Nevermore (Crossbreed Series Book 6)
: Chapter 13

I barreled down the street that led to my father’s garage. My mind was reeling over the amount of money he’d spent. This would have never happened if Christian hadn’t kept secrets from me. I would have told my father about Fletcher and how we’d exhausted all leads.

This was just like my old man—always taking the vigilante route when it came to doing something.

Like father, like daughter.

Mist coated the dirty windshield. As I drove through the open gate and parked in front of the shop, something didn’t seem right. There was a drill sitting out in the open, and my father didn’t leave his tools lying in the dirt. I shut off the engine and got out.

“Hello?”

The radio was playing “Take It Easy” on low volume, and when a brown wolf trotted toward me, I backed up against the door. “Hey, there.”

He sniffed my hand, whimpered, and then barked urgently.

I scanned the yard as I approached an open garage door. It took a minute to register that my father was lying in a heap on the floor, a pool of blood crowning his head, his arms marked with fresh bruises.

“Daddy,” I breathed, rushing toward him and falling at his side. I rolled him onto his back, so much blood covering his face that I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. I patted his cheek. “Daddy, wake up.”

He groaned and spat out a mouthful of blood, one eye swollen shut.

I quickly unzipped the front of his coveralls and scanned his white undershirt, relieved I didn’t see any stab wounds. “Did someone rob you?” I noticed the long defensive mark on his left arm that looked like someone had struck him with a pipe or other tool.

The wolf barked incessantly, saliva dripping from his mouth. Because he hadn’t mauled me, it must have been one of Crush’s employees. That would explain why neither of them were around.

“I need to get you to a hospital.”

He clutched my arm. “No hospital. I’m not dead yet.”

“You will be if you don’t get some medical care.”

“Nothing’s broken. Except maybe my nose.” He reached up and grabbed it to straighten the bone.

I swung my gaze to the wolf, hoping his animal would sense I needed the human within. From what I’d learned with Viktor, sometimes they could. “I need you to shift back. Can you understand me in there? Shift!”

The wolf morphed into Red, naked and on all fours.

“What happened?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I heard a ruckus, and when I saw them beating on Crush, my wolf came out.”

“Can you close up the garage? I have to get him to a hospital.”

Red stood up and covered his junk while he searched for his clothes. “No problem. I need to go find Jimmy before the dog catchers do. He took off after them and probably got lost.”

I hovered over Crush and wiped his cheek. “Can you stand up?”

When he pushed himself up with his elbows, I hooked my arms around his waist. Red finished putting on his pants and then hurried over to help Crush to his feet. Crush groaned in agony, and it took the both of us to get him outside. I noticed he was leaning heavily on Red, releasing strangled moans as he shifted all his weight to his right foot.

I looked around. “Where’s your truck? Never mind. Put him in mine.”

We neared the passenger door, and when I opened it, Red helped him the rest of the way in.

I wiped my brow and slammed the door. “Do you have the keys to lock up?”

Red turned away. “Just go. I’ll take care of the shop.”

I jogged around to the other side and got in. My hands were shaking as I turned the key and fumbled with the gearshift.

Crush held his side. “No hospital.”

“You could be hemorrhaging.”

“If you take me to a hospital, the only thing hemorrhaging will be my bank account.”

“I’ll pay if you don’t have insurance.”

“I don’t like doctors. If you take me to the hospital, good luck getting me out of the truck. You can’t make me go.”

“Dammit! Why do you have to be so stubborn, you old bulldog?”

While turning onto the road, I pulled my phone out.

Crush swung his arm and gripped my wrist. “Is Wizard still at the house?”

“Probably. I’m calling to see if he can open the door for me.”

“Don’t.”

“Why?”

“Tell him to take the rest of the day off. We got plans. Come back in the morning.”

“Are you insane?”

He turned his head, a stricken look in his eyes. “Don’t shame your old man by making someone carry me into my own house.”

I glowered. “Since Wizard is a buddy of yours, I’ll do what you ask. But I’m calling Switch. No arguments. I can’t carry your ass up those steps without a tow truck. Switch isn’t your buddy, and he’ll keep this a secret if I ask him to.”

When I looked over again, Crush’s face was smashed against the glass, his eyes closed.

“Watch the door,” I grunted. I held Crush’s legs while Switch shuffled backward into the trailer with his arms hooked beneath my father’s.

“Where to?” he asked, out of breath.

“The bed.”

We managed to get him down the hall without dropping him. When Switch shuffled to the left side of the bed, I swung Crush’s legs onto the covers and huffed out a breath. Switch dragged him a little higher so his head was on the pillow.

Staggering back against the closet door, I bent over and rested my hands on my knees.

Crush yelped, and Switch suddenly flew back against me.

Switch turned around, cupping his jaw. “I think his ribs are fractured. They’re definitely bruised.”

“I knew I should have taken him to a hospital.”

“Not much they can do anyhow but wrap them. He’ll have to rest for a few weeks. No lifting.”

