Officer out of Uniform (Lock and Key Book 2) (19 page)

“Henry, this can’t be happening! Don’t even think about dying. I love you, and you’re – you’re not allowed!”

She sounded like she was auditioning for a role in a cheesy movie, but she was incapable of caring. This whole situation was like something out of a movie – a horror movie. It didn’t even feel like it was happening to her, really. It was almost like she was floating above the bloody scene, watching it happen, powerless to stop her life from crumbling before her eyes.

She really did love him. The realization had crept up on her over the summer, and now she finally faced it, saw the truth for what it was. She couldn’t bear to lose someone again. Especially not him.

Now that his blood was on her hands, it was no use shying away from the strength of her feelings for him. That strength held her in a death grip, crushing her fear of admitting that she loved someone – that pieces of her heart had become gambling chips, were irrevocably out of her control. If she lost him, she’d lose those parts of herself, whether she wanted to admit it or not.

She’d finally found the person who she couldn’t be cautious with, couldn’t guard her heart against.

“Sasha, relax. I’ll be fine.” Henry winced, but met Sasha’s eyes.

She sucked in a sharp breath, fought to keep herself from bursting into hysterics. “He stabbed you in the neck! There’s blood everywhere…”

“He did not.” Henry straightened, letting go of her hand and forcing himself up onto one knee. “It’s my chest…”

He touched his collarbone, and his hand came away red.

“What?” She reached out instinctively, pressed her fingers gingerly to his neck, terrified of what she might feel. She fully expected her fingers to slip into the wet trench of a gaping wound, but they didn’t.

Sure enough, beneath all the blood, there was only smooth skin.

The relief she experienced was only a blip on the radar of her near-hysteria. He was still bleeding like crazy.

“I’ll be fine,” he repeated, and pushed himself to his feet.

When he held out a hand to help her up, she realized something: she was the biggest idiot in the world. And the happiest one.

“God!” She refused his help, pushed herself up onto wobbling legs. “I thought he cut your throat!”

“No. Take it easy.” He took one of her hands again. “I’m not dying. Do you still love me?”

Sudden heat blazed its way across her cheekbones, but she stood tall. “Yes.”

No way was she backpedaling now. Not when she’d worked up the courage to admit that she loved him – that her heart was permanently ensnared with his. If anything happened to him, she’d never be the same. In many ways, finally admitting it was a relief.

He shrugged, then grimaced. “Thought maybe you just said that so I could die happy.”

“No, I meant it.”

“I love you too.” He met her gaze for a single, silent second and her heart skipped a beat. His eyes were steel grey behind the misting of rain, and his strong jaw was flecked with blood. He looked serious – dead serious. She had no doubts that he meant what he’d said. “I’ve loved you for a while, now. And I’m sorry I have to leave you here, but I do. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back for you.”

She held onto his hand with a vice-like grip. “The hell you are! You’re not going after him!”

It was obvious that was what he was planning. He was staring in the direction Randy Levinson had fled like a dog staring after a rabid cat that’d just scratched its nose.

“I have to,” he said. “I can’t let him get away. I can’t.” He picked up his Glock and took off. He faltered and almost fell, then kept running.

“Stop!” Sasha’s heart seemed to stop beating, and then it forged ahead, flooding her with adrenaline she could taste, like a mouthful of pennies. She ran after him, blood dripping from her hands.

* * * * *

“Look Dryden, you have to get in the ambulance. You have a concussion. You can’t drive yourself to the hospital.” A tall guy with broad shoulders and short red hair crossed his arms as he repeated himself to Henry for the third time. Rain water dripped off the end of his nose, and he looked like he wanted to pick Henry up and throw him into the back of the vehicle.

“No way in hell,” Henry said, crossing his arms so that he and the other man stood facing each other in the exact same pose. “Randy fucking Levinson is out there! I saw him! If you think I’m gonna waste time lying around in a hospital with my ass hanging out of a gown, forget it.”

Sasha had already gathered that the red-haired man worked a shift as a correctional officer at the prison when he wasn’t serving as an EMT. Apparently, that fact didn’t mean Henry was going to listen to him.

“The police are searching the woods right now,” he argued. “They don’t need your help.”

Henry gave the other man a sour look. “They’ve been looking for him for days. They couldn’t find him after the warden was killed, and they searched the woods then. I’d say they need all the help they can get.”

Henry and the EMT had been arguing ever since first responders had arrived on the scene. Wolf had long since been whisked off in a squad car, rushed to the local vet clinic by a police officer.

Henry had proven much more stubborn than his dog, and it was officially time for Sasha to step in. As much as she enjoyed watching two muscular men facing off while dripping wet, their clothes plastered to their bodies by rainwater, this was ridiculous.

Taking a few strides across the driveway and planting herself between the two men, she looked Henry in the eye, purposely letting the blanket one of the EMTs had given her slip a little, exposing the cleavage that swelled above her bikini top’s neckline. “Henry… I’m not feeling so hot. I think I should get this wrist checked out. I’m afraid it might be a fracture, not a sprain.”

She’d fallen on her left wrist when Randy Levinson had knocked her down. And she wasn’t lying – she really was afraid her injury might be something worse than a sprain. It was just that she’d tried to hide that fact at first so Henry wouldn’t freak out.

