Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 69582 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69582 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Satisfied with the improvements in me, he disconnected me from everything, put a Band-Aid on my arm, and cleaned everything up.
I stood up slowly, my feet a bit shaky, and reached for the medication that he’d gotten me.
“Take these once every eight hours,” he said. “I got you four. That should get you through the next day and a half.” He eyed me. “If you feel like you need more, just stop by. But I doubt you’ll need it. It should run its course in the next twenty-four hours.”
“Thank you,” I said.
And meant it.
“Kind of sad seeing you so messed up,” he said. “It’d be like seeing a dying dog on the side of the road and not helping it.”
I snorted. “Thanks for comparing me to a dog.”
He shrugged. “Drink some water.”
I gave him a thumbs-up and headed out the door but stopped once I reached the threshold.
“And thanks for whatever you said to the dealership about my car,” I murmured. “It didn’t work, but it helped.”
His eyes narrowed. “What are they saying?”
I sighed. “That they’re not going to replace it, even though I’ve had it in the shop more than I’ve owned it.”
He grunted. “Go home and get some rest, Constance.”
I smiled. “Bye.”
Nine
Do I run? Yes, out of patience, money, and time.
—Odin’s secret thoughts
Odin
I watched her go, my eyes narrowed in curiosity.
This woman was an enigma to me.
Pulling out my phone, I hit dial on Apollo’s phone number and waited for him to answer.
“You finally met her, I see.”
Apollo was a computer genius.
There wasn’t a single inch of Sawtooth, Bear Pass, or Jawbone that Apollo didn’t have eyes on.
In the beginning, it was just to keep tabs on the locals to make sure that there weren’t any questions or confusion about our sudden appearance in the area. Now, I decided, he watched because he was invested and wanted to make sure that his chicks were all doing well and were taken care of.
If you could consider seven adult male convicts “chicks” that he had to take care of.
“I did,” I said. “You didn’t tell me who it was for.”
“You didn’t ask,” he pointed out.
That was true.
When Apollo had contacted me months ago about a little girl needing blood on a routine basis, I’d never given it a second thought.
In truth, I’d been donating my Rh-null blood since high school when I’d gone to my first blood drive. I’d gotten a call within days, begging for me to come see them.
My parents had agreed, though reluctantly.
In the end, we’d found out that they were in desperate need of my blood, and donating as much as I could would help them immensely. They’d also told me to keep the information about my blood type private.
Something I wouldn’t understand the necessity of until I was in medical school and realized the severity of just how rare my blood was.
I continued to donate all the way through my prison sentence, too.
Now, I was technically dead, but that didn’t mean that I wanted to stop helping people.
As a doctor, I was always going to want to help people. Even if I had to do it in a different way now.
A quieter, don’t tell anyone ever, kind of way.
What were the odds that I’d meet that little girl I’ve been helping? Or run into said child’s mother at jury duty two hours away and have her instantly hate me?
Speaking of hate…
My mouth opened and I asked for details that I probably didn’t need about Constance.
“Tell me everything you know about her,” I urged.
“Well, would you like the heavy stuff? The non-heavy stuff? The illegal stuff? Or the stuff that ties her to that dog fighting ring a few weeks ago?”
I froze. “She was a part of that?”
“No,” Apollo immediately answered. “She wasn’t. But her ex was.”
“Wasn’t that a Dixie Warden from Alabama?” I asked for confirmation.
“Was, yes.”
A few weeks ago, Denver, our club president, had come to all of us to help find his woman. Though, they hadn’t officially been dating each other at the time. Holly had only been living in Denver’s barn apartment.
Denver had ended up finding her at a dog fighting ring where she’d been held hostage. Holly had gone to the man’s place in an official capacity as a veterinarian to help take care of an injured dog.
The man, who happened to be on the city council for Bear Pass, had decided that it would be best to have a permanent person that could help patch his injured dogs up so they could live to fight another day.
While there, Holly saw a member of the Dixie Wardens there.
Though, after doing some digging using the national club president for the Dixie Wardens, Silas Mackenzie, and Apollo, they’d found out that the man that Holly had seen hadn’t been a Montana Dixie Warden, but a disgraced Dixie Warden from Tuscaloosa. Though, Silas had only found out it was Errol because he’d been stupid enough to use his credit cards here.