Chapter Two
Chapter Two
Neo
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
The sting of pain cuts through my abdomen as I try to adjust positions in this tiny ass bed. It feels like I’ve done this all night and still can’t find the right position.
Instead of laying here doing fuck all, I decide to get up and see if there’s anyone standing guard. Funny how I now have guards watching me like I’m the bad guy.
Slowly sitting up, I take notice that it’s a little easier to do so than it was when I tried to move off the chair in the Doc’s room. Pain is still fucking ridiculous, but movement isn’t as bad. I look to see my boots sitting next to the cot. I quickly slide them on and forego strapping the laces.
Walking to the door, I open it and check down the hall.
No one.
Fuck yeah.
I might be able to get my ass out of this place after all.
I make it down the hallway and turn back to the office I was first brought into to grab my suit jacket and shirt. The room is completely cleared. My clothes are nowhere in sight. That’s just my goddamn luck.
Fuck it, I can make it off this reservation with no shirt.
I’ll just call my man, Hawk, and have him come get me. I spot the phone to my left and make a go for it.
The second I have my hand on the receiver the overhead lights switch on.
Fuck.
“Thought you might try to sneak out of here.” That goddamn melodic voice purrs from behind me.
Slowly I turn around to see the doctor standing at the door, one shoulder pressed against the frame while her arms crossed over her chest. She’s looking rather pleased with herself. I should have seen this coming.
Earlier, I didn’t have a chance to really take in the woman due to all the commotion. There’s no denying she’s a gorgeous woman. Fucking beautiful, to be honest. Her darkened Native American skin only highlighting just how phenomenal she looks. She looks too young to be a doctor, but that mouth on her proves that wrong. The woman is smart, smart enough to be able to get me to talk, or rather just hearing her speak can have you singing like a canary. But that’s not all of it, the way her eyes are so unbelievably dark, almost as if they’re black, like at any moment she’ll rip your soul out. In that same turn, you know in a heartbeat that if you could get her to smile, she’d light up an entire room with it.
Fuck. It’s been a long time since I’ve actually looked at a woman like this, seeing nothing more than a nice face and a willing pussy.
That right there shakes me out of my thoughts.
“Calling my ride,” I grunt. There’s no reason for me to stick around this place. She’s done her job, there’s nothing left for her to do.
“In the middle of the night?”
“Does it matter?” I return.
“Yeah. If you don’t rest, you’ll only be doing yourself harm.”
“Babe, look, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened to me. Pretty sure I’ll be fine.” This is not a lie, in my line of work I’m lucky I make it out alive most days.
Her eyes widen, but she regains her composure quickly. “That might be, but what kind of doctor would I be if I allowed you to leave in this kind of state?”
“One that sees I have a life I need to get back to it.”
She doesn’t falter with a comeback. “If you leave you won’t have any antibiotics. When the infection sets in, what will you do?”
“Go to the hospital for them to give me some,” I retort.
“What if you die before you can?”
I see this isn’t going to get us anywhere.
“Right. I’m not going to stand here and have it out with you. I can leave with the antibiotics and my clothes or I can leave with nothing. Either way I’m leaving.”
She shakes her head. “Can I ask you one question before you leave?”
“What,” I grunt.
She rolls her eyes at my disdain for the questions. “The person you were after, is he or she taken care of?”
“Taken care of? What kind of person do you think I am?”
“Uhh…”
“I’m not some type of gangster, lady.”
She huffs her annoyance at the thought I assumed that’s what she was thinking. “I didn’t think that, but you have to admit it looks rather odd for a man in a suit to be running through the woods chasing someone and then wind up stabbed.”
I evade this. “To answer your question, no, I didn’t get him taken care of. Part of the reason I want to get the fuck out of here.”
Just as she opens her mouth to respond, a cell phone in the next room starts ringing. Her head turns to the room and then back to me. “Please don’t leave, I’d like to give you the meds.”
I nod my head confirming I won’t sneak out the back door while she’s on the phone. As much as I would like to do that, I’ll keep my non spoken promise only because I am hoping she sticks to hers and gives me the antibiotics when she comes back.
She hurries off to grab her phone.
I move to the door way and lean against it. I’m not even hiding that I’m listening in. I look to the clock on the wall to my left and see it’s just past one in the morning. Little strange for a woman to be getting a call this late at night. But who am I to judge?
“No, he’s still here.”
At her words my attention turns back to the door she went through.
“When?”
Silence for a beat and then, “Right, I’ll get there and lock everything up.” More silence. “Yeah, love you too.”
She must disconnect because a second later she is coming back out of the room. Her head down she doesn’t realize I’m standing in the doorway. “Everything good?” I ask, not that I really care, just trying to stop her from running into me. When she hears my voice she looks up and stops in her tracks
“Uh, actually no.”
“Wanna explain or just leave it like that?”
“They are locking all gates. No one in or out,” she pauses for a moment then tilts her head to the side. “On a quick assumption here, we haven’t had any problems with people trying to get on the reservation — we aren’t those kinds of people — but it’s funny that this all happens the minute you show up. Is this related to you?”
