Dr Hart comes into my line of sight, a smile bringing out the lines around his eyes.
“Nice to see you awake. How are you feeling?”
I try to sit up, instinctively putting my left arm down, but then the pain lances through my shoulder and chest, forcing me to stop.
“Like I got shot.” I croak.
Gregory moves beside me, helping me sit up and adjusting me so I can lean on the wall beside the bed with a pillow behind my left side. I scan the room, trying to place what part of the clubhouse I am in. He must notice the confusion because he says, “One of the ladies, I think her name is Dani. Said this was a bunk room and ordered the beds that were in here to be taken out and I quote, ‘people don't need to be healing from being shot on disease-ridden beds.’” He made a face likehe agreed, then continued, “She had new beds brought in and we moved you all in here after Gavin treated each of you.”
At that, I scanned the room and saw Axel out cold in a bed across from me, and Meg who was slightly propped up, her large brown eyes watching me.
“How…” I crooked out again, Gregory moved and grabbed a glass of water from a table beside my bed. I took a sip, and then handed it back with a nod of thanks. “How are you feeling, Meg?”
“Like I got shot,” She mimics back to me, but then her eyes go to the ceiling and then she closes them for a moment sighing, “I feel like shit. But hopefully I will be well enough to get out of here soon.”
Gregory moves across the room, sitting next to Meg and doing a quick check of her vitals.
“That was very brave… what you did out there.” He says to her in between listening to her heart and asking her to take a deep breath.
Meg opens her eyes but keeps them looking up at the ceiling, “Brave… or stupid. I could have gotten everyone killed. I…”
He pats her arm, pulling her attention to him, “Young lady, no one else was doing anything. Sometimes in life you have to make hard choices. Who knows if they are the right or wrong ones… but what you did. I think you helped more than you hurt.”
Meg closes her eyes again, a tear slipping down the side of her face and into her hairline.
The doctor scans the room, a somber look on his face. “You are all incredibly lucky. Gavin says with the three of you if the bullet was a little to the left… a little bit higher, hit at a different angle…” he says looking at me, Meg and then Axel, “I wouldn’t be talking to you right now.”
Meg opens her eyes and gives a soft smile to Dr Hart, “Is your son here, I would like to thank him.”
Just as she is finishing the door opens and in walks Angel, who looks more like an avenging angel of death right now, than how he earned his name saving brothers. He walks right for me, “I thought the fucker wasn’t gonna talk but then Torch… well he threatened to torch his,” Angel paused looking at the Doctor, like he was assessing how much to say.
I tried to laugh but it came out more like a wheezed cough, “I think he’s seen and heard worse so far, being here.”
Angel sighed, rubbing his hand down his face, I noticed the split knuckles and slight bruising, “Torch got out the blow torch from the garage and scared the shit out of Razor. I think he enjoyed it maybe a little too much. He says he wasn’t working with Preacher, that it was just convenient that shit was going down at the same time.”
He flexes and stretches out one arm, rotating the shoulder, “But he did give us something I think you’d wanna know.”
I sat up a little taller at that…What did he know?
“Did…” My heart was racing, “Did he find, Bex?”
Angel rested a hand on my good arm, giving it a squeeze, “No, brother, I even asked Mara to make sure she is still good. She said she’d let me know when she hears back. He… he gave me the address for her parents.”
Meg sucked in a breath and it took me a minute to put together what he was telling me. The folder Cypher had put together for me flashed through my mind.
“Her parents?” I asked, feeling like I needed it said again.
Angel nodded, “Ya, he gave us an address, Cypher is running it right now, along with some information that could lead us to the group who had her and all the other kids.”
I didn’t miss how Meg turned her face away from us at the mention of Cypher.
“When I can get out of this bed, I am going to pay them all a visit. I am going to make it safe for her to come back.”
Angel’s eyes looked glassy, he reached up and grasped my good shoulder, “We are with you. With her. We owe her this.”
I choked down the tears that were threatening to come, reaching for the glass of water. I groaned when my stitches pulled and Angel helped me.
“That’s not all, Cypher needs to dig a bit more. But we may have found where Bex lived after she was rescued.”