The Broken Puppet (The Elite King's Club 2)

“Madison?” Bishop murmurs, but I can’t see him.

“Bishop?” I gasp, looking around the room for him. I look to the corner and see the outline of his body, the tip of his white sneakers glowing from the moonlight peering in. He’s leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “Did you see that?”

He chuckles. “It’s amusing you think I’d let any motherfucker near you. Of course I saw that. I allowed it.”

“Oh,” I murmur, wincing at the pain. I want to ask why he allowed Tillie in, but I sense he won’t tell me anything right now.

“You okay?” He gets up from his chair and walks toward me. He’s in his usual clothes, looking like he always does—perfect. But when he leans down and places a kiss on my head, I see him closer. He has bags under his eyes like he hasn’t slept in days.

“What happened?” I whisper, confused by my choppy memories. “All I remember is… pain.”

I wince again, and he pushes the button on the side of my bed. “Stupid fucking Daemon called the paramedics,” he mutters, almost to himself.

“Daemon?” I go to sit up, but it feels as though someone just launched a knife through my head. “Ahh.” I reach up to rub it, and Bishop shoots toward me.

“Lie down. Don’t try to act like a warrior. We all know you’re tough; now just lie down.”

The nurse walks in, putting her hands into her front pockets. “Hi, Madison, you’re awake.” She pulls out a little flashlight, hooking a stethoscope around her neck. Leaning forward, she smiles at both Bishop and me. “I’m just going to run a quick check before I give you more pain meds.”

“No,” Bishop interrupts. “Give her the meds now. The general practice bullshit you usually do will not fly in this room.”

She goes to argue with Bishop, but then runs her eyes up and down his body, squaring her shoulders. “Very well.”

She moves one of the drips around and turns the nozzle. “This is morphine. You will feel better soon. Can you tell me any other pain you are feeling aside from your head?”

“No,” I murmur. “Just my head. It hurts really bad, almost unbearable, and I like to think I have a high pain threshold.”

She smiles sweetly, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Understandable. Your injury is severe.”

“What is it, by the way?”

She looks to Bishop before looking back to me. “You were shot. Please, try to get some rest.”

I was shot? Holy shit! How ironic is it that the one thing I love doing is the one thing that almost ended me… that ended my mom? Feeling tired, I close my eyes.

“Bishop?” she continues quietly.

My sleep can wait. Why does she know Bishop’s name? I act like I’m unfazed anyway, keeping my eyes closed but kicking my hearing up a notch.

“These people have to leave.”

“I know. But they’re not going to.”

People? What is she talking about?

“Well, it doesn’t matter. They can’t be sleeping on mattresses on the floor. Not only is it not sterile, but they’re getting in the way.”

“Jessica, leave.”

“Bishop,” she whispers, and I can almost feel the sadness in her tone.

“Leave!” he snaps at her.

Okay, I sense history there. I put that in the box of “will ask him one day.” Once I hear the door close, I let my tiredness take over and drift into a deep sleep.

The next morning, I wake up almost instantly, and though I feel no better pain-wise, I feel a lot more alert than I did last night. I guess the Tillie thing is going to get ignored until I bring it up—and I will bring it up. I want to know why Bishop let her in. He must trust her to a certain extent. Usually, I would think maybe she has something to blackmail him with in some way, but this is Bishop. No one has anything on him, and if they did, he would just kill them. Problem solved.

“Sis,” Nate murmurs, getting off the mattress on the floor. Now I know what the little nurse was talking about last night. Nate and Tatum had obviously been sleeping out on the floor. Or more, wrapped around each other.

“Hi,” I mutter, sitting up in my bed slightly. Bishop walks through the door, coffees and a bag of donuts in hand, just as Nate stands.

“Sorry, baby, you can’t eat.”

“What do you mean I can’t eat?” I snap, my stomach growling on cue at the donuts he’s holding.

“If they need to do emergency surgery, you have to be prepared, so you can’t eat solids.”

“Oh?” My eyebrow quirks. “Well guess who else isn’t eating.”

“What?” he growls.

“Drop them, Bishop.”

“Fuck no! I’m hungry.”

“Then you should have eaten them before you came back.”

“I’m not dumping them.”

I look at him.

“Fine, fuck. I’ll leave them over here.”

I look back to Nate. “Hi.” He smiles, but his eyes are crinkled around the edges just like Bishop’s. “Have you slept?” I look to Bishop. “Have any of you slept?”