Fuck!
Probably. The man I was chasing will more than likely come after me again. After he caught me off guard and stabbed me, I kept moving so he could come back and finish me off. I did this until I could no longer walk.
I swallow the frustration that I can’t leave and the fact that my shit has just blown all over this damn place. I go another route. “Right. What do they know?”
“That a man got to the guards at the gates.”
My eyebrow raises. “You have guards?”
She shakes her head. “It’s not what you think.”
“How do you know what I think?”
“I can see the look on your face,” she returns, throwing her hip out in attitude.
“Babe. What’s going on out there,” I ask bringing her back to the topic at hand.
“I don’t know anything other than what the Chief told me.”
“You stay here?”
Her eyes narrow in confusion. “Uh, what?”
“Do you stay here, live here?”
“No, why?”
“Well you are tonight.”
She tosses her hand out at me. “Was planning on it anyways.”
“Right, gonna need my shirt.”
“Why?” she asks, again confusion taking over her features.
“No offense but your people don’t know this man like I do.”
She nods and I think she’s going to fetch my shirt. She doesn’t. “We’ll discuss the comment about my people later, but you can’t seriously think I am going to let you walk out of here to go chase this man, do you?”
I roll my eyes. She’s taking this doctor thing to the extremes here. Yeah, I have a few wounds, but she has to realize catching this guy is more important right now.
I don’t respond I just stand there looking pointedly at her. After a momentary stare down, she retreats. She does this by throwing her hands up and then back down. “Oh for goodness sakes! Fine!” The good doctor turns to a door two paces back and retrieves my shirt from what appears to be a closet.
I don’t waste any time putting it on, I button it up as fast as I can and head for the door. “Once I’m out of this door, lock it and then barricade it.”
She nods.
“I’d appreciate you giving me a verbal answer.”
“You’re supremely annoying. Do you know that?” she retorts.
“Don’t care.”
She rolls her eyes at me. “Yes, sir. I’ll barricade the door after you walk out.”
In another moment I’m out the door. I pause for a moment to make sure she does as she’s told. She does.
I spin around and take in my surroundings.
The man I’m hunting is dangerous as fuck. There’s no telling what he has planned. For all I know, he’s come back here to find me and finish me off. I’m a prideful man, I don’t accept defeat that easily. And this man knows that.
I take off towards the back of the clinic. He’s likely to stay hidden in the shadows. He doesn’t like people to know who he actually is.
Most never do until it’s too late.
I move my hand to the back of my pants and realize my holster is not clipped to the waist of my suit pants.
Fuck me.
The doctor took my fucking weapon off me.
It would have been really fucking nice if she would have told me that when I walked out the door.
Goddamn it.
I shrug the frustrating feeling off and move down the alley. I spot a piece of metal framing next to a trash bin. It’s not too long, but also not short enough to not be worthy of a weapon. At this juncture I have to make do with what I can find. This isn’t the first situation I’ve been put in where I’ve needed to make my own weapons. A piece of metal is the best thing I’ve got at the moment, but it’ll do.
Minutes pass before I turn directions and start walking through backyards. I’m finding it really fucking odd that no one is out. No rebel riders thinking they stopped this man from trespassing on their reservation, and especially odd there are no cops patrolling. In all reality, it would be better if they just stayed out of the way and let me handle this sick fuck on my own. Less chance of more people getting hurt.
I walk for what feels like fucking ever. My abdomen is killing me and it’s getting a lot harder to keep walking. I stop and take a breath on an end street. I lean my back against the stop sign.
Of course like any good villain would do, that’s when the man comes out of the shadows.
“Neo Kingston, why won’t you die?” he says bitterly as he walks towards me. The street lights shining on him, his eyes beaming with hatred. Hatred for me.
And if I don’t get my shit together and regain my composure, he’s going to get exactly what he wants.
My ass dead.
I regain an ounce of composure. “Because I haven’t put your ass in the ground yet.”
He laughs.
The demented fuck.
“You honestly think after all this time of the back and forth you could kill me?”
Pushing off the sign, I step forward as the words come out of my mouth with no hesitation, “I don’t think, I know.”
“Such a stupid boy.”
“Not me that has wronged so many people that everyone hates you and wants you dead.”
He tsks. “Thought I meant more to you than that.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. “You’d be wrong.”
He frowns. “That hurts, Neo.”
I want to roll my eyes at the thought of this man thinking he could possibly mean something to me. Not a fat chance in Hell that could ever happen.
“Give me one reason why you do this shit and I might spare your life.”
“See, there it is. You can’t do it.”
He finally catches the way I’m holding myself and he doesn’t let me have a pass, no, not this dickhead. He takes advantage of that and moves in.
Fuck.
There was only one time I was unsure of my capabilities and that was when I was in a firefight in Afghanistan. We were surrounded and no air support in sight. It was fight or get dead. I didn’t think I could do it. Fight my way out of a shit storm like that.
And right now, I’m feeling the same way.
However, just like then, come Hell or high water, I’m not gonna give up. He wants to take me down, I’m gonna try my best to take him down with me.
Copyright© by JL Long