Impetuous (Victory Lap Book 1) Read online

  Impetuous

  Victory Lap, Volume 1

  Mercedes Jade

  Published by Mercedes Jade, 2019.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  IMPETUOUS

  First edition. May 24, 2019.

  Copyright © 2019 Mercedes Jade.

  Written by Mercedes Jade.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Acknowledgements and Thanks

  Also by Mercedes Jade

  About the Author

  Mom. I'll ride this teeter-totter with you to balance it, so you can let go.

  Chapter 1

  KADE SAXTON WAS A NUTCASE.

  Tess didn’t know it when she first saw him. There was an alarm ringing in her ears, and her eyes were glued to another guy in a white straight jacket, escorted by two orderlies who had more in common with guards than nurses.

  She watched with everyone else as the straight-jacket acted stereotypically insane. He screamed inanities to the ceiling, threatening to spork the next person to try to feed him mashed broccoli—some kind of weird punishment here, she figured; banality or you’ll behave. As he was escorted past the people in the hallway witness to his crazed behaviour, he leered at anyone under not dead yet, even the white-haired grandma beside Tess that seemed suitably shocked by the gasp and clutching at her flower-patterned chest.

  Hopefully, it was moral abhorrence and not real chest pain. This wasn’t the kind of hospital that treated physical disorders of the heart. In fact, Tess was sure the only organ the doctors cared about here rested between the ears and ate serotonin for breakfast.

  Eat your vitamins and be quiet.

  Tess took a step back, figuring the old lady had a better chance of fighting the straight-jacket dude off than she did if he made a grab to follow up his leer. Grandma had at least fifty pounds of belly tenting her flowery sundress over the lankier frame Tess possessed, as well as a purse that could hide a small child or a bunch of dirty secrets. Either would give the old lady enough heft to deliver her moral judgement to straight-jacket’s head if he dared reach out.

  Just half a meter back and Tess was nearly out of sight. It paid to be a shortie, unnoticed and completely forgettable. She played it up to her advantage when she needed, keeping everything about her neat and nondescript. It would make her a great thief if she had the urge. Try pointing her out from a description: it was a teenage girl with medium-length, straight brownish hair, kinda average curves, wearing something grey, or maybe light blue, nothing much showing—and I didn’t really catch the colour of her eyes.

  Tess never looked at others in the eyes unless a challenge was absolutely necessary.

  A lot of things can be kept plain and ordinary, however, fire in her gaze was hard to smother. Her father had tried his best but she refused to let the embers be stomped out. Those windows to her soul didn’t come with drapes other than lashes, and they did their job best looking down. An even temperament could be faked.

  That was when Tess caught sight of the dark-eyed teenager. She was looking away, avoiding any eye contact with the commotion she didn’t want to become part of when she was captured by the black eyes of the only person close to her age in the hallway.

  He should have been watching the scene with everyone else, but no, that dark glare was fixed on Tess. Every step she retreated was counted by his calculating look.

  She froze, her heel halfway off the floor, then lowered her foot back down, halting her cowardly backstep behind the old lady.

  The owner of the black eyes sneered.

  Tess choked on surprise and he looked away.

  Had that been meant for her or the old lady? Did the five-second rule apply to stares? He had looked away first.

  She decided that it was her win, despite the disparagement in his gaze. He could dismiss her all he wanted. She wasn’t here to make friends. Things weren’t quite so desperate yet.

  Besides, Tess was sure he didn’t look friendly. Everything about him screamed your mama warned you. Her own mother was an exception but if she followed her mother’s advice, then she would have licked her lips and given that pierced, leather and ripped-jeans clad six-feet of muscle and silent menace a come hither stare that could get her chewed up and spat out at the side of his motorcycle—because fuck yes, he had a bike.

  Hurts like hell to fall but the high is worth it, baby.

  His thick, black hair needed to be mussed, shaved up one side higher than the other and the top hanging to his jawline, a deep, midnight blue on the ends as if they had been dipped in indigo ink. That wasn’t cheap rebellion, it was high-end salon, and Tess would whisper in his ear that she wanted to see the ink daddy wouldn’t pay for under his cute leather jacket, then leave her teeth marking the bit of cartilage left without studs at the top of his ear while she fisted his perfect hair like he was about to blow her.

  His honey-gold skin was lick-

  Movement, from the corner of her eyes. This stupid daydreaming always got Tess into trouble, a common symptom of her attention deficit disorder that was harder to control without meds. Racing thoughts and ideas couldn’t be corralled in long enough before she was galloping off to the next thing to catch her fleeting attention.

  Tess looked back up in front of her for the source of the movement and found out that old ladies could skedaddle fast. While Tess had been distracted crossing glares with the hot, rebel-looking asshole with the dark eyes and thinking about a one-night stand, the guy in the straight jacket managed to pull off half of a Houdini.

  He was still bound tight by the jacket but he had gotten away from his escorts. Tess didn’t know how; all she knew was he could kiss her if she was at least six inches taller or slower. Thankfully, she could duck and weave as quick as grandma could run in her heels.