Of course, when he’d gone charging after Randy, Sasha had had to chase after him to stop him. It’d taken a solid minute of him yelling at her to stop and her refusing before he’d finally given up and turned on her, white-faced and tight-jawed. When they’d finally retreated to the house to call 911 and alert the police, he’d refused to say anything on the walk back.

She knew he was livid, but she didn’t care. He was alive, and her heart practically broke with relief every time she looked at him and saw him living, breathing. Even if he
did
have a blood-stained beach towel wadded up and pressed against his shoulder, where he’d been stabbed.

“Okay,” he finally said, looking down at her, his mouth as straight and grim as a blade.

“You’ll ride with me in the ambulance, won’t you?” she pressed, her gaze boring into his, willing him to give in.

He swore under his breath, then made a jerky head movement that might’ve been a nod. “Fine.”

He helped her into the ambulance, where they sat together. Finally out of the rain, her adrenaline had crashed, leaving her feeling cold. She leaned against Henry, more to be close to him than for body heat.

He stared straight ahead, his jaw clenched. It was strange to think that just minutes ago, she’d told him she loved him, and he’d said it back.

* * * * *

Dawn broke bright and bold Sunday morning, an orange splinter on the horizon. The neon light filtered in between the slanted blinds in Henry’s hospital room, finally chasing away the shadows that’d filled the space during the night. He’d barely slept, and had only stayed because he’d figured that after what’d happened at his house, the hospital was actually the safest place he and Sasha could’ve spent the night.

She’d stayed, too. The only injury she’d sustained had been a badly sprained wrist, thank God. But she’d insisted on staying with Henry in his room and he’d leapt at the chance to keep her by his side. While she’d slept on the little pull-out sofa, he’d watched her, propped up on the rock-hard bed. Now he shifted, grunting as the ache in his back flared.

Movement flashed in the doorway – a nurse.

“Up already?” she asked. “How’s your pain?”

“I’m fine.” Other than the muscle cramp cutting through his lower back. Holy hell, hospital beds were awful.

“Well, we want to keep you that way. I’ll be right back with your next dose of medication.”

“I don’t want anything that will impair my judgment,” he said. “No narcotics.”

“The medication Dr. Ashland prescribed for you before the end of his shift is a narcotic. You’ve been stabbed. There’s nothing wrong with using appropriate pain medication on a short-term basis. As long as you avoid things like driving or operating other heavy machinery, you’ll be fine.”

“I won’t take it, and I won’t argue.” A nurse had tried to give him something narcotic the night before, and he’d flushed it down the toilet.

Sasha chose that moment to pop up from her curled position on the pull-out sofa, which Henry sincerely hoped wasn’t as bad as the bed.

“It’s no use arguing with him,” she said. “Trust me. He might as well be a mule, he’s so stubborn.”

Henry didn’t need drugs. Yeah, he’d been stabbed, but the tip of the knife had hit his collarbone. Which had hurt like hell, but the actual damage to muscle tissue had been minimal. It’d only taken ten stitches to close the surface wound, and while he ached, he certainly didn’t need to be plunged into a drug fog to deal with it. Impaired judgment could mean the difference between life and death, especially at a time like this.

The nurse agreed to talk to the doctor currently on duty and get him something non-narcotic. Henry didn’t bother telling her that he’d be leaving shortly and could pick up his own bottle of Tylenol on the way home. At the moment, all he wanted was to have her out of his hair, even if it was only temporary.

“How’s your wrist?” he asked, standing and frowning as his head throbbed. He’d had a few stiches there too, to close the wound Levinson had dealt him with the butt of his rifle. Damn it, it set his teeth on edge to think about. It was beyond shameful that he’d let him get away. He’d had him right there, and then—

“It’s sore, of course,” Sasha said, waving her good wrist while she let her splinted one rest in her lap. “I’ll be okay though. It hurts a lot less than yesterday. What about you? And don’t tell me you’re fine – I know you at least have to have a headache.”

“A headache is nothing I can’t handle.”

“Technically, you have a concussion.”

“A minor one.” He picked up his phone from the bedside table and sent a text to Liam.

He got a call back in about ten seconds.

“Morning, Sunshine,” Liam said. A coffee maker gurgled in the background, and spoons clanked against bowls.

“Any news from Jeremy?” Henry had last seen Jeremy at his own home. He’d been one of the responding officers to the shootout.

According to Jeremy, the incident was ‘a shit storm unleashed’, and he’d likely be working around the clock for at least the next 24 hours. But he’d promised to give Liam – his cousin – whatever updates he could share, when he had a chance.

“Uh, yeah. Hey Alicia, honey – could you pass that butter over here?”

Alicia’s syrupy-sweet reply reminded Henry that her and Liam’s wedding was just around the corner. Though it was weird to hear Liam talk like that, Henry was just glad they were safe. If getting revenge on PERT officers was Randy Levinson’s goal, he could’ve gone after Liam or Grey, like his brother Troy had.

Did Henry’s location have anything to do with why he’d been targeted? The thought hit him like a ton of bricks. Maybe Levinson had been hiding out nearby – maybe he still was. Something to mention to Jeremy.

“They searched the hell out of the woods behind your house last night,” Liam continued. “In fact, they’re still looking. They did find something already, though: two bodies.”