by A. J. Downey
The shot took him high, in the upper left anterior quadrant of his chest. Charity screamed and jumped, clapping her hands over her ears. She stared wide eyed as our attacker fell backwards against the tub, and left a red smear against the white bath.
“Okay, we have a gunshot to the upper left anterior chest, with a posterior exit wound to the,” I tucked my gun into the back of my waistband and gritted my teeth against the burning sensation just above my butt, it couldn’t be helped. I pulled the man forward and declared, “Left posterior, center mass, through and through, pretty fucking sure I clipped a lung. What do we do, Charity?” I asked, getting her brain engaged away from the fear, and as much as I loathed to do so, saving this fucker’s life became the top priority.
“Heartbeat?” she demanded.
I checked, “Yeah.”
“Here, apply pressure, I’ll call 9-1-1,” she ripped the towels off the floor where they’d fallen and I pressed them to the wound. The son of a bitch coughed, and started to come around.
“Phone’s on the kitchen counter, try and find some clothes, Baby. I got this for right now.”
“Okay!”
She ran down the hall to the kitchen and I heard her voice, frantic on the line, “Yes, please help, a man’s been shot… I don’t know, Nothing, what’s the address!?”
I pressed down hard on the wound, the man crying out and glaring murder at me, “Trying to save your life, you sack of shit,” I told him, before calling out my address to Char.
“Why?” he demanded, in his thick Slavic accent.
“Because, it’s what we do… her and me… you picked the wrong house to come rob and the wrong girl to attack. You live through this, you can tell your boss and the rest of your boys.”
“Niet,” he said, and spit blood onto my floor.
“Could always let you die here,” I said easing up on the pressure, his eyes widened and I saw defiance, no fear. He was a cold piece that’s for sure. Charity’s voice dimmed as she went, presumably, into the bedroom, she returned a moment later.
“He attacked me, in the shower, my boyfriend, he shot him. Please hurry, he doesn’t look good. No, I don’t know who he is, neither does my boyfriend. He’s a medic, and he’s applying pressure, but we need more than that. No, I’m a nurse, we don’t have any equipment to handle this kind of thing here. Okay, Okay, sure. I’m as calm as I’m going to get.”
I risked a glance over my shoulder and Charity was in a light summer dress, her hair dripping onto it and still half soapy. I swallowed hard and returned my sight to my patient. I could hear sirens, and it sounded like they were an eternity away. Of course, I wasn’t used to being on this end of things. I was the one used to riding to the rescue.
“Yes! I hear sirens, I’m opening the front door, now.” Charity’s footfalls pounded across the floor, and I heard her unbolt the front door and fling it open.
“Please hurry! Through here!”
“Shep!” I heard a familiar voice call.
“Yeah, Brody! Back here!”
“What the fuck happened man?”
“Dumb son of a bitch picked the wrong fuckin’ house, that’s what.”
The guy was fading, but he would make it if Brody and whoever he was partnered with made good time.
“Shit, we’ve got to get him out of there.” I helped Brody lift him and carry him out to where we could get his ass on the stretcher. His partner must’ve been green, because I’d never seen him before for one, and two, he wasn’t a paramedic – no patch, so he was just an EMT.
“Right, we got it, man. Shit, I’m sorry it was you of all people,” he said and glanced at Charity, “Ma’am,” he said and shook himself.
“That’s my girlfriend, Charity,” I said and Brody looked pole axed.
“Sorry to meet you this way, Ma’am, but if you could see fit to get Shep here to come back to the team, we’d not only appreciate it, but we’d be in your debt.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said and smiled wanly. Brody and his partner finished strapping the guy down and hustled the hell out of there, just as a couple of cops pushed through my front door. I held my arms open and Charity rushed into them, holding me tight. I held her back and soothed as best I could while the cops waited a moment for us to collect ourselves.
“Charity!” Hope screamed from outside and she and Cutter were through the door next.
“We’re good, Captain,” I said, and leveled Hope with my gaze, “We’re good, I got her.”