  “Stop him,” shouted orderly one. He was male but the pitch of his voice was surprised bitch.

  “Push the alarm,” suggested a manlier tone with less panic. He almost sounded bored. “Call a code yellow.” Another moment passed as the old lady screamed. “And a code white,” orderly two added.

  Tess, stupidly, had run into a dead end. It was towards doors, but those double-wides wouldn’t open without a passcode or the buzzer access. The patients were on lockdown here. No matter, it wasn’t as if the escapee was going to run back into the nearest prison. She could stay here, out of the way, and wait.

  Calming her heart down, she took a slow, deep breath.

  Box in your anxiety.

  There was a man in a Red Sox cap staring out of one of the door windows, tuffs of red, curly hair sticking out between his ears and the cap. He looked curious, studying them as if they were an interesting exhibit at the zoo.

  Make ‘em laugh with you.

  Tess growled and curled her hands into animal claws for him. It wasn’t scary, more something she would do for a kid, pretending to be a lion. Doubt that he cou
ld even hear her growling over the ringing and clamour of everyone else, but the animation of her expression might amuse him.

  For some reason, she didn’t want him to spot the crazy guy causing a ruckus behind her and get scared. He reminded her of somebody’s grandfather, a warmth to him, looking more like he belonged in a nursing home for advanced Alzheimer's than locked up on a general psychiatric ward.

  Your face is going to freeze like that one day.

  He looked right past her, a kind of vacant stare that she was all too familiar with seeing, the interest in his eyes gone like the tiny flicker of life had been blown out. Levellers tended to do that, eat up any spark of emotion before it could explode.

  If that drugged response was all the general population patients were capable of giving, Tess wondered how doped were the solitary residents?

  Troublemakers, new arrivals and recent returnees were all subject to a 24-48 hour acclimation phase. There were rules about how long someone could be restrained physically, but chemical restraints were just another pill, medicine to treat the illness.

  Was she even going to recognize Tess?

  Someone bumped her from behind. It didn’t hurt. She glared up at the bell on the door and didn’t even bother to turn around and spit out an insult to whoever elbowed her. Nondescript only worked if she kept her mouth shut.

  “Move, idiot!”

  She thought she heard the warning in retrospect, despite being closer to the clanging bell at the corner of the door, but her mind wasn’t listening. It had been a rush to catch the bus that only made the trip just outside of town to the old psych hospital hourly and she had to forego the coffee that she normally substituted for stimulant medications. Her racing thoughts had been doing a marathon since 6 am this morning and she had no fuel in her to rein them in.

  Rushing and forgetting were also symptoms of her inattention, but this particular mistake was made worse because all the worries in her mind were already dangerously dividing her focus. She felt like her feathers were ruffled before she had even arrived at the hospital and the chaos here was making things worse.

  Clear your mind Obi-Wan.

  She needed something to focus on, a meditating object. The source of the alarm drew her magpie gaze, tunnelling in on the vibrating parts moving almost faster than the eye could see. It was like an old-fashioned fire bell at school or something a cartoon character would shove in the ear of someone sleeping. The cartoon would project the bell inside the sleeper’s head, and that was exactly what Tess felt like at the moment, deafened from the inside out, staring at a red bell.

  There were bells for everything, from waking to lights out. She might find comfort in the routine, at least, although Tess certainly didn’t miss-

  Rough hands grabbed her.

  Crazy laughter had nearly got to Tess but the hands ripped her away from harm, spinning her half around, so she saw the white-jacketed guy snap his teeth with another eerie jackal laugh at the space Tess had just occupied. Her back hit someone solid and a lot taller than herself, his hands holding her in place. It had to be the guy shooting his dark gaze at her earlier.

  Maybe they really were at the zoo, biting and cackling, with the keepers barely able to keep them from reverting to the rule of the jungle.

  The escaped guy was finally manacled by one of the orderlies, taking advantage of the distraction that her near-bite-and-miss created for the orderly to get his beefy fingers around one of his strapped wrists.

  White-jacket laughed again, of course. That was what jackals do, not because it’s funny or they’re cruel, but because that’s the only noise they make well, so it’s their response to anything exciting.

  Somebody missed this guy’s shot of knock out before transfer.

  The other orderly pulled out a pair of metal cuffs and dangled them in front of the laughing patient.

  “Jerry, you’re going to get cuffed to a bed if you keep it up,” the orderly warned.

  He was already in a straight jacket. Tess wanted to roll her eyes but the orderly turned and knocked loudly on the double doors, and she suddenly realized what was happening. Only prisoners were able to be legally cuffed, criminally convicted and insane, with little hope of redemption.

  “You can’t put him in there,” Tess shouted over the alarm.

  The hard hands holding the back of her shoulders tightened. Tess tried to shrug them off, safely rescued now and in no further need of being manhandled by the dark-eyed boy. The daydream had been a fantasy. She didn’t want trouble with his hands on her for real, even if he had looked like he would almost be worth it.

