“Rebel,” Nobody grunted as Madeline cleared off the dining room table. “Red. They’ll wake up. Don’t let them hurt my horse.”
“Red is your horse? You’ve been arguing with me about a horse? Jesus, Nobody—you’re, like, bleeding out and you’re worried about a horse?”
“He’s not bleeding out and you need to calm the hell down right now or I will kick you out of this house myself,” Madeline said as they leaned Nobody against the table and swung his legs off the floor. She sighed. “I hate it when you bleed on my table, you know.”
“My apologies, Ma’am.”
“You guys talk like you’ve done this before.”
“I know, I know.” Her voice bordered on gentle. Was Madeline being … nice to Nobody? She paused long enough to shoot her bossy look at Melinda. “Are you going to help or not?”
Nobody reached out and took hold of her hand. The same hand that had beaten five men to a bloody pulp tenderly gripped her fingers. “It doesn’t hurt,” he said through gritted teeth as Madeline began to cut off his shirt. Then, to Rebel, he got out, “Dwayne.”
“LaRoche?” Rebel whistled. If it was humanly possible, he seemed even less bothered by the bleeding man on his dining room table than his wife did. “What did you do?”
Nobody didn’t say anything, so Melinda answered. “That was the guy with the knife, I think? After he stabbed Nobody, he broke his wrist and then knocked him out. It was …” Horrifying. But she couldn’t say the word.
Nobody gave her hand a gentle squeeze. But he didn’t say anything else. He just lay there with his eyes closed as Madeline tried to get the shirt off him.
She was in her nightgown, Melinda realized with a giggle. Did she normally do outpatient surgery in her nightie?
“Keep it together, Mellie,” Madeline said under her breath.
“Rebel,” Nobody said through gritted teeth.
“I’m on it.” He grabbed a phone and made several calls, but Melinda couldn’t tell who he was talking to, mostly because he was speaking Lakota. When he was done, he came back over with a handful of towels that looked like they’d been washed in mud. “Tim’s on his way to get Clarence. They’ll clean up the mess.”
“Red,” Nobody said.
“I’m going.” Rebel leaned over and kissed his wife on the cheek. “Need me to bring you back anything from the clinic?”
“If I give you antibiotics,” Madeline said to Nobody, “will you take them?”
And the damn fool shook his head no.
Madeline sighed. “Another bag of blood? I think I’ve got an extra pint of saline here.”
And she’d thought the fight had been insane? That had nothing on Madeline keeping pints of blood in the house. “Why is everyone so calm?” Melinda demanded. But at that moment, Madeline cut the rest of his shirt off and suddenly Melinda was faced with a bare, muscular, and very scarred chest.
“Because,” Madeline said in an everyday voice, “we’ve done this before.”
Melinda had no snappy comeback for that, mostly because she was trying to process the magnitude of Nobody’s skin.
Jesus Christ—the scars. So many scars. How was this man still alive? How was he not dead? He looked like he’d been used for target practice—repeatedly. For years. She’d never seen anything like it.
Of course, if he fought like he had tonight on a regular basis, with absolutely no thought to his own personal safety—well, yeah, maybe she shouldn’t be shocked by what she saw. A gunshot wound on his shoulder. Cigarette burns—other burns that were bigger. Long, jagged scars, small neat ones.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered.
“Doesn’t hurt.” Was he trying to reassure her? Really?
“Be still, Nobody. I’ve got to run this IV.” Madeline was serious, too—she had an IV pole.
She pulled his uninjured arm back and ran the line. The man actually flinched as the needle went in. “Seriously?” Melinda asked him. “You got stabbed and you act like that hurt?”
“Don’t like needles,” he got out, breathing heavily.
“I’m sorry, Nobody,” Madeline said, “but you lost too much blood this time and I’m not about to lose you. Do you know how hard it is to find someone who cleans the Clinic the way I like it?”
Nobody grunted.
Then, to Melinda, Madeline added, “Hold this flashlight steady. Can you do that or do you need to leave?” Melinda might have expected Madeline to sound disappointed in her inability to handle the gore, but instead her big sister sounded more understanding about it.
