Page 3 of Ghost (Iron Thunder MC 4)
“I wish this was funny, Drax. But Iron Thunders is still under attack. It’s Eagle. He’s planning it. He’s taken over the Silver Knights in secret and he’s going to come for us,” she said.
“How do you know this?” I said interrupting them.
“One of the strippers from Teasers. I was just talking to her. Her name is Mercy, I think. She said something about Eagle and Crash…and drugs,” her voice shook slightly.
“I’ll get back to you guys when I know something,” I said.
“No. Get her here! I want to talk to her myself,” Drax growled after me.
I stepped away from them, giving them some space. I glanced around, trying to figure out who Mercy was. These girls all looked the same to me. I walked up to the bar where Sophie was serving drinks behind the counter.
“Which one of these is Mercy?” I asked and she looked up at me inquisitively.
“All you boys are feeling twitchy tonight,” she said and chewed on her lip, leaning toward me.
“I’m not going to fuck her,” I growled and the smile on her face got even wider. “Which one?” I growled louder and she rolled her eyes.
“She’s over there. The blonde. Sitting by herself.”
I turned to look and saw her across the room. I recognized her straight away as the girl from last night, the one who’d screamed in fear when the shots started ringing. I’d had to grab her by her waist and pull her down to the floor so she wouldn’t get hit by the bullets whizzing past.
And I hadn’t thought about her since then.
I’d got kinda busy.
But I did remember her blue eyes. Warm and big and sparkling with fear and excitement at the same time. This was Mercy?
I stood at the bar for a few extra seconds, just drinking her in. I wanted to fuck her, but not now. Right now, I had shit to do. So, maybe some other time.2MercyThis wasn’t what my life was supposed to look like.
I didn’t remember how long ago I’d decided, but the decision was made sometime in my childhood, that I was going to be a nurse. Maybe it was around the time that my grandmother got really sick for the first time. She had always been the most important person in my life and I’d wanted to be able to help her, wanted to be able to help other people like her.
I was grateful that she was still alive, but she had suffered long and hard and her life hadn’t gotten any easier lately. She inspired me to train as a nurse, and now I didn’t know if I could even become one. My education and training had been suspended for some time and I didn’t know when I could resume it.
I needed to earn a living so I could cover my grandmother’s medical expenses. If I wasn’t there to look after my grandmother, who would?
It wasn’t just my career as a nurse that was on hold now.
I used to be a cheerleader in high school. I used to be one of the ‘popular girls’, the one who was expected to be seen hanging off arms of jocks. I had friends. Well, most of them were bitches, but at least I’d had some girls to bitch with.
Now, I had nobody at all.
Cheerleading wasn’t a paying job. And even though I was very good at it, the question still remained—what was I going to do for money? My grandmother still needed her medication. Hospital bills were piling up.
When I got home from school on those evenings when she was particularly sick, I’d hear her coughing wildly from outside the front door.
She could barely speak, and in the bathroom were smears of blood in the sink where she’d coughed them out. But we never discussed it because she would always just say she was fine. She didn’t want to see me give up my pursuit of a nursing career, didn’t want to stand in the way of my life.
I couldn’t just continue on as normal. I couldn’t keep going to school and returning home to find my grandmother crouched in her bed, clutching her stomach because everything hurt. I needed to buy the medicines. I needed to keep buying them and give her access to a steady supply. The least I could do was make sure she was comfortable in these last years of her life.
I needed to find an alternative source of income. Other than my passion for nursing, there was only one other thing I knew I was good at. Dancing. But I needed to find a way to make that skill pay.
I always thought I was too self-conscious and shy for a cheerleader, and was never like the other girls in my gang. Funny how life turned out.
I was the one who started taking her clothes off for money.
