Page 16 of Spooked (31 Days of Trick or Treat: Biker & Mobster #13)

CHAPTER NINE

HOUND

There’s a weight on my chest, holding me down, so heavy I feel like I’m suffocating, unable to breathe.

My hands feel useless, and my feet can find no purchase beneath me as the ground is like quicksand holding me prisoner.

My fingers inadequately claw at the sides of what feels like a bottomless pit.

Ineffectively, I struggle to reach the top, falling back down on my first attempt, also my second, and then, the third.

Panic gives me strength as I redouble my efforts.

I’ve no idea where I am, just know my life depends on getting out.

Another attempt, then one more. I try to swallow my panic, concentrating all my efforts on climbing the walls and escaping whatever’s dragging me down.

One last deep breath, one final push and endeavour, and my efforts are rewarded as I reach the surface.

Immediately, bright light burns my eyes, and my ears pick up a beeping sound I know only too well from when I was in the hospital a few weeks back. As my sight begins to focus, blinking eyes bring anxious faces into view.

Bullet’s the first man whose voice I recognise. “I’m so fuckin’ sorry, Brother. I thought I was helping, sending you to that house. But you clearly weren’t ready, and you overdid it.” He shakes his head sadly. Then, slightly hopeful, he adds, “Did you actually go? Or weren’t you up to it?”

House. Maeve. That he might think I ignored his request and didn’t return to the house is overshadowed as I start to recall everything that happened in that cursed Sullivan House.

As it comes back to me, I rapidly try to put the pieces together, my experiences replaying like a film in my mind.

Finally, it all comes together. “You found me at the bottom of the stairs?” I’m so grateful he thought to come looking for me.

Fuck knows what would have happened if no one had come searching.

“How long was I lying there?” And what further damage have I done?

Fuck. All I can remember is flying through the air.

I could have shattered my leg even more.

“Stairs?” Now it’s Drummer’s gruff bark. “What the fuck are you talking about? We found you unconscious just outside your house. Couldn’t rouse you, so we had you brought to the hospital.”

“Drummer,” the softer tones of his woman, Sam’s, voice butts in. “He’s only just woken up. Go easy on him now.”

I shake my head but quickly stop as a blast of pain hammers through my skull. I focus on Bullet. “I went back to the house with Maeve…”

“Maeve?” Bullet asks, his eyes widening. “Who the fuck is that?”

“You know,” I spit out, annoyed. “When I came to your office to go over the photos of the Sullivan House, she turned up…”

After giving a worried look toward Drummer, he rolls his eyes. “Brother, you never came back to the office. And I certainly never met anyone called Maeve.”

Drummer’s arm has gone around his old lady, and his sharp eyes have softened.

“Hound, Brother, looks like you might have left the hospital too soon, and are doing too much. From the way I found you, your crutch must have slipped out from under you, and you went down with a crash. Knocked yourself out again.” One side of his mouth turns up.

“Sure sounds like you have one fuck of an imagination to dream up shit like that.”

What the fuck?

My panicked eyes go to Bullet, a silent plea for clarification.

“Earlier today, you came to my office and agreed to go to the Sullivan House.” He shrugs.

“Don’t know rightly, can’t say whether you did or not, but whatever you got up to after leaving SD Construction must have been too much.

This evening, Drummer found you.” He jerks his head toward the acting prez.

“As Drummer said, just outside your house at the compound.”

No. Fuck no. I look from the concerned faces of Drummer and Sam, to Bullet, whose eyes are tight, then Peg, standing, his brow furrowed behind them.

It was all real. The pornographic scene that I watched with Maeve, the woman I held in my arms, who I brought to orgasm.

Maeve, the woman who disappeared into thin air.

I open my mouth to protest, to tell them everything that happened, then realise if they think it was all in my head, then it probably was.

Even if it wasn’t, if I started to tell my story now, it would only confirm that my brain was fucked. I’d never regain the trust of the club.

Swallowing hard, I come up with an acceptable excuse. “I must have had one fuck of a nightmare.”

“Don’t worry,” Drummer speaks soothingly, in a voice I recall him using when Eli and Zane were children.

“We’ll fight this with you, Hound. Doc says you didn’t damage your leg when you fell, and there’s no indication you badly hit your head.

Seems you simply passed out. The scans showed no new brain bleeds.

