The pain was still there. Not as intense thanks to all those kick-ass drugs Fontana and his little bitches kept pushing into the IV they’d used to draw out my death, hoping I would finally break and give them something. Anything other than my smartass mouth telling them to suck my dick or to at least bring their mommas in to do it for them. The morphine or whatever they kept feeding me only took the edge off, though.
The agony of my back was what told me I was still among the living. The smells coming from me told me it wouldn’t be long. I smelled the death already invading my body. The decaying flesh of my back, the flies that buzzed around, annoying the hell out of me, laying their eggs in the rot.
But it was her face that kept me going.
And it was her face that I wanted to see when I finally let go.
Jos.
Fuck, I miss her.
Too late to remember it was my fault she hadn’t been by my side the past two years. I pushed her away after letting her get too damn close. I was such a fuckup, and her dad didn’t want her to be a part of the MC life. She deserved more than what I could give her.
Goddamn, I wish I could kiss her one last time.
“Tanner.” Matt was speaking again, and I had to focus on the words leaving his mouth. “Hold on, brother. Hold on. We’re going to get you to the hospital. You’re going to be okay.”
I barely noticed how his voice cracked, how his hands shook as he and Bash—Bash was here too? Hell yeah! We were going to have a party before I kicked the bucket—lifted me carefully.
The breath hissed out of me as the flesh on my back protested, and I blinked in surprise. The pain was just as miserable as always, yet my brother and cousin didn’t disappear or glitch before me.
Wait.
“Are you really here?” I asked Matt, my voice so weak I barely heard myself.
“Stop talking,” Bash commanded, but his voice cracked just like my little brother’s. “Save all your energy. I swear, you’re going to be okay. I don’t care what we have to do to save you.”
“I’m too far gone—” I tried to protest, wishing they would just let me rot.
“Shut up, Tanner!” Bash wasn’t my cousin now, but my MC president barking orders. “You’re going to be fine.”
Sighing, I closed my eyes, craving the sight of Jos again. When the image of her under me filled my mind, I focused on her and only half paid attention to what was going on around me.
“Get the door,” Matt’s voice boomed. “Get the fuck out of the way.”
Jos’s soft hands touched my cheek just as I was laid out on something cushiony. Matt’s voice kept telling me to hold on as he lifted my head and put it in his lap. I heard tires squealing before the vehicle they’d just put me in jerked forward. That floating feeling filled me as Jos told me she loved me—but that wasn’t a memory.
Just another hallucination.
She’d never said those words, but her eyes had always confessed her feelings for me.
I felt my heart begin to beat a little slower than it already was. Jos’s face began to glitch behind my lids, and I felt a tear spill from my eyes.
“I love you too,” I gasped, unsure if I said the words aloud. “I miss you.”
“Drive faster!” Matt roared. “He’s fading.”
Really wish he would stop screaming in my ear.
My breaths became shallower, and it was taking everything I had just to draw another one. I knew the end was close. I’d felt the Angel of Death breathing down my neck for a while. He was clouding my vision now, his dark, hooded figure blocking out everything.
Jos’s face began to fade completely.
No!
Her beautiful face flashed across my closed lids again.
“Don’t leave me,” I begged her, feeling my tears come fast. “Stay with me. Don’t go.”