Under Locke(69)

"Sleeping?"



He sighed. "Blake didn't get my text?"



What was he talking about? I shook my head.



“Get up,” he ordered. “You need to go talk to your bro before we get outta here.”



I blinked again slowly as his words settled in. Talk to my bro? "Sonny's here?" My voice hitched up.



Dex nodded. "He's packin' some shit up. Pack a bag so you don't have to come back here for a while, then go talk to him."



Confusion swamped me in a million different ways. Where was Sonny going? Where the hell was I going? But mainly, I was wondering what was going on, period. There was too much secrecy to make me feel good.



Like a good girl, I tried to focus on what to pack so I could figure things out as soon as possible. Luckily, I had enough good sense before falling asleep to keep a pair of sleep shorts on because I usually slept in just my underwear and a bra. Dex flicked the lamp on while I grabbed a bunch of random clothes from the dresser.



“Where was he?” I asked him while stuffing my duffel with what I’d absently picked. I couldn’t even look at Dex as I asked him the question, it made me too nervous. I'd ask if Sonny was fine but he wouldn't be home packing if he wasn't.



“County hospital.”



My spine snapped up to standing, the muscles along my back tensing. "What?" I'm pretty positive I screeched out the words.



"The county hospital, babe. Some lady found him by the park unconscious this mornin' and called in an ambulance for him," he explained.



Without even thinking about it, my legs became unglued and started leading me around the bed to skip the whole packing thing and find Sonny instead. But Dex held up his arm, blocking me from going around him. "Calm down, Ritz. He just had a little concussion, a few bruises. He's all right," he said softly. "Finish packin'."



What the ef constituted a little concussion?



I was going to be sick. Breathing in and out of my nose a few times, I looked up at Dex's eyes to see if I could catch a hint as to whether he was being honest with me or not. Those fathomless dark blue eyes were intent and clear in a challenge of the wills, like he could tell I was trying to catch him in a lie.



"He's okay," Dex insisted, nudging me back with the muscles of his forearm. "Finish up, babe."



Holy crap. He probably wasn't lying. For about the hundredth time in five minutes, I nodded, pushing back that sickening sensation in my chest again. “Okay.” Zipping the bag halfway, I yanked it off the bed and looked at him. "I think I have everything, I'm going to go hunt this moron down."



I didn't bother waiting for a response before I took off down the hallway to the opened door of Sonny's bedroom. The fan light was on, illuminating the room and the figure sitting on the edge of the bed with a duffel bag next to him. Even from behind, his features looked loose. Tired. Worn-out.



But it wasn't until I rounded the bed and saw the side of his face that made me gasp. "What the hell, Son?"



His cheek was swollen to twice the size it should have been. The skin was broken and purple, only slightly worse than the awful split on the corner of his mouth. Yet, he managed to give me a little grin out of somewhere.



"Ris," he greeted me in a lower voice than usual. He patted the bed. "I'm fine, kid. Come sit down."



"My ass you're fine," I told him, taking a step to stand in front of him.



Sonny tilted his head back to give me a better view of the ass-beating those sons of biscuit-eating whores gave him. The entire right side of his face looked deformed from the swelling. I was kind of worried that maybe he'd lost some teeth but I couldn't be sure.



"I've had worse, believe me," he argued softly. "Come here and quit worrying."



I gave him a look that said it'd be a cold day in hell before I stopped worrying about him.



"C'mon, I don't have a lot of time before Trip gets here," he said, patting the bed again.



I wanted to argue with him but logic told me not to. My poor, poor brother looked like complete crap. It made my stomach tense horribly, like I was having contractions or something. My hand was out and clinging to Sonny's instinctively.



"You remember I told you the sperm donor came down and asked me for money?"



Like I'd forget. "He asked Luther for money too, right?"



Sonny nodded slowly. "Yup, and he didn't give it to him either," he explained. "He didn't want to tell anybody what the money was for, except he just needed it real bad."



"How much was it?"



It looked like he tried to make a face but immediately stopped the effort once he remembered he looked like the Elephant Man's cousin. "Ten grand."