Forever Mine

Chapter 19

CHAPTER 19

JAY

I thanked Beck as he dropped me off at the entrance of the hospital in the car he borrowed from Wes. He offered to go in with me, but I turned it down. Wes had a meeting with his old team— Riley was pretty sure he was quitting— so Ri was at work alone, which always put Beck on edge. So far they hadn’t been targeted, thank fuck, but after the threats in my car none of us wanted to take chances. Ri could handle himself, obviously, but Beck would always be an overprotective mother fucker when it came to him. Not that I couldn’t relate.

There was an issue with some of the equipment, so we all got sent home early from our shift today. It sucked because I was trying to make enough money for a new truck, but it did mean I got to surprise Kota at work.

The last two weeks since the birthday party had been wild. We were basically living at the safe house. The place was nice, but I missed my apartment. I missed Kota’s apartment. I was finally feeling like I had a home and this psycho asshole took it from me. Besides, it was so fuckin’ far and nowhere near public transportation. Wes suggested Dakota shouldn’t drive his car, which I agreed with, but it left us kinda stuck. Diego let us have one of the ones in Luca’s garage, but I didn’t feel comfortable driving it. I’d be pulled over and arrested for car theft before I could blink.

That meant relying on rides though, and that was making me crawl outta my skin. I fuckin’ hated having to rely on others like that. I wanted my freedom to come and go as I pleased, and we just didn’t have that right now.

Diego was pretty sure our phones had been cloned, which was how the guy was tracking us. It had me asking so many questions. Who was this person? They clearly had skills that I would never expect from most people. Was it even only one person? It was stuff we had no answers to.

Diego had given us new phones, ones they’d secured, but I sorta missed my old one with the big-ass crack across the screen. I never thought I’d miss anything about my old life, but all I wanted now was to get it back.

The security guard on the first floor knew me by now and waved me up. I thanked him and took the elevator to Kota’s floor. He still had a few hours left, but I figured I’d just hang in the waiting room until he was ready to leave. It wasn’t like I had anything better to do anyway.

There was a small family waiting room, one I was very familiar with after my time here with Mom. I spent a lot of hours sitting in the same chair I was sitting in now, waiting for the time when the doctor came out to tell me Ma had died. I wondered if it should bother me more? Like this place should bring up horrible memories, and it did. But I felt sort of numb to them. I do believe my mom loved me in her way, but I came to terms a long time ago that she wasn’t a good mom. She lost her battle to her demons years before they finally killed her and I had been living with a ghost a long-ass time. She was finally at peace, and I had a chance to move on with my life. That’s what I thought of while sitting in the hard plastic chair, not whatever sadness I felt when she passed.

Someone else entered the room and sat on the opposite side. I gave him an up-nod and closed my eyes, half-dozing. The bed in the safe house was comfortable, but it wasn’t my bed. I’d been struggling with sleeping, even with Dakota at my side.

It felt like someone was watching me though, so I opened my eyes, only to see the guy staring at me intently. He looked…familiar. I narrowed my eyes at him, trying to figure out where I knew him from when he spoke.

“You’re Dakota’s boyfriend , aren’t you?” He said the word boyfriend with a sneer, like the word disgusted him.

The tone, the unnerving way he watched me, his phrasing…something triggered the memory. Me, walking into the hospital and watching some fucker talk up my boyfriend while Dakota stood stiff as fuck, clearly uncomfortable.

My body moved before my mind caught up. I had this asshole up out of his chair by his neck and shoved against the wall.

He let out a pained grunt as the air whooshed out of him. His hands gripped my wrist, his nails digging in as he tried to get me to loosen the hold I had on his throat, but I didn’t fuckin’ budge.

“Get…off…me…asshole…” he gasped out as I tightened my grip. My vision was getting dark around the edges and I was close to snapping. I took a deep breath and loosened my hold, only slightly, when the guy started to change colors.

“Why the fuck are you stalking Dakota? What do you want with him?”

I slammed him against the wall. The guy tried to kick at me but missed. “What…are you…talking…about?”

