Quiver (Revenge Book 1) (21 page)

“Veda.”

He faltered. He didn’t know why, but he hated that she now knew Veda’s name. She’d have learned it of course, eventually, but he hadn’t expected her to learn it during a conversation like this. “Todd has a vendetta against Veda because she’s not afraid to call him out on his sexist, disrespectful behavior. You know how threatened he is by a strong woman, and she’s the strongest one I know.”

Celeste laughed.

Gage felt rage blazing through him; it was one of the rare instances her glee appeared authentic.

“Be very sure, dear son.” Her voice lowered to a condescending purr. “That this woman is willing to make the same sacrifices for you as you are for her. Or you may find yourself entering a world of pain you can’t even begin to imagine.”

She gave him a look from the corner of her eyes. Then, with a breathy chuckle, she turned and made her way toward the door.

Gage watched her go, slamming his eyes shut once she’d exited and closed the door behind her.

He took hold of the dining chair next to him when the world suddenly spun, trying to fight off the pit in his stomach. His mother always spoke frugally, but this was the first time he found himself at war with her vague words. Wondering what was true and what was manipulation.

He knew one thing was certainly true.

He’d told Veda he loved her.

He’d told her every night during their lovemaking. Every night, his heart had squeezed a little more, compressing with a desperate need to hear her say it back. His heart pinched tighter. His hips slammed harder. He strove to make her feel with his dick what he felt dominating his entire body.

He’d begged her with his love-filled gaze to whisper the words back, hoping if he made her come for the second, third, fourth time that she’d finally drop her walls and let the words spill from her lips.

She hadn’t.

Gage drew a breath from his trembling lungs.

While his mother was ice-cold in so many ways, she was certainly no dummy, and Gage couldn’t help but consider her words. Was she right? Was he really throwing his life away for a woman who would never love him back?

Would it be worth the risk of losing everything for a woman who might eventually break his heart?

The answer flashed through his mind in an instant.

He didn’t know if Veda loved him.

But he knew he couldn’t marry Scarlett until he was positive that she didn’t.

12

As Veda made her way down the hospital hallway to meet her next patient, she forced her eyes closed and tried to stop thinking about Lincoln Hill.

“Why don’t you ask your boyfriend?”

She sucked in a breath when she heard the words in her head. Sure, she’d asked Linc about his missing wife, which had been none of her damn business, but to hit her with an answer like that? She knew he’d caught her red-handed in the on-call room with Gage, so when he used the word ‘boyfriend,’ he couldn’t have been talking about anyone else.

But why would Gage know anything about Linc’s missing wife?

She cursed under her breath. Not just because she needed more answers from a man who barely spoke, but because she was such an idiot.

She was an idiot for allowing a few whispered words of love to blur a path that had once been crystal clear. For thinking Gage could be different from every other man just because his angel/demon cock could silence the madness in her head whenever he slid it inside her. For even
entertaining
the idea of saying she loved him too.

She was an idiot because Gage had given her a glimpse into a world she hadn’t known could exist for her anymore.

Exacting retribution had been her main driving force in the quest to kill Todd. An eye for an eye. To kill a man who hadn’t hesitated in killing a part of her.

Veda now knew that part of her was alive and well.

Could she really take his life?

That question proved more difficult to answer than ever before, so when she found herself locking eyes with the man of the hour himself, she stopped cold in the middle of the busy hallway, forcing the employees behind her to mill around.

Todd lingered in the doorway of the on-call room.

He smiled down at her. “Oh, look.” He lifted his eyebrows. “It’s the crazy woman.”

Veda rolled her eyes; he was so fucking
lame
. She cringed up at him, unable to stop the curl to her lip. “What the hell are you doing in our on-call room?”

Todd let the door to the room close behind him and passed her, craning his neck to hold her eyes. “Why are you so damn crazy?”

“Why are you so…?” Veda tried to think up an awful word to spew, but the rapid pounding of her heart made it hard to think. “So
ugly?
”

It was a pitiful retort, but when Todd dismissed her, turning away with a laugh, she realized it was perfect.

He
was
ugly. Inside and out. And ugly people always got their just desserts. Even if it couldn’t be by her hand, she knew, one day, Todd Lockwood would get his. She could only pray that when that day came, the gods would have mercy and allow her to witness it.

She moved to the door of the on-call room and yanked it open, surprised when she caught sight of Coco.

“Hey.” As a smile bloomed on her face without even having to force it, Veda realized it wasn’t just Gage who’d reminded her there was still light in her heart.