  “Hey!” Tess shouted, louder when she was ignored by the orderlies and by the hands that weren’t releasing her shoulders.

  “Let me go,” Tess muttered, twisting her head back to catch a whiff of licorice. It shortcut her brain for a moment, something she associated with one of her favourite candy flavours, not feelings of fear, rage or helplessness.

  But Tess was all of these uncontrollable things right now.

  “Stay still and shut up,” was whispered in her ear with another whiff of heated licorice.

  The double-wide doors swung open on a modern buzz just as the clanging bell went silent. Red Sox had been removed from the other side, probably gently redirected to meander a meaningless path up the hall the other direction by a PSW anticipating the transfer. In fact, the entire hall seemed empty of patients on the other side. It was like clearing the emergency room of minor ailments before a trauma was hauled in.

  Mr. Jackal was trouble and they knew it.

  “There are innocent patients in there,” Tess protested. “You can’t put forensics on the same floor,” she shouted through the doors, desperately.

  If the hands weren’t holding her back, she would have tried to physically get in front of the orderlies and their prisoner to find someone in charge. That kind of assertive behaviour wasn’t really like her, but avoiding the PTSD this guy could trigger was worth the embarrassment of making a nuisance of herself.

  Those cuffs were in her nightmares.

  “He’s going into solitary. Forensics ward is full,” one of the nurses said, taking a clipboard and checking off boxes. Tess could picture the nurse doing her checklist as she flicked her eyes back and forth between the clipboard and the guy Tess wanted to be turned away.

  Restrained in jacket - check.

  Maniacal gleam in his eyes - check.

  What’s the worst that could happen - question mark?

  Tess bit her lip. The sweet, spiced flavour of pumpkin pie from her chapstick hit her tongue as she rolled her bottom lip, worrying it between her teeth. It was a habit of hers, something she did for many reasons, from daydreaming to worrying to debating her next step, and the flavoured chapstick was supposed to remind her to stop. Not stop thinking, biting.

  She tasted blood, too late. Her fingernails would be next if the grip of the hands on her shoulders wasn’t there to remind her that dark eyes was watching her. Super hot boys didn’t pay much attention to her normally, so his simple touch practically burned through her clothes, as smouldering as the stare she was sure he had fixed on the back of her head.

  “The dangerous lunatic is far enough away to keep safe from my threatening presence, so you can let go now,” Tess tried, again.

  “The only thing the lunatic was in danger of from you was choking because you’re such a small bite that you might slip down his throat and get lodged,” her saviour replied, refusal evident as his grip stayed the same. His licorice-scented words were much too close to her right ear, making her shiver.

  “This is going to change from a rescue to an assault,” she threatened.

  That got her spun around.

  Those eyes weren’t black up close, more a dark grey, the kind of heavy pigmentation if you were to muddy blue until it was only a couple shades lighter than the pupil. He had to be from mixed ethnicity, a cross between the sun and deep, dark winter. The question of his parentage was on her mind but she he
ld it back from her lips. If she actually spoke every thought that crossed her too full head, she’d be out of breath all the time.

  “I saved you from an assault,” he said, giving her a frosty stare. Yep, the eyes were definitely winter. He let her arms go, those warm fingers releasing her despite his protest that he hadn’t done any wrong.

  It’s rude to stare, girl.

  She had to say something, just not what she was thinking. What would a normal teenage girl reply? Propositioning him was not an option. Tess bit her lip, wincing at the sting from her earlier nibble.

  “Did you get hurt?” he asked, hands reaching back for her again. This time, he brushed the corner of her mouth with his fingers. “Is that blood?” he asked, bringing his hand to his own mouth.

  She didn’t see any blood on his fingers so it must have been a minuscule amount. Geez, he was fussing over her like a mom getting her kid ready to present something, smoothing down a cowlick and wiping away the crumbs from breakfast.

  He crowded closer to her, sniffed his finger and looking puzzled, he licked it.

  Indirect kiss, a voice about twelve years old, squealed inside her head.

  “I bit my own lip, bad habit,” Tess admitted, suddenly finding herself staring at his lips. “And I meant I was going to assault you if you didn’t let go. It was a threat,” she said, trying to growl it out with some intimidation.

  “Death by pumpkin?” he said. He smirked down at her, not in the least threatened.

  Tess was often accused of jumping from topic-to-topic so randomly that no one could follow her brain’s connections. His reply managed to throw even her off. It didn't help that he was standing so close.

  She bit her lip again, prepared for the sting this time. The chapstick flavour finally clued her in.

  “Actually, it’s pumpkin pie. Don’t underestimate my ability to squash you. Goodbye,” she said, abruptly turning around.

  Lame comeback. Run away, lickity-split.

  Her heated cheeks could be mistaken for all the excitement in front of the doors earlier with the guy in the straight-jacket nearly taking a bite out of her. The nurse at the station next to the entrance that buzzed her in still seemed to have a knowing look in her eyes as she greeted Tess at the desk.