Resisting Ruby Rose (The Ruby Rose Series) (9 page)

CHAPTER 12

Jane Rose didn’t look like Jane Rose anymore. In fact, part of my brain couldn’t quite grasp that the body lying on the hospital bed was someone I knew at all. Most of her face was wrapped in gauze, and the skin I could see was swollen and discolored. I strained to remember the beautiful, powerful, and elegant woman sh
e’d
always been.

Luckily, Mathews hadn’t questioned me at all when I entered the hall, h
e’d
just ushered me quickly to her room. Now he was prodding me toward her bedside against my faint resistance. The sight of her made my stomach turn and my heart wrench. The closer I got, the harder it became to reach out and touch the hand waiting for me.

“Come on, Ruby,” Mathews whispered in my ear. “It’s your mom. She needs you.”

Could that be true?

I took a painful gulp of stale hospital air and forced my hand to touch hers. The skin wasn’t even skin. It was a water balloon with cold veins. I closed my eyes and pinched back the sting of tears.

“Mom.” I spoke delicately, as if my words might break her all over again. “I’m here.”

She stirred, but she didn’t open her black-and-blue eyes.

“It’s OK, you don’t have to move or wake up,” I said, wiping away the emerging tears. “I just want you to know that I’m here.”

“Ru
e . . .
” She struggled to mouth the word, her voice so weak that the sound couldn’t even be classified as a whisper. “
I . . .
I’
m . . .
s
o . . .
sorry.”

I shut my eyes and dropped my head, losing it. Tears burned down my cheeks. She blamed herself for all of this.

“Stop,” I said, moving my face closer to hers. I was no longer terrified of her disfigured and swollen appearance. “Rest. I’m here now. I won’t go.”

Her head shifted to the side to meet my cheek, and she breathed me in. As if it gave her courage. As if my presence gave her life. “
I . . .
love yo
u . . .
Rue.”

I tried to hold myself together, but I couldn’t. With my hot tears falling on her neck, I buried myself in her shoulder and crumpled. She would never know how much her words filled me not just with love, but with sorrow and regret. If only things had been different. If only our lives hadn’t been hit by more shrapnel than from any one devastating bomb.

“Yo
u . . .
only you,” she said in a low, almost scary Darth Vader voice.

“I love you, too, Mom.” The words came more easily to me than they ever had. The physical contact felt right also. The emotional wall that had been building for so long between us was crumbling at my feet; I no longer needed the support of six-inch Jimmy Choos to see over it. I was barefoot and so was she, the bricks collapsed and disintegrated at our feet. As she squeezed my hand the best she could, I sobbed on her like a baby.

A frantic beeping jarred me. The lights on the monitors flashed like some kind of frenetic video game. “Mom?”

Her body started to shake, then she stiffened and began jerking. I tried to hold her down, but the sight of her bruised and broken body being racked by some unknown force horrified me. Nurses, doctors, and faceless bodies swirled around me, then I was pulled away and out of the room.

The arms around me finally let go in a dark room down the hall. I sat on an empty hospital bed, hands over my eyes, shaking with fear.

“She’ll be OK, Ruby,” said a strong male voice I only somewhat recognized. “It was just a small seizure. It’s normal for her kind of injuries.” My attention snapped back to reality, and I uncovered my eyes to see who was standing opposite me, his arms outstretched as if I might fall off the bed. My father. My biological one, at least—the one who’d saved me all those times and disappeared without so much as a word.

His face was so familiar, as if it had been present in my mind every day without my acknowledging it. The salt-and-pepper scruff, the somber eyes, the grief.

I should have been moved by this moment. The symbolism of his outstretched hands was apparent: h
e’d
catch me if I fell. He was here when I needed him, explaining things to me like a father would. But instead of gratitude, I felt anger. Resentment for his constant absence from my life, and rage for abandoning me once again after Grissom Island.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked.

“I need to talk to you,” he said, putting his hands down.

“About what? Your admitting to being my biological father and silent stalker for years, then disappearing again without so much as a note or word of explanation?” Wow, I hadn’t realized I had so much repressed emotion toward this almost stranger who gave me half my DNA.

“I’m sorry,” he said. With an expression of defeat, his eyes left mine.

“That’s it?” I demanded, standing to face him. “You came here to say sorry? Perfect timing when
my mom
needs me.” The rage inside me gave me renewed strength and balance in my legs. In fact, I could’ve landed some kind of body shot on him if I needed to. I still had no idea what this guy’s intentions were. Yeah, he might have saved me several times from imminent death or arrest, but the fact that he stayed in the shadows unnerved and infuriated me.