Coco looked over her shoulder.

And Veda’s smile fell. Her heart went with it, hitting the floor in a puddle at her feet. At first, it was the tears spilling over Coco’s cheeks that made Veda’s heart drop. Then the quiver of her lips made it explode on impact, the shattered remnants impossible to put back together. The naked fear in Coco’s wide eyes melted those shattered pieces to liquid, finally deeming them impossible to even touch, let alone reconstruct.

Veda shot a disgusted look over her shoulder into the hallway, but Todd was gone. Still, as Veda turned back to Coco… she knew.

She just
knew.

“What the fuck has he done to you?” Veda stepped into the room, closed the door, and locked it.

Coco slapped tears off her face, keeping her back to Veda while yanking her long-sleeved shirt down over her arms.

“I’m totally fine,” Coco said, her voice hoarse and wobbly, barely loud enough to fill the quiet room.

Veda’s eyes traveled down Coco’s body. Her scrubs pants and undershirt were both inside out, and the seams were uneven, as if she’d been in a rush to put them back on.

Veda was across the room in an instant, taking hold of Coco’s wrist, her fingers sneaking under her shirt sleeve so she could feel her skin.

“I saw Todd leaving….” Veda’s voice trailed off, distracted by the texture she felt on Coco’s wrist. Before she could think to stop herself, she lifted the arm of Coco’s shirt and pushed it up to her elbow.

She gasped softly at the sight.

There were dozens of them, some deeper than others, some more textured, all moving in different directions on Coco’s wrist.

Tears stabbed Veda’s eyes as she blazed through all the possibilities in her head, running the tip of her thumb over the scars. A knife. Maybe a razor. She found an especially jagged scar and frowned. Scissors.

“Oh, Coco.” Veda encircled Coco’s wrist in a tight hold, lifting her own moistened eyes to hers.

Coco reclaimed her arm, pulling her sleeves down over her wrists, all the way to the beds of her nails, lowering her eyes with her shoulders raised high. “I don’t do that anymore….”

Veda waited for her to finish, but when she realized she was done, she took hold of Coco’s shoulders, forcing her to face her. Then she pulled Coco in, wrapping her up in a hug so tight her bones started to ache in seconds. But she didn’t dare loosen her squeeze.

The moment Veda had her arms around her, Coco exploded into quiet whimpers on her shoulder, wrapping her arms around Veda’s waist and embracing her in return.

Veda slammed her eyes shut, unable to believe that she hadn’t put the pieces together sooner. She held Coco tight until minutes had gone by. Until her cries had subsided.

Veda stepped away, still holding Coco’s gaze. She let her arms fall before turning to the side and pushing the waistband of her scrubs down. Just enough to show Coco the three marks on her hip.

Coco took in the sight, then raised her wide eyes to Veda.

“When I was eighteen…” Veda heard the vulnerability wobbling in her voice. “I was a girl, but I looked like a woman. I crashed a party in a short dress, and because my dress was short, ten monsters decided I deserved to have my innocence taken away.”

Coco’s teeth chattered as she tried to fight tears.

Veda fixed her pants, facing her. “Now I don’t know why you do that to yourself… but if you ever need to talk about it, know you can always talk to me. Always. I’ll never tell your secret, I’ll never tell you your feelings aren’t valid, and I’ll never judge you.”

Coco hugged her arms around her body, sniffling as her eyes fell.

Veda took a deep breath. “You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to. Do you want me to just sit with you for a while? Just… hang out?”

“I was eight…,” Coco whispered, her tear-filled eyes riveted to the floor. “I was eight when he came in my room for the first time.”

Veda felt the horrified tremble start at her toes and climb her body. She knew, without a second thought, who Coco was referring to.

Tears plummeted from Coco’s eyes and splashed on the floor. “He says I deserved it—”

Veda flew across the space and wrapped Coco in another hug before she could finish, the blood in her veins running cold, the tears stinging her eyes now laced with fury instead of pain.

She dug her fingers into Coco’s scrubs, speaking through clenched teeth. “We have to go to the police.”

“No,” Coco whispered.

Veda tightened her hold, biting back a curse. “At least let me take you down the hall so we can do a kit—”

“No!” Coco locked her arms around Veda’s waist, as if that would be enough to stop her from following through on her words.

“Coco, we have to do something. We can’t keep letting him get away with this.”