“What if he has internal injuries? This was such a bad idea.” I rubbed the back of my neck, and when I felt sweat, I shucked my leather coat to the floor. “I need to find a first aid kit. Stay here and watch him.”

I scampered to the bathroom and frantically rummaged through the medicine cabinet. There I found all kinds of medical supplies. Clearly my father had decided to hoard everything he could to avoid going to the doctor. Picks for teeth, bandages, gauze, medical tape, needles, thread. I held up a scalpel. “Are you kidding me?”

To my surprise, I found a rib brace beneath the sink. So I grabbed it along with an elastic bandage, peroxide, and a few other necessities to patch him up. Before heading back to the bedroom, I soaked a clean washcloth with hot water.

When I returned, Switch was cutting off Crush’s overalls with a pair of scissors.

“You’re paying for those,” Crush grumbled.

I dumped the supplies on the bed next to him. The first thing I did was wipe the blood off his face with the washcloth. “I’ll ask you later about what’s going on beneath your sink. And I’m calling a dentist on Monday and making you an appointment.”

“The hell you are.”

“You have a dental pick in your bathroom. The idea of you jamming sharp instruments in your mouth won’t help me sleep at night.”

Switch took off Crush’s work boots. “His feet look fine.”

“Steel-toe shoes, you moron.”

“Daddy, lie still and shut up. Switch, check his left ankle. He wasn’t walking on it.”

Crush was in pain. He always got belligerent whenever he was hurting, inside or out.

“Ow!” Crush stared daggers at Switch, who was rotating his ankle.

Switch grabbed the elastic bandage. “It’s just twisted.”

“From kicking the son of a bitch,” Crush grumbled. “Not running. Just so we have that clear.”

Switch and I ignored the curse words and insults that Crush was slinging while we cleaned up the blood, checked his bones for breaks, and reduced the swelling on his head with an ice pack. I was relieved to find that the cut on his hairline was small and didn’t require anything but peroxide and a tight bandage. Cuts on the head have a tendency to bleed profusely, so you can never be too sure.

“Your lip is really split,” I informed him. “You might need a couple of stitches.”

“I’ve got glue.”

“Are you feeling sleepy or light-headed?”

“Little girl, this wasn’t a car accident.”

Switch snorted and put a bag of peas on Crush’s left arm. “You might have a hairline fracture on that arm judging by the bruise. It’s hard to tell without an X-ray. You got a cast in your supply kit?”

“I saw an arm brace,” I said, giving Crush a reproachful look. “When is the last time you had a physical?”

Switch chortled. “Probably last millennium.”

Crush hurled the bag of peas at Switch, and they struck the wall.

I headed to the kitchen to wash my hands and get a drink of water. All those supplies in his bathroom reminded me of how human he was—how fragile. How many times had he severely injured himself and left it to chance? Did he have high cholesterol? When was his last colonoscopy?

Then again, when was his first? I never remembered Crush going to the doctor when I was a kid. I’d always seen him as a strong man who never got sick. Now he was somewhere in his late fifties. I couldn’t remember exactly how old since I’d stopped counting my own birthdays five years ago.

Jesus, was he sixty?

I grabbed a sports drink from the fridge and one of the kitchen chairs. When I returned to the bedroom, Crush was sprawled out on the bed in nothing but a white undershirt and boxers. The bruises on his legs were small and not that dark.

“Wizard fixed the heat.” I set his drink next to the lava lamp on the bedside table. “Do you want a blanket to cover up?”

He stared up at the ceiling, an ice pack on his nose. “Why? You’ve already seen it all.”

Switch covered his legs anyhow with a thin sheet and leaned against the chest of drawers on the other side of the room.

I set the kitchen chair next to the bed and sat down to face him. “What happened today? If this is business as usual at the garage, I’m forcing you into retirement.”

He jerked his finger at Switch. “Does he have to be here?”

“After all he’s done, I think you owe him an explanation too. If he hadn’t offered to help, you’d still be lying in the mud in front of my truck. Speaking of which, did one of your buddies borrow your pickup?”

“No.”

“So where is it?”

Crush dropped his right arm, and I took the ice pack out of his hand. “It’s about a loan. Nothing you need to worry about.”

“Who did you borrow money from and why?”

“Nobody.”

I crossed my legs and sighed. “Look, I know you spent all your money on a bounty hunter.”

He squeezed his eyes shut.

“If you depleted your savings on the bounty hunter, why didn’t you tell me? I can help if you’re behind on bills. Did you borrow money to pay Wizard off? I told you that I’d take care of it.”

“It ain’t that.”

I pulled a thread hanging from a hole in my jeans. My grey sleeve had bloodstains that probably wouldn’t come out. “Then what is it? I thought we moved past all the secrets and lies. I thought we were starting over. But you’re keeping secrets from me just like you did my whole life. Even though I came clean. Even though I told you everything.”

“I borrowed from a loan shark.”