“I can hold the flashlight,” she said, hoping it was true.
Madeline began to rinse out the wound in his chest. Water and blood poured onto the towels—not mud-stained towels, Melinda realized. Blood stained. They really had done this before. Oh, God.
Finally, the rinsing stopped, which was good. However, Madeline then started poking around. “I don’t know how you manage it,” she said more to herself than to anyone else.
“Manage what? Manage being cut to ribbons?”
“Yup. Missed all the major vessels. Didn’t even perforate your intestines—by millimeters.” She sighed. “Anyone else would be in big trouble, but not you.” Madeline was still ignoring her.
Melinda did not appreciate being ignored. “What? What are you talking about?”
“Another flesh wound. They’re always flesh wounds,” she added, finally talking to her sister.
“Always?” She looked down at the map of Nobody’s skin. Even if they were all ‘just’ flesh wounds, there were a hell of a lot of them.
“Always,” Madeline agreed. At least this time, she sounded a little impressed by the fact. “Hold the light steady, Mellie. I’ve got to sew him back up.”
“You aren’t even going to give him something for the pain?”
“No drugs,” Nobody growled.
“You see what I’m working with here?” Madeline was back to muttering to herself. “He won’t let me give him anything and she’s about to pass out. Where is Clarence when I need him? Good lord. Next time, Mellie, call me and I’ll come down to the clinic, okay? I hate getting blood on the table.”
Next time? The way Madeline said it made it perfectly clear there would be a next time. And she ate dinner on this table! God, she was going to be sick.
Suddenly, she wished that Rebel were still here. Rebel would be able to hold a flashlight still. He’d be calm and cool and collected—not on the verge of sobbing and throwing up or passing out. “Uh …”
“Chair,” Madeline said, pointing with her chin. “Sit down. But hold the damn light.”
“Okay.” Melinda pulled the chair over with her foot and sat heavily. Yeah, that helped. She propped her arm up on the table, which helped steady the light.
She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against her other hand, the one that was still clasped in Nobody’s hand. He was breathing, but other than that, he wasn’t making a sound. “Doesn’t it hurt?” she whispered, unable to block out the sounds of Madeline sewing Nobody shut.
He didn’t respond. At first she thought he might have blacked out—she sure would have under the circumstances—but then he gave her hand another squeeze, like he was trying to make her feel better.
She squeezed back. “It was just some graffiti. I would have let the kid paint the walls, Maddie. I really would have. That boy didn’t have to sneak around. No one needed to get hurt over graffiti.”
“It’s not the graffiti,” Madeline said. “Dwayne LaRoche is a gang leader. That was probably an initiation rite for some stupid kid. Marking their territory.”
“Oh.” Of course. Why hadn’t she realized that? Because she had assumed gangs were a city problem and they were in the middle of nowhere. “He still didn’t have to get himself all cut up over that.” She realized she was talking about Nobody as if he wasn’t in the room. “You didn’t have to get yourself cut up over that, you know.”
No response. Of course.
Her brain,
apparently operating on autopilot, replayed the fight again. “What’s a sica?”
Nobody tensed, which made Madeline hiss at him. “It’s a spirit,” Madeline said after Nobody had relaxed again. “A ghost of someone who died but didn’t go on.”
Melinda opened her eyes and stared at the hand in hers. It sure as hell felt real. And there was all the blood.
But … but there was that way he sort of blended in with the dark—so much so that no one else could see him when he didn’t want to be seen.
He’d been outside the campfire her first night here, she realized. Even Rebel hadn’t seen him. But she’d sensed him. And tonight? Before the fight, that was—she hadn’t exactly seen him standing in the trees, but she’d seen an outline, a shadow darker than the rest. A large shadow. And she’d figured that it was him, that he was waiting to do his job.
That he was watching her.
“What are you?” she whispered, although with Madeline standing less than a foot away, keeping her voice pitched low was sort of pointless.