“I realize that this might not be the best moment,” he said, his eyes finding mine again. “But we need to talk about your future.”

“My future?” I said. “I don’t see how my future is any of your business.”

“I understand why you might feel that way, bu
t . . .
” He paused, appraising me. He sat and put his elbows on his knees, ran his fingers through his short George Clooney hair. I remembered the time I first saw his picture, when Liam got the school surveillance photo. Even then, I knew him. I hadn’t realized I knew him, but deep down I felt the connection. Now I was pushing him away in self-defense, when what I really wanted was to pull.

I sat back down.

“Do you remember what I told you on Grissom Island,” he said, “about coming to get you when you were three?”

I nodded.

“I had only just found out about you. Your biological mother never told me you existed. It wasn’t until I went looking for her that I found out what happened. I had been overseas for years, engaged in a profession I knew very little about at the time.” He stood and walked toward the window, looking out to the coastline. “It wasn’t her fault, you know. I left her with no way of contacting me. It was the nature of my assignment as a young Ranger. She should have never had to do it alone. It wasn’t her fault.”

He was repeating himself, lost in a sea of despair. I couldn’t be sure what kind of emotion he was hoping to hide by turning his back to me, but I could hear it in his voice. I hung my head and felt it, too.

“Long ago, I made a choice,” he said. “I accepted an offer. A
proposition
. That changed the entire course of my life.”

My head snapped up.

He turned and was looking at me again. “I know what Skryker offered you,” he said, his jaw clenched as if his sadness had transformed into something very different.

“I should’ve known,” I said, clenching my jaw—and fists—right back. “You’re somehow involved, aren’t you?”

“I’m making myself involved. But I’ve showed up too late again.” He shook his head in self-reproach. “I only just found out what happened this weekend. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to protect you.”

“It’s not your job to protect me,” I said instinctively, not able to hold back my verbal body shots.

“Yes, it is. Of course it is, Ruby, I’m your father.”

“Jack Rose is my father.” A punch to the gut.

He absorbed it with a fighter’s grace, simply nodding like he deserved the low blow.

“Or should I say,
was
my father.” I couldn’t stop. He was on the ropes, and I didn’t know how to quit. “Before you provoked him. Before you and Martinez decided to ruin us all.”

“Now, wait—that’s not fair.” He finally put his hands up to defend himself. “Don’t put me in the same boat as Martinez. All I’ve ever wanted is to ensure your safety and happiness. I never wanted
anyone
to get hurt, which is the exact opposite of what Martinez wanted. He wanted revenge. He still wants it. And he is more free and capable of making it happen now than when he was hiding who he really is: a corrupt cop with money and connections that go much further than anyone anticipated.”

“So why don’t you use all your stalker skills to hunt
him
down and end it all before everyone in my life gets blown up?” I asked, refusing to back down.

“Ruby,” he said in a hurt but collected tone. “That’s exactly what I thought I was doing when you were in the mountains being attacked by him and his men. I followed a lead south when I should have gone north with you. That’s a mistake I’m not going to make again.”

“I saw your file,” I said. “You don’t make mistakes. You were exceptional in almost every way. Your field tests, your psychological assessment
s . . .
”

“Skryker shared that with you?” He closed his eyes in disbelief.

“I think he figured it would help me make my decision. Maybe he’s relying on some bullcrap psychological theory about children wanting to be like their parents. Well, rest assured—” I paused to make myself clear. “I don’t want to be like you. I don’t want to be a killer.”

We both took a deep breath of the stagnant hospital air. I wondered how many people had died in this very room.

“So you’ve made your decision?” he asked.

“I don’t want anything to do with Skryker,” I said, hating to even say his stupid name. “Honestly, I don’t want anything to do with Martinez or any of this at all. But I’m not sure what choice I have. If it weren’t for Skryker’s agents, I wouldn’t be here right now.” Suddenly, I thought of Quinn. As much as I hated thinking about Skryker, I didn’t so much hate thoughts of Quinn. Or his shoes. Or his accent. Or the way he held a gun—

I needed a nap. I had no control over my thoughts right now.

“You always have a choice, Ruby. I’ll protect you. You don’t need Skryker or his agents.”

“So you
don’t
want me to join his little band of teenage assassins?” I tried to read his expression.

“Ruby, you have a bright future. I want to make sure it stays that way. Accepting Skryker’s offer is
not
at all what I would choose for you.”

“You don’t get to choose for me,” I clarified, knowing that wasn’t the issue but a knee-jerk reaction to his choice of words.