“Please don’t say anything,” Coco begged, and when the silence went on for a moment too long, she took Veda’s scrubs in a tight hold too, her voice rising to frantic levels. “The Lockwoods… The Blackwaters… They’re dangerous. They hurt people.”

“Okay, okay…” Veda shushed her several times, waiting for a long quiet to fall in before she promised, “I’ll never tell.”

Only then did Coco’s cries relax, and as she sniffled softly into her shoulder, Veda found herself.

She found the Veda who had been missing for two long months.

She found the Veda who had touched down in Shadow Rock with one goal, and only one goal.

She found herself, and that time there would be no going back. There would be no mistakes. There would be no spit-shined rich boy to muddy up her mind.

That time, there would be
no exceptions
.

Todd Lockwood had to die.

And he had to die tonight.

—

Veda had never been so over the moon due to a late patient. Her last patient of the day at that. Usually, she’d curse their existence for ensuring the surgery went long, forcing her to get off work later than she’d planned.

But not that day.

That day, Veda thanked the high heavens for the patient’s blatant disrespect.

That day, she needed the exam room all to herself. The doctors and nurses wouldn’t be in for another half hour, which was the amount of time Veda needed to prep the patient, who’d already called to inform them they’d be twenty minutes late.

How could she deny that her goal was sound when the karmic gods were doing everything in their power to ensure she succeeded? Was it a coincidence that, on the day she’d found her goal renewed by the tears in Coco’s eyes, she’d also found herself alone with that syringe in her hand?

Rolling a sour apple sucker under her tongue, she held the syringe up to the bright exam room lights, squinting at it as she twisted it around in her fingers. The clear liquid inside the barrel moved like water.

Sodium thiopental.
A fast-acting anesthetic that put her patients into a medically induced slumber in less than a minute. A rapid-onset anesthetic that, once upon a time, had been a vital component in the cocktail used to stop the hearts of prisoners on death row. An anesthetic that could both relax and exterminate, depending on the wishes of the person behind the injection.

And tonight, Veda Vandyke had only one wish.

One goal.

One
must.

As she set the syringe down on the tray next to her and fished an empty vial out of her pocket, she thought of Coco. The tears in Coco’s eyes. The scars on Coco’s wrists. The terror in Coco’s voice.

“The Lockwoods… The Blackwaters… They’re dangerous. They hurt people.”

Veda popped open the empty vial. It trembled between her fingers as Linc’s voice drowned out Coco’s.

“Why don’t you ask your boyfriend?”

She drew in a breath that burned her lungs. Picking up the syringe, she guided the tip of the needle, shaking under her sweaty palm, into the vial. She became distantly aware that, if caught, she could be arrested. If caught, she
would
be fired. Her career would end in the blink of an eye if someone walked into the room in that moment. But as she pushed down on the plunger of the syringe, forcing the thiopental into the empty vial, she knew she wouldn’t sleep until someone paid the price.

Once she had enough liquid in the vial to floor a baby Rhino, Veda returned the syringe to the tray table, twisted the cap onto the vial, and slid it back in her pocket.

She stood and took the syringe from the table, dropping it to the floor.

Lifting her sneaker into the air, she took a deep breath before sending it barreling back down, exhaling sharply as the syringe shattered under her weight. What little was left of the substance flew, wetting the tip of her sneaker and spraying all over the floor.

Heart in her throat, she hurried to the phone in the corner of the room, dialing the number she’d come to know by heart in her short time at the hospital.

A male on the other end answered after one ring. “Pharmacy.”

“Yeah, Jake….” Veda ran her hand over her bun, trying to control the quiver she heard in her voice, hoping the lollipop helped muffle the sound. “I dropped a syringe of sodium thiopental and accidentally stepped on it while trying to find it.”

“Fucking spaz.”

Veda exhaled at the teasing tone of his voice. “I know. Can I swing by and pick up an additional 300 mg?”

“Sure, but you know we’ll have to write it up.”

Veda swallowed thickly. “I know. It’s my mistake, so… I’ll just deal with the consequences later.”

“Five minutes, spaz.”

“Thanks, Jake.” Veda hung up the phone and bent down on her knees with a gasp, needing a moment to calm her deep breathing and racing heart, both so out of control she felt like she’d just finished a five-minute mile.

—

Veda pulled the blue surgical hat off her head as she exited the recovery room. Her patient had opened her eyes after a successful surgery, but it had taken a good hour longer than she’d anticipated. It had scared her to death because it was the closest she’d ever come to experiencing the inevitable.