Page 89 of Hostile Saint

Dagger rolled his eye. “There’s ten pounds of grease in that bag, but your dumbass is worried about some sugar?”

Vice didn’t answer VP, but he acknowledged my stare that was hungry for intel, not food. No longer joking around, he said, “As the sun went down, she waited by the window.” When I continued to glare, he nodded. “Yeah, kept leaning into it. Lookin’ tired.”

After the sun went down, Lynx wouldn’t permit me to climb the wall until a certain amount of time went by. He said chances for witnesses needed to be as low as possible since we didn’t know how Doc was going to react after I somewhat threatened him.

Frustrated, I complained, “He drugged her.”

Vice nodded. “Looks like it, but he hasn’t replaced the bars yet. Light is still on but no more movement.”

Sure to have a vanilla shake in a plastic bag, I grabbed the door handle. “Thank you for watching over her. I appreciate it.” To them all, I said, “If Doc is setting me up, thank you for all you’ve done. Don’t get involved.”

Two men grumbled from the front seats, but I ignored them. They had already gone above and beyond. I didn’t want them breaking rules for me, but before I could open the door, Vice confessed, “I, uh, may have been, uh, having the nighttime orderly drugged, for a while now.”

Blink. Blink…

I gazed at the front seats of the car housing two laughing bikers. Dagger tried to talk, but it sounded more like wheezing. “Tell ‘em, Enforcer, how you took your job to a whole new level.” By this point, Lynx was having laughing convulsions in his seat. His arms were curled to his chest and his eyes could no longer open.

Kind of worried about the extent Vice would go, I asked, “What did you do?”

He shrugged. “What had to get done.”

The car shook as the convulsions worsened. Lynx practically cried out, “Get ‘er done!”

Simply unable to breathe due to laughing hysterics, Dagger was now smacking the dashboard. This poor rental would never be the same.

“Vice,” I gawked, “who’d you do?”

Digging in his dinner bag, he casually said, “I was at a diner a bit back and was shocked to see the Serenity Institute orderly come in. Apparently, that’s where he coffees up before his all-night shift.”

I cringed. “You had sex with the orderly?”

“What?” yelled Vice as the other two bikers absolutely lost their shit. “No! I did the waitress!”

I sagged against the back of my seat. “You had me worried, and with a debt I wasn’t sure how to repay.”

In front of me, Dagger’s seat literally creaked as he jerked his body backward, over and over, as if begging his body to breathe through all his out-of-control laughing.

Lynx laugh-cried to the ceiling. “It hurts! I can’t take anymore!”

On her nightstand, her open journal read:

Fears turn into tears

Goodbyes into memories

Regret into sorrow

Hope for tomorrow

Inside Lacey’s room, I stood there, dripping wet, watching her sleep as I wondered how long she had suffered at the hands of Satan worshipers. With all I had learned that day, reading her written words haunted me.

Fears turn into tears

Goodbyes into memories

Pain burst throughout my whole body, picturing her locked in that cage without me. Oh God, why didn’t you send me back there to hold her? I dropped to my knees next to her bed and whispered, “I’m so sorry I once again failed you.”

Was there a part of me that had been jealous of the teenage boys at the drive-thru? Yeah, because they were clueless to such feelings of regret. Even though we were the same age, chances were they’d never had to look at an angel, knowing she had been so brutally violated.