Nobody tried to let go of her hand, but she wouldn’t let him and Madeline hissed at him. “If you don’t stay still, I will drug you, Nobody. Don’t think I won’t!” Then she said to Melinda, “It is my professional opinion that this man is just that—a flesh-and-blood man. Not a ghost, not a spirit, and definitely not someone who died. Although he’s probably on his twenty-second life by this time.”
“I’m sorry,” Melinda said to Nobody again. “I didn’t mean it. Be still.” He responded by relaxing his hand against hers.
Silence settled over them. Nobody was as still as a statue, Madeline was focused on her sewing, and Melinda was determined not to throw up or pass out. Every so often, Madeline would tell her to move the light and she’d have to look. Then she’d go back to not throwing up again.
Dad had so wanted both of his daughters to follow in his footsteps into medicine, but Melinda could not stomach this. She tried to think of something—anything—else so that she wouldn’t replay the knife plunging into Nobody’s chest, wouldn’t have to think about the hole Madeline was closing from the inside out.
Her thoughts turned back to the last time she’d sensed him outside the campfire—the day Jamie had shown up at the center for the first time. The boy had healed up and almost smiled at times since that first day, but he still held himself apart from the other kids. From her, too.
That night, Rebel had told her that she saw people—him was what he’d said—and that made him real. She’d thought he was talking about Jamie … but what if he hadn’t been? What if he’d been talking about Nobody?
What if no one else could see him? Was that even possible?
“Okay,” Madeline said, taping gauze to his chest. “Where else?”
“Arm,” Nobody told her. Melinda could hear the strain in his voice.
Madeline shooed Melinda out of the way so she could get to the cut on his arm. After looking it over, she said, “You wouldn’t have come in for this by itself, would you?”
“No,” Nobody agreed, although he still sounded like he was holding on to consciousness by the skin of his teeth.
“You are the most stubborn man I know,” Madeline said in that absent-minded way of hers as she began to clean the wound. “And I’m married to Rebel—so that’s saying something.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
In short order, she had his arm stitched back together. Seventeen neat stitches crossed over his bicep. Melinda only looked when Madeline said, “Anywhere else?”
Nobody shook his head, but only once and that seemed to take a lot of effort.
“Then you’re done.”
“Thank you kindly.” As he said it, Nobody did something that Melinda sure as hell hadn’t expected. He let go of her hand, sat up and swung his legs off the table with a pained grunt. “Much obliged.”
“Oh no—you’re not going anywhere.” Madeline grabbed his arm just before he pulled the IV out. “No, Nobody.”
“Problem?” The front door banged open and Rebel jogged in, a bag of what had to be blood in his hand.
“He thinks he’s leaving,” Madeline said.
“Nobody, sit down,” Melinda hissed as she tried to grab his hand again.
“You got Red?” he asked Rebel.
“Yeah, she’s outside. Sit down, man.”
“I gotta go home.”
“No, you’ve got to get some more fluids in you. Mellie—hold him down.”
“Uh …” She’d seen this man in action—there was no way in hell she could just hold him down, for crying out loud. But she did as she was told. She put her hands on his shoulders—his bare shoulders—and held on tight.
She felt the tension ripple through his back, but she had no idea if that had to do with her or if it was because all this movement was pulling on his brand-spanking-new stitches. But he stopped trying to get up, so she held onto him.
“Babe,” Madeline said, clearly exasperated.
Rebel stepped in front of Nobody. “You’re gonna crash here tonight, man.”
“No. I gotta go home.” It was, hands down, the rudest thing Melinda had heard him say yet.
“Yeah, you are. You can’t ride Red like this anyway. Madeline’s going to hook you up to some more fluids and you’re going to sleep here. We have a perfectly good couch. You’ll like it.”
Under her hands, Nobody flinched. “No.”
“I swear to God, Nobody, I will inject you with enough sedatives to knock a rhino to its knees. Not even you will be able to walk away.” Madeline was now peeling her gloves off. “I don’t want to, but I will. I’m not going to have you ride off and die alone.”
His shoulders sagged and, ever so slightly, he leaned back into Melinda’s touch. “I want to sleep outside.”