Hope nodded at me, and Charity flung out an arm blindly to her sister, who joined us. We huddled around Charity who shook, but didn’t cry. My brave, beautiful, fucking girl.
Chapter 33
Charity
“Well we touched a nerve with that Grigori guy, that’s for sure…” Cutter said quietly, peeking out the curtains at the cops retreating down the drive. They took Nothing’s gun into evidence, and took photos of the bathroom and red marks on my skin that may or may not turn into bruises.
I sat, shuddering on the arm of Nothing’s couch. Post combat shakes, Hope called them. I was pretty sure it was just the after effects of the adrenaline wearing off, but then again, it should have worn off much sooner than this. The cops had been here for hours taking their fingerprints, dusting the house, taking their pictures, and evidence.
Hope rubbed my back in useless little circles, and I breathed out a sigh of relief. At least the investigating officers were from Ft. Royal’s little police department, although I got the impression they were none too happy with The Kraken at the moment. Of course, I got the impression that The Kraken were none too happy with the current state of affairs, either.
“What’s going to happen?” I asked dully.
“Nothing, Baby. We’re good. The gun is mine, registered to me, and legal to have in my own home. He broke in here, and Florida has a King of the Castle law in place, just like most of the rest of America. They can’t touch me. It was justifiable.”
“Helps that y’all saved his life, not going to lie,” Cutter said.
“That’s if he makes it,” I murmured.
“He will, I’ve treated a lot worse,” Nothing said.
“What next?” Hope asked, dropping her head back and sighing, staring at the ceiling.
“Is Faith okay?” I asked.
“She’s fine, Trouble,” Cutter said.
“We’re perilously close to club business,” Nothing warned.
“Good call, brother,” Cutter grunted and let the curtain fall back into place.
“Oh give it a rest, she’s family,” Hope said glowering at the both of them.
“Right, and given her profession, the less she knows, the better,” Cutter said giving my sister a pointed look.
Hope stuck her tongue out at him, “I hate it when you stick me with a point that’s right.”
“Do it every night, might as well do it every day too.”
“Gross,” I uttered and the ensuing laughter eased the tension.
“So, what now?” I asked, wearily.
“Now, you go rinse the dried soap out of your hair, and we spend the next few days circling the wagons,” Cutter said.
“What’s that mean, exactly?”
“We all go back to the Captain’s house on lockdown. It’s not safe to be spread out throughout the town anymore.”
“Do you think he’ll deliver your message?” I asked.
“Probably, can’t say for sure,” Nothing said, and gripped the back of his neck, pulling.
“What message?” Cutter asked sharply.
Nothing sighed, “He asked why we were trying to save him, I told him to go back to his boss and tell him it was the kind of people Char and I were, and that he’d picked the wrong girl to attack.”
“Heat of the moment kind of a thing,” Cutter said, and there wasn’t any question about it.
“Yeah.”
“Shit, well, looks like I need to set Atlas and Radar to some digging, maybe get a hold of Ruth. See if
we can’t get these guys to back off of us. I’m pretty sure they’re tired of losing men, and I want this to stop before we lose one of ours. The way we been going at each other, it’s only a matter of time.”
I think Cutter forgot I was still sitting there, but I knew when to keep my mouth shut. Even still, Hope nudged me and said, “Blossom, go get washed up, get dressed and let’s get out of here for now.”
I nodded, and went back towards the bathroom to clean it up, Nothing called out to me, “Leave it, Babe. Use the shower in my room. We’ll get it.”
I looked at the red ruin of my shorts and tank, spattered with the man’s blood and the water pooled on the floor, tinged pink with yet more of his blood and didn’t even put up a fight. I did what Nothing asked, and went to his room instead. I was chilled down to the bone, and I was pretty sure it didn’t have anything to do with how high the air conditioning in the house was turned up.
I took yet another shower; the door locked tight this time, and wondered if there would ever be a time that I didn’t lock the bathroom door in the future. I closed my eyes as I rewet my hair, and sighed out in relief. Thank god Nothing was there, that he hadn’t been knocked unconscious, and that he’d managed to keep his wits.
