Rafe (Inked Brotherhood 5)

“Hold on to that thought,” I mutter, pressing a hand to my side and taking an unsteady step back. The adrenaline is fast draining from my system, and running and struggling hasn’t done my ribs any favors. They shift as I move, seesawing, burning. My head pounds to so hard I think my skull will crack. My vision blurs.

Oh fuck, I don’t feel so good. “Need to sit down.” The world tilts sideways and I stagger, my knees folding.

Damn.

“Easy now.” Zane grabs me and pulls me to sit on a broken crate by the wall. Megan follows and hovers just out of reach.

“What’s wrong with him?” she whispers, worry in her voice.

“He just got the shit kicked out of him at the fight club, and then some,” he says. “Broken ribs, if you ask me, and bruised all over. From the looks of it, he got a few hits to the head, too.” He winks. “Not that you’d notice the difference.”

“Screw you, Zen-man.” I can’t bend over, or my ribs will explode, so instead I lean back, trying to ignore the nausea. Hurts to breathe. Hurts to move. God, I’d give my right arm for a painkiller right now.

“He doesn’t look so good,” she says, and I hear panic in her voice. “Is he going to be all right?”

“We’ll get him checked out,” Zane says, his voice strangely distant.

Uh-oh. I don’t like that.

“Meg.” I reach for her.

She steps closer, then kneels between my legs, puts her hands on my thighs. “I’m here.”

I relax. She’s here, and she’s fine.

“Please stay,” I manage to say, before I tumble into darkness. She replies something, but I can’t hear it. The dark isn’t cold and endless, but warm and soft, in a place between reality and dream, a dream of the future. Her voice is a golden thread wrapping around me.

At some point later, I’m jostled and shaken until I surface. Voices echo in my ears. Meg isn’t with me anymore. The police and the paramedics are here. They try to make me stand and become concerned when I can’t seem to stay upright.

I try to explain that I’m tired, so very fucking tired, but they bundle me up on a stretcher and lift me into the ambulance, talking of kidney and liver bruising, broken ribs too close to the aorta of the heart, and possible concussion.

Whatever. It’s not that. I lived with the pain of surviving for years. Promised to find the killer and take revenge on my family. And I have. If death is revenge. What is revenge, anyway, and what’s its use?

Thoughts surface and sink again, change shapes like clouds. Wrapping my head around all that happened today is impossible. Mind-bending.

Can’t believe I can stop running, agonizing, throwing punches in all directions. Don’t know a different life. Can’t remember it. I’ve lived on pain and bitterness and sorrow. Scraped by. Trained for a chance to fight the killer. Fight the memory of their death.

But you can’t fight memories. You can’t outrun ghosts. Can’t outlive them. Can’t stop loving them. All you can do is let go of the anger and the fear.

Meg told me so. She tried to remind me there’s more to life than pain and anger. Said I should let go.

So I’m letting go. Releasing the rope and letting myself fall. The tension has snapped, and my body is shutting down, trying to make up for years of tension, stress, unrelenting guilt, and sleepless nights.

That’s what’s happening.

They want to run tests. Keep me in for observation. What the fuck ever. They aren’t too concerned, though. I guess I’ll live, after all. And I’m glad.

Only one thing bothers me.

“Meg?” I rasp, when the paramedic asks what I need. “Where’s Meg?”

But I get no answer, dammit. I’m drifting back into sleep, my limbs heavy, a jackhammer pounding inside my skull, when the hairs on my arms lift and a shiver wracks me.

“Meg,” I whisper.

The doors of the ambulance close with a slam, and she’s there, coming to sit by my side. She takes my hand, her dark eyes earnest and so damn beautiful.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she says, as we roll away.