He raised his eyebrows as if to say,
Really, Ruby?
I raised mine right back:
That’s right.

“I just need you to know that if I could go back and choose all over again,
I’d
choose your mother.
I’d
choose you.”

Despite the lovely sentiment, I wasn’t touched by it. Going back in time wasn’t an option. Hell, if I could go back,
I’d
choose not to shoot LeMarq and Rick the Stick.
I’d
choose not to stab and drown Father Ronn, and not to let the Key Killer burn alive.
I’d
choose not to get stabbed in my side just to make sure my dearest father would stay and provide the information needed to free my boyfriend from Death Row.

“I have to get back to my mom,” I said, standing and garnering a safe emotional distance. Even though so much was still unsaid, I couldn’t take much more of the most tense father-daughter chat of all time. “She needs me.”

“I understand,” he said, standing as well. “But don’t forge
t . . .
I’ll be here. Whether you want me to or not.” He handed me a card with his phone number. I took it, thinking how much
I’d
like to throw it back in his face or snark at him again. Call him “Stalker Dad of the Year” or something less lame. Instead, I gave him one last look of anger mixed with longing and huffed out of the room.

CHAPTER 13

I had been camped out by my mom’s bedside for days when her voice roused me from a dream full of explosions behind a cage of bulletproof glass. Cages!
Would I ever be free from them?

“Rue,” my mom whisper-called, her voice hoarse and unused. “Ru
e . . .
honey.”
Honey!
And would I ever be free from her sugary-sweet pet names?

“I’m here,” I said, jimmying myself out of my awesome, germ-filled, reclining hospital chair. “I’m right here.”

Her eyes cracked open and fluttered like a hummingbird’s wings. At first I thought she might be having another seizure, but she gave up when she must’ve realized that opening her eyes was too hard. “It’s OK, Mom. Relax.” I grabbed her hand, crisscrossed with tubes, and double-clutched it to my chest just over my heart.

In the stillness, with the ever present flashing lights on the monitors above her bed, I marveled at how much the tables had turned. In so many ways.

Just days ago, I clung to my resentment for her lies and all sh
e’d
done. Now I clung to her touch, her steady heartbeat.

Just years ago, she held me like a baby, taking care of me when I was sick or sad. Now here I was at her bedside, taking care of her the best way I knew how.

“How long?” she asked, her enunciation weak and slow.

“How long what?”

“Here. How lon
g . . .
here?” she managed.

The doctors warned me of this possible memory loss, but it was still a shock, considering how aware of every detail sh
e’d
always been.

I paused to think. Honestly, I had no idea. With the curtains closed constantly to help her rest, it could have been two days or two weeks. “About a week,” I said, deciding to shoot for an approximation somewhere in the middle.

She inhaled a long and brittle breath. Something must have caught, because she began to cough violently. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t sit her up and pat her on the back. I couldn’t roll her over with all the tubes practically strapping her into place.

“Nurse!” I screamed. “Doctor! I need help in here.”

Mathews was the first to come running in. I hadn’t even known he was here. He took one look at her hacking, shaking body and turned back around to get someone. Soon a herd of multicolored scrubs and white coats came rushing in. Mathews grabbed me by the shoulders and forced me out of the room. I fought him at first, but quickly realized he was much too strong and determined.

From outside the room, I listened to her coughing subside. With my arms crossed firmly across my chest, I muttered
please help
and other incomprehensible words until Mathews hugged me close. Too tired and beside myself to fight, I leaned my head against him.

“It’s going to be OK, Ruby,” he said, smoothing down my Medusa-style bedhead. “She’s got a long road to full recovery, but she’ll make it. And knowing Jane Rose, she’ll impress us all with how fast she gets there.”

I nodded. He was right. Overachieving Jane would break recovery records. She was already defeating the odds by being awake at all at this point.

“Why don’t you go home? I’ll stay here with her. Maybe do us all a favor and take a shower.” He made an overly dramatic sniffing noise.

I pushed away to slug him playfully. I knew he was kidding and serious at the same time. Going home wasn’t the worst idea. I could use a room that didn’t beep endlessly. But leaving my mom felt selfish, and without Big Black, I didn’t know how to get home anyway. Liam hadn’t been bothering to return my calls.

Plenty of people had called or stopped by: the mayor, the chief deputy D.A., the police chief, Dr. T—hell, even Slimy Sammy Carmichael, the paparazzo prince, tried to slip in before I gave him the
not now
glare. But no Alana and no Liam.

As my mom’s coughing fit settled, the wave of hospital staff began exiting her room. “We gave her a sedative. She’s resting now,” one of the nicer nurses said.

