Page 41 of Dark Things (Payback Duet #1)

He sways again and almost takes a tumble. We rush to make sure he doesn’t hit his head. He’s clutched in our arms, but he’s still thrashing around.

“Ghost!” Staff yells right in his face. Haunt goes still and looks at us properly for the first time.

“Where is she?” he asks.

“Surgery. Let’s get you patched up. Please, let them do their jobs, and then we’ll go right up there,” Brooks says.

“She’s alone? No one is up there for her? She doesn’t like to be alone. She needs to sleep next to me when the nightmares get bad. I can’t leave her alone.”

He’s crying again, so much pain rolling off him. Brooks helps him up and picks him up like he weighs nothing and places him in the bed. The nurse comes in with pursed lips .

“Are you going to let us take care of that knee now? You’re bleeding all over my ED.”

I growl at her, but move on the other side next to Staff. “Just fix him up. We’ve had a shitty fucking night. Our love was shot in the chest,” I say, wiping at my face.

The nurse gives us a curious look, but I don’t give a fuck. We all love her, and there’s nothing she could say or do to change that fact. It was always weird for other people that the three of us were in a relationship. We didn’t give a fuck then, and we don’t give a fuck now.

Haunt lets the doctors stitch his knee up and clean and bandage the worst of the cuts. They take a bedside x-ray, and Haunt has three broken ribs and a slight fracture on his jaw. Nothing that requires surgery, but he’s pretty fucked up.

They give him some painkillers, but the stubborn bastard won’t go to sleep. Staff grabs his hand and sits down next to him while we wait for the doctors to tell us we can go upstairs.

“We know,” Brooks says.

Haunt gives him a look, but doesn’t disregard Brooks’ claim.

“It’s about fucking time. I would have known her regardless of the surgeries or hair dye; there’s zero chance you forget someone like Reb when you’re in love with her.

You were supposed to know her soul. Recognize her anywhere.

I know what you assholes did to her, but you don’t know what she’s been through because of it.

All the pain and suffering. Everything she’s had to endure because of the three of you.

If I wasn’t in this bed I would kill you all. Siete tutti dei disgraziati .”

“What stopped you before?” Staff asks, letting go of his hand.

Haunt turns to him and scowls. “She did. Said I had to wait because she didn’t know what she was going to do yet. Thank God she stopped me, because you would have been scattered in a hundred pieces. No one would have found you.”

He leans back and closes his eyes. Seconds later he’s out from the drugs. I lean back against the wall and close my eyes. We’ve lived a half-life for five years, and now our north star has returned to us, except she’s no longer our Belle.

She’s Pitch, a merc, a killer.

Someone who’s done who knows what, who’s been through so much, and there’s no guarantee that she’s going to live so she can finally find out the truth.

Because the one thing that didn’t happen that night was Belle killing her uncle. No, that pleasure went to me.

I’m a killer, my soul tainted, but I’d do it again. I’d do anything for her.

It takes over seven hours before they let us upstairs to see Reb. She’s finally out of surgery and in the ICU. We can’t all go in, but I’ve decided to be first. I need to see her properly with my own eyes, even if she won’t be awake.

Haunt was moved to his own private room, but he’s been sedated because he refuses to stay still enough to not re-injure himself.

Staff and Brooks are with him in case he wakes up and tries to hurt someone else.

The second he woke up after they stitched his knee up, he demanded to see her.

When the nurse told him no, he tried to lunge for him.

If Brooks wasn’t quick enough, I’m pretty sure the guy would have died.

I round the corner to her room, knowing I’m going to see her hooked up to all kinds of machines.

I steel my spine and take a deep breath, twisting the door handle and walking into the room.

The curtain is closed on the bed near the window.

My hand reaches for it, but I start shaking. I’m not sure I can do this.

We’ve searched for her for so long, and now that she’s finally here, she can’t even speak to me. All I want is to hear her say she’s Belle—that I’m not imagining this, not clinging to some fantasy. I need her to be who I believe she is.

I need her to be ours so badly.

I slowly pull the curtain back, but there’s no one there. The bed is made and doesn’t look like anyone has been lying on it.

What the fuck?

I rush out of the room to the nurses station. There are a few of them there, typing or talking on the phone. No one looks out of place, but the frantic energy inside of me is going to spill over if I don’t find out what happened to her.

“Excuse me, I’m looking for Reb Vischer. She was in room 333. There’s no one in there,” I say, to the woman sitting behind a giant computer screen. She looks up and eyes me as if I’m lacking.

“And you are?” she asks.

“Colter Shultz, I’m Reb’s fiance.”

I start to tap the wooden top between us, and shuffle from side to side. I will jump over this goddamn counter and look in the computer myself if she doesn’t hurry up and tell me what I want to know.

She clicks a few buttons and then tilts her head. “We don’t have anyone in our system with that name.”

I’m so stunned that I don’t reply right away. Once my brain comes back online I say, “That’s a mistake. She was brought into the ED with a bullet wound to her chest. She just got out of surgery. The doctor downstairs told me to come up to the ICU to see her.”

Calling over another nurse she relays what I just said. This nurse looks at me and then picks up the phone and dials a number. I wait for her to get off, but I can’t sit still. I start pacing. There’s nothing that I can do before she stops talking to whomever is on the other end.

The door to the floor opens up and Staff and Brooks come walking down the hallway. I’m surprised to see that they were allowed access to the floor, but I’m glad they’re here regardless.

“Where is she? Why are you in the hall?” Brooks asks. The rest of the nurses turn to say something to him, but he pulls himself up and scowls. They back down, not wanting to mess with the giant.

“Sir, it seems she’s being transferred to another facility. They’re medevacing her to another hospital, although I have no idea why. She wasn’t stable enough for transport,” the nurse says as she hangs up the phone.

“What? You’re saying they’re taking her in a helicopter to another hospital? Which one?” Staff asks.

I bite my tongue so hard preventing myself from screaming at this lady, that blood coats my mouth. This can’t be happening, again. I move before Staff can get an answer from the nurse. I press the elevator button more times than necessary, bouncing on my feet.

“They don’t know what hospital. They don’t know anything, Colt,” Staff says.

The elevators swing open, and all three of us rush in.

I press the ‘R’ button for the roof and the door swings closed.

We ride up in silence, my mind moving to who the fuck could have authorized this.

She doesn’t have any family left except for Magnus, but from what I gathered at Haven, she doesn’t know where he is.

There’s only one person I can think that would do this besides Mario, and since Mario’s dead, that only leaves him—Stan Graves .

We reach the floor, and all three of us rush out, just in time to see a gurney being strapped down to the interior of a helicopter. There’s no one on the helipad; everyone is already inside the chopper.

“BELLE!” I scream, running toward her.

A man turns when he sees me coming, and the smile on his face sends chills down my spine. He waves, and the helicopter lifts off the ground. I don’t stop. I can’t. There’s nothing that can prevent me from getting her.

But it picks up speed, and by the time I reach the middle of the helipad, it’s out of my reach.

“FUCK!”

My hands go into my hair as I watch the only woman I’ve ever loved lift off into the air. I don’t know where she’s going or who took her for sure, but I do know one thing.

There’s nothing and no one who will keep me from getting back to her. It might have taken five years the first time, but I’m not that teenage boy anymore. Now I’m a tainted soulless monster that will do everything possible for her to be in my arms again.

“They think they can keep you from me, Belle. Let them try. I’m coming for you…and this time, I’m not leaving anyone standing.”

Want more? The reckoning comes in Wicked Things , the last book of the Payback Duet.