with a regretful expression on her face.

"Hey," I said, touching her shoulder. "Don't do that. This life… it is what it is. Add the supernatural element to it and it's ten times more dangerous. The good news is that being supernatural helps, in cases like this." I pointed at Trigger's prone body. "We won't ask you to do something like this again. These vamps have proven that they will do anything to keep getting away with this illegal bullshit they're doing."

She asked, "Can you turn me into a wolf so I can be stronger?"

Charlie had come to us, after Trigger "rescued" her from a vamp attack outside of Zombies. They were friends and she eventually found out what he was, as it was hard to keep something like that a secret. Having no family, she asked to join the Wolves. We were in need of more humans to handle the club during the full moons, so we brought her on as a prospect. I could tell she cared about Trigger, and she was also a very talented mechanic.

"We are born wolves. We cannot turn people into them. The only ones who are turned are vampires, and if you do that, you'll be out of the club." I thinned my lips at the thought.

She made a face. "Oh, God. Hell no. I don't know why anyone would choose to be a vampire. No more sun and drinking blood?" She shuddered. "No thanks."

"Most of them don't choose it, it's forced," Menace commented. "Filthy vamps take what they want."

"Yes, they do it to increase their numbers. Create more soldiers," I added.

"Terrible," she murmured, gazing at Trigger once more.

I had an idea. "I'll be back."

I exited the infirmary and went through the clubhouse. I was headed toward the guestrooms when I almost ran right into Nera, nearly knocking her over.

"Whoa," I said, steadying her. "Just who I was looking for."

"Hi," she said with a smile. "What's up?"

Then I noticed she wore nothing but shiny black yoga pants and a pink sports bra. She looked smokin' hot.

"You headed to work out?" I asked.

"No, just got done. Is everything okay?" She looked concerned.

"You said you were a nurse before? Or you still are?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Why? Is everyone all right?"

I shook my head. "Come with me."

She followed me through the clubhouse and back to the infirmary. She softly gasped when she saw Trigger lying prone and unmoving.

"What happened?" She rushed over and felt for a pulse. Her brow furrowed as she slid her hand around to the back of his head.

"Vampire broke his neck," I replied grimly.

"Yeah, his neck's broken, but he's got a faint pulse. You don't happen to have a stethoscope do you?" Nera looked up at me.

I shook my head. "No, but our on-call doctor said he just needs to rest and stay hydrated." I pointed to the IV bags. "I assume you know how to hook one up?"

"Absolutely. But you're buying me a cell phone tomorrow." She looked at me pointedly. "A new one with all the bells and whistles."

"Of course."

We watched in amazement as she quickly stuck the needle in his arm and then made sure the tube was clear. Then she draped the IV over the top of the bedpost. "This will last him a few hours, but he'll also need a catheter. Unless you have a bedpan."

I grimaced. "Really?"

"The fluid has to go somewhere," she said with a shrug, pointing to the IV.

I looked at Menace. "Go find something."

"Yeah, boss."

Our infirmary was pretty much a joke. Just a couple of beds and some basic first aid. Guessed we should upgrade to some IV poles and more advanced medical equipment.

"Someone should stay with him," Nera continued. "In case he wakes up." She turned to look at me. "How long do wolves take to heal?"

"Broken bones? Hours or days. But a fatal injury like this… we don't know. Doc said it could be days," I answered.

"Well, I imagine he's going to feel like crap when he wakes, so I would keep someone here with him. I won't bother to ask if you have any pain medication here. To keep him comfortable."

I shook my head.

"I got a couple bottles of Jack behind the bar," Strife said. I'd forgotten he was here.

"Go grab one, have it in here in case he wakes up."

"He's going to have one sore neck," Nera said, shaking her head. "I can't imagine how bad that fucking hurts."

"I'll stay," Charlie said. "I've got a book I've been meaning to finish. I'll go get some stuff from my room and camp out here, if that's okay."

"Sure, do what you need to do. We appreciate it," I said, gesturing toward the door.

She left and I looked at my watch to see it was past two a.m. "You should get some sleep. Do you always work out so late?"

She smiled. "I was bored and couldn't sleep."

"Well, we all need some sleep." I looked at Chaos. "You stay until Charlie gets back, then go hit the rack."

"Sure, boss."

Nera and I left the infirmary as Menace came in holding a shallow bowl.

"So what happened?" she asked.

I sighed. Suddenly, my tiredness was catching up to me. "The vamp you described showed up. He lured Charlie out to the back alley. We cornered him, Trigger pointed his weapon at him, and he used his stupid vamp speed to break his neck and then take off."

Her eyes got wide. "You actually found the creep?"

I nodded. "Yeah, but, Nera… I'm gonna have to ask you to come with us to Biloxi after Trigger wakes up. I need you to try to locate the house you were being held in."

Her violet eyes held fear, but I saw her try to put on a brave mask. "I… I don't know if I can find it again."

In a bold move, I leaned down and used my finger to tip her chin up toward me. "Larkspur, this is important. Please. You won't even have to get out of the car. We'll go during the day while the leeches are sleeping. We need to stop them, and you know as much as I do that you can't move on or go home until we get them."

She sucked in the side of her bottom lip slowly. "Okay. I'll…I'll try."

"That's all I'm asking. Now go get some sleep and tomorrow we'll go get you that phone and then head to Biloxi."

"Okay…" She turned around, and without being able to resist, I reached out and smacked her ass. I couldn't help it. It was too tempting and jiggly in those yoga pants. My dick stiffened in my pants.

She gasped and grinned. "Shep!"

I winked at her. "Go get some sleep."

I wanted nothing more than to follow her to her room and strip those clothes off and mark her as mine, but I refrained. I hoped there would be plenty of time for that later.

As I left the clubhouse on my bike and rode the short distance to my house, I wondered if Trigger would be okay with just Charlie keeping vigil by his bedside while we headed an hour away tomorrow. He would heal but I worried about my cousin. Then I made a mental checklist of everything we'd need to bring tomorrow to take out these human-trafficking piece-of-shit vampires once and for all.

Something told me I wasn't getting much sleep tonight.