“See, she’ll be fine.” Mathews wasn’t asking anymore. He was guiding me down the hall. “I promise she won’t be left alone.”

“OK, you don’t need to walk me out. Stay with her. Please.” I stopped him, not needing my hand held. “I’ll call Dr. T or Liam to come pick me up, and grab something to eat from the cafeteria while I wait.”

He looked down the hallway, assessing the threat level and considering the risks of leaving me unguarded for even a few minutes. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

I started walking away. “Too bad, because that’s exactly what I’m doing.” I gave him a cutesy little wave to make up for being a “brat with a mind of my own”—as he used to say. This was always how it had been with Mathews. For a big, tall, tough guy, he sure was a pushover.

“Ruby, I can have one of my me
n . . .
”

“I’ll call you every five minutes along the way,” I said sarcastically. When I stepped into the elevator at the end of the hallway, he mouthed the words
be careful.

Once I was alone, I pulled my cell out of the Cleave to check if
I’d
missed any calls or messages. It was 2:30 p.m., almost three full days since Liam dropped me at the curb. As the elevator descended, my frustration toward my so-called boyfriend ascended. Why would he have abandoned me now? After all w
e’d
been through.

I was formulating a scathing text message when the elevator opened and I saw the blue sky behind the massive glass entryway. Nothing would help me form a coherent thought better than some fresh ocean air. As if being pulled by a magnetic force, I speed-walked my sore ass out of the musty hospital atmosphere and into the SoCal breeze.

Past the awning, I stopped to lift my face to the sun. Had I ever been so vitamin D–deficient in my life? The heat on my face and the breeze on my skin transported me to a world where my family wasn’t in pieces. A place where the only mom
I’d
ever known wasn’t broken, and my loving father wasn’t dead. A fantasy land where my biological mother wasn’t also dead and my biological father a skilled assassin who wanted to have a strange and unearned relationship after years of abandonment.

I hadn’t even had a chance to assess my next move when I heard a whistle.

“You just going to stand there like a sunflower?” the whistle-blower asked in a British accent.

I opened my eyes, putting my hand over my forehead for shade since I still had no sunglasses, and my vampire eyes hadn’t seen this much sunlight in centuries. My vision finally focused on Quinn, leaning against the hood of a black SUV—presumably the same one that was supposed to be Big Black—parked in a loading zone. The combination of his appearing out of thin air and looking like a European fashion model threw me. From his dashingly coiffed hair to his oiled leather cap-toe Oxfords, I couldn’t get used to how put together this guy was.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, looking around for a sign of Mathews or his men. “Sergeant Mathews might see you. And start asking too many questions.”

“Relax, Ruby Rose,” Quinn said, walking over to offer his arm like he was picking me up for prom. “I’ve got exchange-student status. I’ve come for the summer to scout locations. And how could he blame me for falling for the hottest girl in Southern California?”

He wasn’t serious. He couldn’t be serious. Instead of taking his arm, I folded mine in defiance and narrowed my eyes at him—and not just because I could barely see with all the intense rays trying to blind me. “How did you even get this car from Liam?”

“I’ll explain everything,” Quinn said, dropping his arm. He walked over and opened the passenger side door. It still felt very Prince of England—Liam hardly ever opened car doors for me. “Come on. The more you hesitate, the more attention it could draw. Just pretend that I’m Liam and you can’t wait to get in the car and make out with me.”

Gah! He came on strong. Just like his cologn
e . . .
which I didn’t despise.

“Fine,” I said, walking past the open door and around to the driver seat. “But it won’t be plausible if I’m not the one driving.”

Quinn laughed. “Of course. I should have known.”

As the new tires squealed excessively on our way out of the parking lot (a very un–Big Black thing to do), I double-checked the windows and mirrors to make sure Mathews, Damon Silver, Skryker, or anyone else on my to-avoid list wasn’t watching.

“OK, tell me,” I said, adjusting the seat, mirrors, and steering wheel angle to fit their normally preset positions. “How did you get this car from Liam? Have you seen him?”

Quinn rolled his window down as if it didn’t matter that we were seen together. As if he were proud of it. “Um, no. I haven’t seen him. But Sofia has, and she’s the one who brought Big Black 2.0 to me.”

He knew my car’s name? What else did he know about me that I didn’t willingly tell him? And was he trying to wind me up about Liam and Sofia?

“So, while I’ve been at the hospital with my barely alive mother, Liam has been spending time with Miss Brazil?” I couldn’t contain the feelings of jealousy and betrayal.