“What? Why?” she asked.
Rebel shot her a look she couldn’t read over the top of Nobody’s head. “Not gonna happen. You’re in no condition to ride and you know she’ll want to keep an eye on you. It’s one night on the couch.”
Nobody must have been wearing down—more than he already was—because he stopped arguing. It was weird, hearing him talking that much—weirder still to hear him expressing an opinion on something. Melinda had no idea why it was so important that he get home this very minute—and what the hell was that about, sleeping outside?
“Okay, onto the couch. I’ve got to hook this bag up.” Madeline was back to her bossy voice. “Melinda, you get on his good side. Rebel—”
“I’m on it.” He waited for Melinda to get under Nobody’s arm and then hefted the bigger man to his feet.
Nobody swayed, coming dangerously close to falling on top of Melinda, but Rebel got under his wounded side and together, they stumbled to the couch.
This time, when Nobody went down, he did take her with him. They landed on the couch with an audible whump, followed by a low, involuntary moan of pain.
“Are you okay?” It was quite possibly the most pointless thing she’d ever said—the answer was obviously no. She was trapped under his arm—against his bare chest.
Madeline rolled the IV pole over to the couch. “Mellie, you need to move.”
Nobody’s arm clamped down on her. He wasn’t going to let her go. “I need to get up,” she said in a quiet voice. She needed to decide if she was going to throw up or not and she definitely needed to wash his blood off.
His grip tightened.
“Nobody, please—let me up and I’ll come back, okay? I’ll come sit with you tonight. You won’t be alone.”
His chin was tucked to his chest, but he rolled his head toward her. “Promise?”
“Promise.”
His arm lifted off her and she was able to slide out. She caught Madeline giving her an approving look before she ran to the bathroom and turned the hot water on full blast.
She scrubbed down, trying to wash away everything that had happened after the moment Nobody had slipped out of the center door. As she showered, she forced herself to think ab
out the other time Nobody’s arm had been around her—in the dark, in the center.
She’d been scared then, too—but he’d pulled her into his chest and put his mouth against her ear, whispering so quietly she had only heard the way his breath moved over her skin.
Yeah, better to think of the way she’d broken out in goose bumps at the way his body had pressed against hers than to think of the blood.
She wrapped herself in a towel and hurried to her room. She normally didn’t sleep in a lot, but she had a pair of capri yoga pants around here somewhere. She wore a lot of tank tops in the summer—she had nice arms, so why not? But now …
She dug out a t-shirt she’d gotten for finishing a 5K Fun Run for Juvenile Diabetes and slipped it on. She didn’t know why. As she did so, she heard the bathroom door click shut.
She padded back out to the living room on bare feet. Rebel was sitting cross-legged on the floor, watching Nobody. For his part, the man on the couch didn’t look like he’d moved since she’d left his side. His head was still down, his chest was still naked, his eyes closed.
“Madeline is cleaning up,” Rebel said in a low voice. “She told me to remind you that he would be fine.”
“Oh. Okay.” As carefully as she could, she sat on the edge of the couch next to Nobody. “I’m here.”
He didn’t move much, but she saw his chest fall as he exhaled. “Cold,” he finally said.
“I’ll get a blanket,” Rebel offered, hopping up. “We don’t have any shirts big enough to fit him,” he added as he headed toward the linen closet.
“Do you, uh, need some pillows braced against your side?”
“Yeah,” he whispered after a moment. She couldn’t tell if he was hurting that much or if he was ashamed to be admitting any form of weakness.
She grabbed a couple of throw pillows from the edge of the couch and, lifting his wounded arm up as slowly as possible, stacked them against his side. The bandage Madeline had layered on over his chest wound wasn’t showing any blood, so Melinda just had to hope he wouldn’t bleed through to the pillows any time soon.
He settled his arm back down, but she saw the way he shivered. Rebel came back with a blanket and together they wrapped it over his shoulders, careful to avoid the IV.
Nobody (Men of the White Sandy) (Volume 3) Page 8