Chance Taken

* * *

Chance

If her doctor hadn’t come in when he did, I’d have gotten in that bed with her and damn all her injuries. Passionate sex is always good after battle, but just the kisses we did get to share were better than that. So I’m sure the sex will be amazing. I can wait. Seeing as I’m still stuck finishing my thousand hours of community service with her, there will be plenty of time and opportunity for it, anyway.

I highly doubt a thousand hours will be long enough. I’m practically bouncing along the hospital corridor as I leave her room just from the kisses alone.

But as I reach the hallway where Hunter’s room is, black dread and guilt settles over me and washes away all that. How can I feel this happy when he’s facing months and months of rehab after which he still might not be as he was. No matter how many Riders die, it won’t change that fact.

But at least he’s out of the worst of it.

At least there’s that.

He’s alone in the room when I enter it, which is a first since they moved him out of intensive care. His mother, sister, father, uncle, or someone is always with him in here, day and night. I keep as wide a smile on my face as I can manage while wishing him good morning. He’s propped up by several pillows, his face as pale as the sheets covering him, and he’s also still attached to way too many tubes.

“You’re clearly having a good morning,” he says. “What happened?”

Leave it to Hunter to always see right through everyone and everything right to the heart of it. But at least it means his brain is working as well as it always has.

I could wait to share my happy news about Veronica until he’s feeling better, but that’s not what he wants.

“Yeah, she doesn’t hate me anymore,” I tell him. “I’m thinking that as soon as she’s better, I’ll take her down to the beach.”

“Good plan,” he says. “I guess saving her from death really did the trick. Who knew the old timers were right about that?”

“I think it’s more than that,” I say. “I think we were meant to be. You know, like fate.”

“Fate?” he says and chuckles, the sound not as happy as it used to be. “I thought you didn’t believe in any of that bullshit, as you used to call it.”

He’s talking about Trixie and all the times I’ve told him to forget her over the years. I see where he was coming from now.

“They didn’t catch up to Trixie. Scar’s been asking the survivors all night about where she is,” I say. “They have no reason to lie about it and prolong their suffering.”

Cross wasn’t too happy with me for just letting her go that night, especially since all attempts at locating her have failed.

“I know, she left town a couple of nights ago. Melody gave her some money and her car,” he says in a dark voice that sounds nothing like him. “She was here. I was still pretty out of it, but I remember that well enough. She also left a letter.”

“What did she write?” I ask.

“I don’t know, haven’t opened it yet,” he says and shrugs. “It’s probably just all the same old bullshit.”

“Cross tried to bring her in, to keep her safe. But she refused,” I tell him.

He scoffs. “Too little too late.”

He’s never sounded this dejected over Trixie and her inability to stay with him and straighten up before.

“She tried to avenge you too, in her way. Gave Veronica all the names of the Riders as well as a list of the crimes they’ve committed over the years,” I tell him. That is the reason Veronica was taken and her parents shot. But I won’t mention that now.

“Sure, she meant well. Like always. But enough about that,” he says. “Tell me what you did to the Riders last night. Everyone else thinks I’m still too weak to hear it, but they’re wrong.”

“Of course they are,” I say, happy for the change of subject and the chance to be the first to tell him exactly what we did to make the Riders pay for laying him in this hospital.

So for the next hour or so, I go over everything in detail I didn’t even fully realize I knew. I might’ve embellished some of it, but not much. And by the end of the tale, he sounds almost like himself again. Solemn about all the killing, but secure in the righteousness of what we did.

“I don’t think I thanked you for saving my life yet,” he says as I’m getting ready to leave.

I haven’t exactly been itching to get back to Veronica, but she has definitely been occupying the part of my mind that wasn’t busy recounting our exploits last night.