We had to clear out with plenty of notice.
Especially when we were traveling with a fucking hostage.
I should have taken her out to the woods and done away with her, but had somehow convinced myself that Red might need her on the long ride home.
It was something like a thirty-five-hour drive back from Utah. But I'd convinced Lycus, and Minos to drive it in shifts so we didn't have to stay over anywhere.
There was a lot of bad that could happen with Red's condition from our start to end points. And I'd reasoned that it was easier to transport Josephine with us than to possibly have to abduct someone else halfway through the trip.
It had been Drex's idea to drug the nurse to keep her from drawing attention to us. I'd had no good argument against it, even if, for some reason, I didn't like the idea.
I took the first leg of the drive while Minos slept in the passenger seat and Ly and Lenore slept together in the middle row.
We stopped eight hours later when the nurse started to rouse. We'd pulled up to a gas station that had a detached bathroom, backing up to it, and helping a groggy Josephine out, letting Lenore take her inside.
"Please don't," she said, gaze finding mine in the mirror as I walked in behind her as Lenore moved outside again. "I don't feel good."
"This will help that," I told her, pulling out the second needle.
"Ace, please," she begged, eyes getting glassy. "I won't scream," she said as a tear fell down. "I don't like not knowing what's going on."
"Nothing is going on," I assured her. "One person is driving. Everyone else is sleeping. Including you," I told her, sticking the needle in her arm before I could think any better of it.
I felt bad doing it to her the first time when she had no idea what was going to happen.
I felt a fuck of a lot worse doing it the second time, when she did, when she pleaded for it not to happen again.
But, I tried to comfort myself, it wasn't going to hurt her. It was just to knock her out for a couple hours.
The first time, so I could drive.
The second time, so I could sleep.
Maybe after she got up the next time, I could keep her quiet without the drugs.
"How is she?" I asked Lenore as she fussed over Red while I shuffled Josephine in beside her.
"From what I can tell, she's okay. I gave her more of her antibiotic," she said, shrugging.
"She's not bleeding anywhere?"
"Not that I can see. I will keep an eye on her while you sleep," she said, giving me a small smile as we both climbed into the backseat with Minos and Ly in the front.
The next eight hours, I was dead to the world, the exhaustion from the past few nights weighing down on me.
"Ace," Lenore called, waking me.
"What?" I asked, slow-blinking into the darkness. "What's the matter?"
"She's crying."
"Red?" I asked, rubbing my dry eyes.
"No."
I was awake and turned over the backseat in a blink, finding Josephine curled on her side, knees to chest, palms pressed to her eyes.
"Minos, we need to stop," I called, climbing over the backseat to wedge myself in the minuscule space between the nurse and Red. "What's the matter?" I asked, reaching out to press a hand to the back of her neck, feeling her tacky skin, wondering if Drex had fucked up the dose.
"I don't feel good," she said, whimpering. "What was it?" she asked.
I didn't need to ask to know what she was asking. What did I drug her with?
I just knew she wasn't going to like the answer. Hell, I didn't like the answer. But Drex assured me it was the only thing I could give her with an injection that he could get from one of the MCs in that area.
"It doesn't matter," I told her. "It should be wearing off. You'll feel better in a little bit." I hoped. Really, I knew nothing about it. Sure, we provided all sorts of party drugs when we threw events at our place. But I'd always drawn the line at this kind of shit. The "make her forget what happened" shit.
"My heart feels like it is beating out of my chest," she told me, making me reach out toward her throat, pressing my fingers in.
"It's not. You're panicking."
"Gee," she said, sniffling hard. "I wonder why. It's not like my kidnapper injected me with some unknown drug or anything."
I didn't engage with that because she was right. It was a shitty thing to do. I figured, though, if she knew the choice was ketamine in her system or dead in the woods, she would choose being in a bad K-hole over a grave any day of the week.