Your fall and your confusion are a result of your brain injury.

It might only be temporary. Doc says you just need rest to let both your body and brain heal as well as they can. ”

It doesn’t surprise me Drum got the full rundown from my doctor. Even the Hippocratic oath doesn’t stand up against one of his death stares. And rest be damned. I’ll time out when I’m dead.

Then another thought enters my mind. They’re fucking with me.

There’s nothing wrong with my head. I glower at Bullet, wondering why he’s lying.

I went back to his office, showed him the photos, met Maeve, and reluctantly returned to the house.

Where I was met with an X-rated scene, and the woman in my arms evaporated. Or did I?

Sure, the F.O.G.s play jokes, but none that would mean me ending up in a hospital bed. Pranks, yes, but cruelty, making me think I’m fucked in the head? I’m sufficiently Copus mentis not to accuse them of that.

Metaphorically zipping my lips firmly shut, I make no more mention of photos, Maeve, or my return visit to the house. I’d be locked up somewhere for my own safety if I kept insisting it was all real.

My visitors shuffle awkwardly, as if unsure of what to say. “What day is it?” I finally ask.

“It’s early morning, October twenty-nine,” Peg enlightens me, lighting up a little at a question that’s easy to answer. “You’d stumbled out of your house and collapsed on the ground late last night.”

But that can’t be. It had been Halloween already when I returned with Maeve to the house.

What the fuck is going on? I couldn’t have hallucinated everything.

Could I? If I did, my brain is more fucked than I thought.

Goosebumps rise on my body as a chill goes through me, feeling like icy blood flowing through my veins.

“The doctors want to keep you in for observation for a while. Do a few tests, make sure there’s nothing they’ve missed,” Drummer informs me. He pats my hand gently. “All you’ve got to do is rest and get well again.”

I’d already felt well, mentally, that is. I know my leg is still healing. I’m reeling from being back in the hospital again. Everything I’ve gone through feels so real. I can’t believe it was all a dream.

“Get some rest, Brother.” Bullet, too, sounds concerned as he gets up to leave.

“Maeve,” I croak out. “Maeve Sullivan. Get Mouse to look into her, please?”

“Sure, we will,” Peg placates me, placing his hand over mine. “Just concentrate on yourself for now, Brother. Get some sleep.”

After what happened the last time I closed my eyes, I’m not sure I ever want to sleep again.

Even with all the evidence against it, I can’t believe the whole thing’s been a dream.

That I never left the compound, never showed Bullet my photos, never met Maeve.

Never revisited the Sullivan House. But it all seemed so real.

Maybe I’m living in an alternate reality.

Alone, my heartbeat increases. I seem to be jumping from one time to another, and neither of which I want to be the truth.

Which would I rather? To accept my brain is totally fucked, or to believe that, after witnessing a porn scene between ghosts, the woman I was with evaporated in my arms. Notwithstanding, I seem to have lived a day that didn’t yet exist.

Seeing as it’s hard as fuck to get any rest in a hospital, with nurses coming in and out to check you’re still breathing and other vitals, and trolleys rattling up and down the corridors outside, I don’t get a chance to drift into the deep sleep that I’d need to be in to dream.

Early afternoon, I’m not rested at all, but at least I think I have my sanity about me.

Lucky, because it’s the consultant who’s been treating me who’s first up. Without niceties, he gets straight down to business. “You remember what caused you to black out?”

I have no recollection. Well, that’s not true.

I recall clearly toppling down the stairs in the Sullivan House.

But to explain how my brothers found me collapsed outside my own home, I’ve no idea.

I’m also intelligent enough to know there would be implications if I told the doctor that I didn’t know how I came to lose consciousness.

I give him the words that I think he needs.

“Fuckin’ crutches got caught on something.

I went down hard. Obviously knocked the wind and senses out of me. ”

He smiles and nods, as if I’m a child who has passed a test. Then, he informs me, “Your latest scans show no new brain bleeds or swelling on your brain. You clearly didn’t do yourself more damage.

” I already know that. Drummer had told me.

I acknowledge his words with a chin lift.

After staring at me for a moment, he adds, “If you fell and knocked your head, that’s one thing.

But if for no reason you blacked out, then that would be far more serious.

I’d have to recommend you stop driving.”