Time to Bounce (Carter Brothers #6)

Chapter 19

I cannot brain today. I has the dumb.

— Text from Athena to Gable

ATHENA

Maybe I should’ve waited.

Maybe I should have also not walked to the hospital.

But my first thought was the walk was only eight blocks.

My second was that I didn’t have a car, and I was fairly sure everyone I would normally call would be busy either driving to the hospital themselves, or already there.

I also didn’t give a second thought to the fact that the person in the house who Maven and Nastya had shot might not have been Madman .

I’d just assumed… and you know what they say about making assumptions.

I was lost in thought, my pace quick, as I rushed to the hospital from the station.

In fact, I was so lost in thought that I didn’t expect anyone to be in my path until they suddenly were.

I could see the hospital in the distance.

It was maybe a block and a half away.

That was the first thing that caught my attention when I felt like I bounced off a brick wall.

“ Well , hello there.” A man chuckled.

His words sent my heart pounding, and not in a good way.

I knew that voice.

I knew that body.

I backed away or tried to.

He wouldn’t let me go.

I struggled, and was definitely drawing people’s attention, but it wasn’t enough to get him to let me go.

“ Let me go!” I screamed.

“ I think I won’t,” Darryl Horton whispered darkly. “ How about we go into this alley right here and…”

A truck screeched to a stop inches away from us.

I gasped, unsure which direction to protect myself from, and struggled harder.

The instant relief in my body upon hearing Gable’s angry, “ Let her go now,” was enough to cause my heart to stop beating.

Relief coursed through me, and Madman laughed and let me go.

“ Just the man I wanted to see,” he said as he threw me away from him.

I landed against a trash can, partially standing, partially on top of it.

I got up, determined to do something, anything, when Gable hit Madman in the stomach with his shoulder.

The two of them went to the ground, and I didn’t want to admit this, but it took me an embarrassingly long time to pull my phone out of my purse and call 911.

After relaying everything that was happening, and where we were, I stuffed the phone back into my purse still on the call.

I pulled the cross body strap over my right shoulder, and watched the fight ensue.

It was fast and brutal, and I winced every time a punch landed. They were talking to each other, whispering furious words, and I couldn’t understand much of anything besides the occasional ‘fuck you’ and ‘ I’m going to kill you.’

I couldn’t tell who was the one getting hit, to be honest.

It was that brutal.

Gable cursed and pushed himself away, his hand at his side.

I felt my heart sink into my feet at the sight of the blood on his hands.

Gable pulled a gun out of a holster at his thigh, and I had the irrational urge to yell, ‘why didn’t you use that earlier, you dummy!’

Luckily , I was able to keep it contained.

Also luckily, the cops showed up just as Gable got Madman down on the ground.

It took all of ten seconds for the cops to realize who the bad guy was.

As soon as it was all in hand, I rushed toward Gable .

Gable who turned his angry eyes on me and snarled, “ I told you to call when you were ready to leave!”

Whoa .

I hadn’t been expecting him to be angry at me.

“ I …” I began, but he spoke over me. “ Get in the fucking truck.”

When I headed for the passenger seat, he was calling out, “ No . You’re driving. Go to the hospital. I’ll be there in a minute. I’ll catch a ride with one of the boys here.”

He all but threw his keys at me, and I felt my heart ache.

He was mad.

Not that I blamed him.

He had told me that Madman was an issue…

I got in his truck and drove to the hospital.