“That’s not exactly how I would have put it,” Quinn said, looking utterly amused. “But yes, it’s my understanding that they’ve
fraternized
.”

I gripped the steering wheel and took a hard right onto the Pacific Coast Highway.
Fraternize? Fraternize! I’ll fraternize him!

“Where are they now?” I asked, prepared to go and confront them this very minute. Storm in and find them tangled in sheets listening to Brazilian love songs and drinking guava juice. If that’s what Brazilians drank, anyway!

“Liam is at home. Sofia i
s . . .
gone.”

“What do you mean, ‘gone’?” I noticed a strange tone in his voice as he said the word.

He turned his head away, his goading smile now
gone.
“She’s out. As in, no longer with the organization. As in, unemployed. As in, gone.”

“Oh.” Relief swelled inside me. “Good.”

“Yeah,” Quinn said, his voice still odd. “Good.”

We didn’t talk for a few minutes as I picked up speed and the wind whipped at our hair. I realized I was driving myself home and taking Quinn with me.

“Do you want me to drop you off somewhere?” I asked.

“That’s OK,” Quinn said. “My car is parked near your therapist’s condo.”

I remembered his beautiful car.

I thought back to the written agreement Quinn had presented. Like a blinking light in the corner of my mind, that $3 million flashed at me. And Quinn had said I could probably get more. I thought about the kind of freedom that money would offer. A place of my own, though I probably didn’t need one anymore. Now that my mom was seriously injured,
I’d
have to get over my grudge quicker than I thought to take care of her. With only one more year of high school, barring any criminal prosecution,
I’d
be out of the house soon enough anyway. Maybe off to live my dream of going to Stanford.

Then again, thinking of the future was hard to do, considering how much my life was in peril. Some sharpshooter could take me out right now if he wanted to.

“Forgive the imposition,” Quinn said, interrupting my thoughts, “but I’ve already introduced myself to your landlady. So we won’t have to worry about
that
.” It took my tired brain a few seconds to process that he was talking about Dr. T.

“What?” I asked, totally impositioned. “How? Why?”

“How? By knocking on the door and using my boyish charms. Why? To establish my cover.”

“What cover?”

“My cover that I met you, Liam, Alana, and Chase several weeks ago at a bonfire. That we had become friends. That I had decided to spend my senior year at Huntington Beach High after getting to know the four of you. And that I was concerned about what had happened to your mother and was dropping by to see how you were.”

“And she believed you? She just accepted that crazy bullcrap of a story?” I asked, incredulous.

“It’s amazing what people will believe when you’re young and disarming,” Quinn said in his best Queen’s English. No one would ever know by listening to him that he was capable of black ops and murder. “That’s why Skryker likes us so much. We can get in places that no one else can.”

“Who is ‘us’?”

“Well, beyond you and me, there are several other
underage
agents who work for Black Tide.”

“Back up,” I said, coming to a hard stop outside Dr. T’s condo. “I never accepted Skryker’s offer. I don’t work for him or Black Tide.”

“Not yet,” Quinn said, reclining his seat in the make-myself-at-home position.

“Why are you s
o . . .
” I started but couldn’t find the right insult.

“Amazing?” he said. “Good-looking? Sexy?” He bobbed his eyebrows for entertainment purposes.

“Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of
arrogant
,
egotistical
, or
annoying
.” Though I couldn’t deny that his self-proclaimed adjectives were also correct. I put the car in park and took the keys out of the ignition to indicate I was done with him.

“Mind if I come up?” Quinn asked, now putting on the guise of a well-intentioned friend.

“Yes, I mind,” I said, running my hands through my very unwashed hair. I probably smelled like a trucker. “Dr. T wouldn’t like it.”

“She’s not home,” he assured me.

“And besides, Liam wouldn’t appreciate it.” Regardless of the fact that Liam seemed completely uninterested in me, he didn’t deserve to be disrespected. And honestly, I didn’t trust myself against Quinn’s charm. He could probably have a girl’s bra off in two seconds flat and still have time to brag about it.

“Ah, Liam,” Quinn said, nodding and going all serious. “The boyfriend. Actually, I have some breaking news in the Mr. Slater news department.”

My stomach dropped. Had Martinez gotten to him?

“What is it? Is he OK?” I pleaded.

“He’s fine, Ruby,” Quinn said, reassuring me with his hand on mine. “I didn’t mean to alarm you.”

“Then what? What’s happened to Liam?”

“He beat you to the punch.” Quinn clasped my hand in his, as if preparing me for a blow. “He accepted Skryker’s offer. Liam Slater is officially the newest member of Team Black Tide.”