I raked back my hair and scratched the top of my head in frustration. “Why would you borrow? I thought you had money stashed away.”

“I did. I put it all away for you. When you showed up alive with a high-paying job, you didn’t need my money anymore. So I bought a truck, and I used what I had left over to help out some buddies who were going through a rough patch.”

I put both feet on the ground. “Wait a second, you spent it all? Your entire savings?”

“No,” he fired back. “I had enough for emergencies.”

“So why take out a loan?” I tilted my head back. “Don’t tell me. Please do not tell me that you borrowed the full amount from a loan shark.”

“The bounty hunter wanted it all up front. What I had in the bank wasn’t near enough.”

I shot to my feet. “That’s one hundred thousand dollars! I was going to get on you for dipping into your savings and blowing that much cash, but you took out a loan? For the whole amount?”

“Every penny.”

I paced back and forth, wearing a path in the rug. “I can’t believe this. That’s who showed up today, isn’t it? They’re coming to collect. How much is the interest?”

“Twenty percent.”

“Total?”

He turned his head away. “A week.”

“Twenty percent added each week you don’t pay?” I stood at the foot of the bed, my face heating from the blood pumping so fast. “How did you expect to pay him back?”

“A bank loan. I had it all planned out. I’d pay off the shark and use the rest to open up a legit side business. Run it long enough to pay back the bank, unless it did well. But when I filed the paperwork for a new business venture, they turned me down. Bastards.”

“What kind of business venture?”

“A strip club.”

“What do you know about strippers?”

He cut me a sharp glare. “They strip. What’s there to know?”

Switch became a living statue, barely making his presence known.

“I could have sold the garage,” he continued. “But I’d rather be dead.”

“What about borrowing from your friends?”

He gave me an icy stare. “You don’t borrow that kind of money around here or you won’t have any more friends. I got no right dipping into a pack’s savings like that. Money they use to feed their children. When you’re in that deep, you have to fix your own problems. You don’t drag your friends and family down with you.”

Keystone had just forfeited a huge paycheck in exchange for the right to raise Shepherd’s child. I didn’t have a small fortune saved up just yet. I’d spent my money on clothes, weapons, and things for my room. Not to mention dipping into my savings to pay for the recent repairs to Claude’s Porsche, which I’d dented.

I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the floor. “Why did you pretend you didn’t know Fletcher’s name?”

Switch quietly left the room.

“You can’t fight my battles anymore,” I said, taking a softer tone. “You were supposed to be living out a peaceful life, not throwing away all your money and putting your life in danger. Don’t you realize what would happen if Fletcher found out you were hunting him? I’ve been so worried he would eventually come looking for you as a way to get to me, but there’s always a chance he might not. If he found out a bounty hunter was on his ass, he wouldn’t hesitate.” I lowered my head, anger and grief tangling together. “I can’t lose you. I can’t.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“They could have killed you.”

“Then they wouldn’t get their money.”

I glared at him over my shoulder. “This isn’t funny.”

He wiped his bloody goatee. “Do you see me laughing?”

“What happens if you don’t pay?”

“He’ll keep taking what I’ve got until I got nothing left. But he’ll have to come in here if he wants to take me out. I’ve got guns.”

I glimpsed Switch walking to the kitchen with a mop in his hand. So I stood up and closed the door before resting my back against it. “How much is this trailer worth?”

He shook his finger angrily at me. “Hell no.”

“What else do you have to barter with? You’re running out of time. Every week is more money you owe. Did he take the truck?”

Crush winced. “Fucker. It’s not even worth that much.”

“What about selling your bikes?” I snapped my fingers before he could retort. “This isn’t going away, Crush. You need to settle your debt before they take more than a car.”

“You don’t think I sat down and tried to work out what I’d have to sell to pay this thing off? I don’t have it. If I did, I wouldn’t have borrowed from a shark to begin with.”

A knock sounded at the door, and I stepped out of the way. Switch put a medicine bottle in my hand and walked off. I glanced down at the painkillers he must have found in the bathroom cabinets. The name on the bottle wasn’t Crush Graves. No point in asking where he got them. The only thing I cared about was taking away his pain.

I strode to the bed and handed him two pills. “Take these.”

Without argument, he palmed the pills and popped them into his mouth, crunching them to dust. I handed him the green drink, but he waved it away.

I sat next to him for a long time, until the heavy sedatives pulled him into a deep sleep. I didn’t want to be mad at Crush. Deep down, I knew he’d taken out the loan and paid a bounty hunter because he loved me. But that love was the reason he was lying here, broke and broken.

How was I going to fix this? Force him to move in with me while I sold his life away? His trailer wasn’t even worth fifty grand. The garage might add value to the property, but not much. And we didn’t have time to waste. By now his debt had sailed over two hundred large. Possibly three. Somehow I needed to fix this.

When I bent forward and lowered my head, something sparkly swung into my line of vision, and that something was hope.

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