Chapter 191

Archer does end up carrying Neil, fireman style, back toward the car. I get into the backseat first, and then Archer slides Neil in beside me, carefully. I cradle Neil’s head in my lap.

Archer then goes to the driver’s seat. Beau gets in on the passenger side.

“Should we take him to the hospital?” I ask. I shiver now that we are out of the rain. The water has soaked my clothes most of the way through, sliding even under my body armor. I feel cold down into my bones.

“He’s had some blood loss,” Beau adds. “A hospital might not be the worst idea.” He’s talking with Archer now. With Neil out of commission, Archer is the next in line for making decisions.

Archer starts the car. He doesn’t say anything as he puts it in reverse and then backs out of the spot.

In my lap, Neil begins to rouse. Gods, he is so tough, he’s already recovering. Though it truly seems like a struggle for him to open his eyes.

He groans. “Gods… what happened?”

“You passed out,” I tell him.

“Chloe?” He reaches a hand up toward my face. I grab that hand in one of mine and then hold it to my cheek. “Chloe,” he says again, more sure. He blinks a few times, and then focuses his gaze on me. “There you are.”

“I should be saying that,” I tell him. “You gave us all a scare. We’re taking you to the hospital.”

“No,” he says at once. “Don’t.”

Archer who had turned on his right turning signal, switches it to the left instead. Well, so much for that.

“Neil, you were shot. And then you passed out. You should get seen by a doctor,” I say, my last ditch effort to be the voice of reason amongst this group of stubborn wolves. As expected, no one listens to me.

“I’m fine,” Neil says. “Just take me home.”

“Beau,” Archer says. “Call the doctor. Have him meet us at the Pyramid.”

Beau has his phone in his hands before Archer even finishes talking.

It’s then that I realize I lost my own phone to the rain and the flowerbeds. Well, I’m not overly worried about it. I’m sure the brothers wouldn’t mind getting me another one.

Although… I’m leaving in… what? 5 days now? Maybe they won’t see the point in getting one that I’ll just need to replace. I doubt they’ll want to keep me on their phone plan when I’m off the payroll. And even if they do, I shouldn’t accept it. I need to stand on my own two feet.

“I’m just tired,” Neil says. His eye lids are growing heavy. He’s having trouble keeping his eyes open. It’s much less alarming than when his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he passed out.

This time, it’s more like he’s simply taking a restful sleep.

Except that sleep is due to blood loss.

Okay, maybe it’s not all that much less alarming.

“Archer,” I say and I can hear the worry in my own voice.

It could be my imagination, but I swear the world starts moving by a lot faster out my window.

“Chloe,” Neil says again, and my heart jumps up into my throat. He’s not quite asleep yet. I’m still holding his hand to my cheek. I nuzzle into it now.

“I’m going to miss you when you are gone,” he says.

I freeze. Gods, I’m going to miss him too, but did he mean to say that? Or is it simply the blood loss talking? It’s that fear that keeps me from reciprocating. Maybe I’ll tell him the truth of it, if he says those words to me when he is awake and healthy.

His hand goes slack in mine. He’s finally unconscious again.

When we arrive at the Pyramid, Neil is immediately taken to his room. The doctor and nurses are already there, and begin an examination at once. Archer, Beau, and I wait in the hallway, just outside the room.

Steven quickly joins us. “What happened?”

Beau pulls him aside to tell him privately. I can hear bits and pieces now and then, as I stand beside Archer and watch the doctors work on Neil. They check his blood pressure. They hook him up to an IV.

“He shouldn’t have been walking,” the doctor says. “We instructed him to stay in bed.”

“It hardly matters now,” Archer barks out. “Just fix him.”

“Wyatt had a gun,” Beau tells Steven behind us, and I shiver.

After a time Beau and Steven wander back from us.

The danger with Neil seems mostly clear. He has an oxygen tube at his nose and two different IV’s dripping into his arm, but the doctor and nurses keep saying, “He’s stable.”

Meanwhile, the other three brothers keep looking at me when they think I don’t notice. Well, at least Beau and Steven likely think they are being sneaky about it. Archer doesn’t bother with the charade. He just openly stares.

“You are shivering,” he says, after a while.

“That rain was pretty cold,” I agree. “I’ll change once we know Neil is okay.”

“What about you?” Steven asks. “It sounds like you were thrown around again. We should have the doctor check you out too.”

“That hardly seems necessary,” I say, though now that he mentions it, my torso feels like I’d been run over by a truck. I was so concerned about Neil for so long, I barely even noticed it.

“Only a hypocrite would insist that Neil go to the hospital for his wounds and then not have her own treated,” Beau says, sing-song, like he’s teasing me and not blatantly calling me out.

“Okay, fine,” I grumble.

True to my word, once the doctors have finished with Neil, I ask them to come to my room and inspect me as well. Archer insists on joining us.

It’s a bit awkward, when I have to take off my shirt in front of a room of strangers, but I’m not exactly shy, so whatever. They take off the bandages over my broken ribs and then tsk at what they see. There are many fresh bruises littered among the old.

“We should do another x-ray,” one doctor says. “Just in case.”

“The fact that she is still breathing is a good sign,” says another doctor, one that is more crass.

“We have the equipment set up downstairs,” a nurse offers. “An x-ray won’t take long…”

I submit myself to x-ray’s and inspections by the doctors, all under Archer’s watchful gaze. When all is said and done, by broken ribs are no worse than they were before.

I’m back in my room when the doctors get out the bandage to wrap me up once more.

Archer, who has been a quiet observer so far, immediately and forcefully says, “Stop,” the instant before anyone can touch me. “I’ll do it,” he says.

The doctors and nurses glance at each other. Then they all seem to shrug. It’s clear who pays the bills around here.

“Go easy,” the nicer doctor says to me.

“No more fights, for Gods’ sake,” says the meaner one.

They all leave the room, leaving me alone with Archer. And suddenly I feel much more topless than I did even a minute ago with the doctors in the room.

The medical staff looked at me clinically. Archer drags his gaze over me like he wants to eat me alive.

And I really want to let him.