I slammed him again, fingers tightening. “Don’t lie to me. I know it’s you. You have five seconds to answer me before I snap your fucking neck.”

“Fuck you.” His nails dug into my hand, making me bleed, but I didn’t loosen my hold. “I…haven’t done…shit…crazy motherfucker.”

My other hand closed into a fist and reared back, ready to break his fucking face.

“What’s going on here?” Startled, I jumped away to see a doctor in his early fifties walk in, a frown on his face. He looked familiar, but in my raged-up haze, I couldn’t put a name to his face.

Still, I let my hold of the guy go and he stumbled back against the wall, holding his neck and gasping for breath.

“This fucker is trying to kill me, Dr. Kiley!” the guy yelled.

“And you deserve it after the hell you’ve put Dakota through!”

“I haven’t done shit!”

“Then why the fuck are you here? Why are you always here?”

“Enough.” The doctor’s deep baritone was enough to get us both turning toward him.

“I’m so sorry about this, John. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” He glared at me. “I should press charges.”

“Do it.” I snapped, stalking toward him again, getting a tiny bit of glee when he stumbled away from me, fear in his eyes, “Like I wouldn’t happily spend the rest of my life in jail if it meant you couldn’t bother Dakota again.”

“I’m not! Jesus fucking Christ!”

“Jay.” The doctor using my name snapped my attention to him. “John is here because his mother is in the hospital with an infection. He has every right to be here, as he has every right to press charges, though I am hopeful that he understands that this was a big misunderstanding?”

The doctor looked to John, who just shrugged. “Keep that fucker away from me. If I see him even look at me, I’ll call the fucking cops.”

Dr. Kiley’s lips thinned, like that bothered him, which made no sense. He just witnessed me assaulting someone. He should be calling security himself, not getting the guy to back off. Something about his behavior was off, but I couldn’t fully process what, before John stormed out of the waiting room, leaving me wondering if I just let Dakota’s stalker go, or if I was just about to kill an innocent man.

“Fuck.” I scrubbed my face, pacing away from the doctor. “Fuck. Fuck.” I…needed…something. To hurt someone…punch something. Meds or a drink. Dakota. I didn’t fucking know, but I was spiraling right there in the waiting room while a fucking doctor watched me.

“Jay.” I spun to him, ready to snap. Why the fuck was he still here?

“How about we go to the break room? You can wait there and I’ll get Dakota for you.”

I sucked my lip ring in between my teeth. That…sounded better. If I stayed here I’d probably try to hunt down that asshole again, and likely this time I would kill him. I mean, it had to be him, right? It’s too much of a coincidence that he happened to be fucking here? Not only that, how did he even know Dakota’s name or who I was? The only way he’d know that was if he was following us.

I took a step toward the door, ready to body the doctor if I needed to. “His mother really is a patient. I can show you if you want. It’s against the rules, but under the circumstances, I’m willing to make an exception.”

Fuck. I pulled on my hair so fucking hard I was lucky I didn’t rip it out. I needed to get control of myself. “No…” I gritted out. “It’s fine. Show me the break room, please.”

The doctor nodded tightly and seemed relieved. He turned around and I followed him out and down the hallway. I kept looking for Dakota but I didn’t see him anywhere. He was probably in with a patient, but I really wished I couldn’t at least get a glimpse of him. I needed him.

“It’s right through here.” I paused mid-step. The hallway he was leading me down wasn’t where I found Dakota the day my car was fucked with. It was possible there were more than one area for the employees, it was a fucking hospital, but something didn’t feel right.

“Where are you taking me?” My hand slipped in my pocket and closed around the knife handle. Funny enough I didn’t even think to go for it when I was choking the life outta John, but now…

“Just to the break room to wait for Dakota, that’s all.”

I opened my mouth to tell him this wasn’t the right way to the one I knew, when something sharp pricked my neck. I grabbed at it, and turned toward Dr. Kiley, who was holding a fucking syringe in his hand.

“What the fuck?” The knife fell to the floor as the world started to spin and I collapsed. I got one last look at the doctor staring down at me before everything went black.