Tone Deaf(68)

I run after Jace. I can’t think of anything else to do, and I make it outside just as they load him into the back of an ambulance. The vehicle seems huge, and the men around me are too big, and I want to run away to somewhere where I don’t feel so small. I want to run to Jace. I never feel small when I’m with him.

A pair of hands grabs my shoulders and turns me around, and I find myself staring at the cop. He gives my shoulder a rough pat of reassurance and starts guiding me toward his police car, which is parked right next to the ambulance.

I struggle against his grip, and when he doesn’t let go, I punch him in the stomach. That surprises him for just a moment, and I manage to wiggle out of his grasp. I sprint toward the ambulance, but just then the back doors slam shut, and the vehicle takes off toward the hospital. I’m left standing in the dust it kicks up, coughing and crying.

The cop grabs me again and hauls me to his car. He’s talking to me and growing increasingly agitated when I don’t answer, but my head is spinning too hard to read his lips, and my throat feels too tight to form any sort of explanation. I don’t see Tony anywhere. He must have climbed in the ambulance with Jace.

I numbly allow the cop to guide me into the back of his car, and the moment I sit in the cold, metal backseat, I realize it:

Everything is over.





32


JACE


I WAKE TO the sound of beeping machines. Snapping my eyes open, I find myself staring at a white ceiling. What the hell? I blink a couple times, clearing my vision, and look around. I’m in a bed—a hospital bed— and there are a bunch of monitors and an IV hooked up to me. I reach over to rip out the IV, but a strong hand stops me.

“I know it hurts, but it’ll hurt more if you tear at it,” Arrow says. He stares down at me, and I wonder where he came from, and where he’s been. And where the hell have I been?

The club, that’s right. I was supposed to stay there for a few hours and do fan meet-and-greets, but then I started to feel dizzy, so I got out of there and went . . . to the RV. Yeah, that’s right. I remember walking in and seeing concern on Ali’s face, and hearing her pretty voice, and thinking it sounded a lot more beautiful than the music we played earlier. And after that . . .

Nothing.

“Where’s Ali?” I ask. My voice is scratchy and hoarse, and it feels like someone scrubbed my throat with sandpaper. I try swallowing, but that just makes it worse.

Arrow doesn’t reply, so I reach for the IV again. If he’s going to be a jerk and not tell me, then I’m going to be a jerk and not listen to his instructions. Arrow tries to stop me from yanking on the IV, and I fight back, only to feel another pair of hands join in pinning me down. I look up to find Jon hovering over me. Behind him is Killer, ready to help keep me still.

“Ali,” I repeat, my voice nothing but a small croak. “Where’s Ali?”

They all exchange uncertain glances, and I start to panic. I sit up, and the world spins wildly. As I gasp in a breath, pain ricochets through my chest and limbs, tearing a groan from me. What the hell happened? And why don’t I remember any of it?

The room finally stops spinning, and I manage to focus on the figure standing at the foot of my bed. It’s a doctor in a white coat, and he stares down intently at a clipboard. He has salt-and-pepper hair and glasses with thick lenses, and I get the feeling that he’s avoiding my gaze. The doctor shuffles uncertainly when he feels my stare on him, making me think he’s not used to working on celebrities.

“You should try to rest, Mr. Beckett,” the doctor says. “We were able to flush most of the flunitrazepam out of your system, but you’re going to feel weak for a couple of days.”

“Fluna-what?” I say.

“Roofie,” Arrow says to me. “Someone drugged your drink in the club. You overdosed.”

My skin crawls at the thought of having drugs in my body, and I blink hard, trying to remember what I’d even had at the club. I’d asked for bottled water, but when my order was forgotten, I’d accepted a glass of punch. It was alcohol-free, so I figured the worse thing in it would be the sugar. I should have known better.

The doctor shakes his head at my chart. “You can consider yourself lucky to be alive. Whoever put the flunitrazepam in your drink used a dose that could have knocked out ten people. The police are looking into it, but so far they haven’t found a culprit.”

And they won’t—I know at least that much. Maybe it was a crazed fan targeting me, maybe the dose was actually meant for a girl, maybe it was some sort of prank. Doesn’t matter much why the drug ended up in my drink, because the police aren’t ever going to figure it out. The downtown club scene is just as tight-lipped as it is risky.

I close my eyes and let out a curse, wincing as the loud sound strikes my aching head. I’ll probably never know who drugged me, but that’s not going to stop me from hating their guts.

Killer rests a comforting hand on my shoulder, and I wait for him to make some crack about the irony of the situation—I always go out of my way to avoid alcoholic drinks, and I still ended up getting roofied. But Killer stays quiet. That’s a first.

I swallow hard, and more pain burns my throat. “Why does my throat hurt so bad?” I ask. “And the rest of me?”

The doctor glances up from his chart and says, “Your throat hurts because we had to intubate you for a short period. You stopped breathing on the way to the hospital. The rest of your body is probably sore from the seizure you had, but there was no serious damage from it.”