Two knocks at the door and I nearly jumped out of my skin, “Char you alright?” Hope called.
“Yeah! Sorry,” I called back, “Be out in a minute.”
“No, take your time; I just wanted to check on you!”
“Thanks, sister-mom!” I called back, but I had to force the sarcasm into my voice.
“No problem,” Hope called back and I shuddered and let it go, having a quiet cry to myself in the shower just to get the pent up emotion out.
Chapter 34
Nothing
“She alright?” I asked, and used my gloved hands to shove my shower curtain and liner into the trash bag Cutter was holding open for me. Hope leaned a shoulder against the bathroom door jamb.
“Shook up, probably harder than she’s ever been, that includes her little adventure in the trunk of that whack job’s car. She’ll be okay though. She’s like me, made of some tough stuff, just not quite as Teflon, if you know what I mean.”
I did, being tough was one thing, letting it slide off was another. I finished shoving the curtain with its torn ring holders at the top away, and Cutter cinched the bag closed. The bloody, water soaked towels had gone in first.
“Garbage?” he asked.
“What the fuck I want to keep ‘em for? A souvenir?” I grated then sighed, “Sorry, Captain. I don’t mean to take it out on you.”
“Hey, man, you did good. There’s still more to do, but you followed through and maintained the main objective which was to keep your woman safe. She’s a little scared, a little shook up, but it ain’t nothing she can’t and won’t handle. Now let’s just take a minute, get this mess cleaned up, and get her back to base. We’ll go from there.”
I nodded, surprised I needed the pep talk, but truthfully, I wasn’t like a lot of the rest of the guys. I was used to violence in the way of coming in to mop it up after the shit had already gone down. I wasn’t used to being in the thick of it, or used to being the one to dish it out. That was pretty much new territory for me.
Aftermath I could handle, but this shit? I don’t know… I just didn’t know.
Cutter slipped out past Hope, who handed me the mop, that I had sitting out in the hallway. I started running it across the bathroom floor, wringing it out into the bathtub until I had the worst of the flooding up. The cops had at least let us shut off the shower once shit had calmed down and our uninvited guest was well on his way to the nearest emergency department.
“Thank you,” Hope said, and I nodded.
“Just glad he didn’t knock me out and I had the sense to play dead. Really glad he didn’t have the sense to tap me or finish me off while I was down.”
“Newbie, you think?”
“I honestly don’t know, it isn’t exactly my area of expertise.”
“Yeah, I know it’s not, Galahad. Which is why I’m grateful you didn’t hesitate.”
“Guess it says something that I’m willing to kill for her, yeah?”
“You mean you were shooting to kill?” Hope asked, surprised.
“Out of all of us, Nothing always was a shit shot, so it doesn’t surprise me he missed, just be glad he hit him at all.” Cutter said from behind Hope, returning from his trash run.
“Yeah, fuck you, Cap. Like I said, putting holes in people has never been my thing.” I’m supposed to be the one patching holes up… not making them. I thought to myself.
“Yeah, and we never wanted it to be,” Cutter said, all joking gone from his tone, as if it never were. “We tapped you because we liked you, and because you’re an honorable dude. The fact that you can patch certain holes up was just a bonus. We wouldn’t have you any other way, and I’m sorry you got dragged into this shit storm.”
“I’m not,” I said and was surprised to realize I meant it.
“Yeah, and how’s that?” Cutter asked.
“Because if I weren’t ass deep in it, things could have and would have gone very different for Charity, and that’s a thought I just cannot abide, Captain.”
“There is that,” Cutter agreed, but it was the admiration on Hope’s face that caught my eye. She nodded, and it was something that didn’t come out of the irreverent woman very often. She gave me a nod all the while her posture, and the look in her eyes, communicated respect.
I felt like I’d just passed some kind of invisible test, but I couldn’t care too much about it just then. All of our heads lifted because the water had shut off in my bathroom. Cutter held out a hand past Hope and I passed the mop to him.
“Box of gloves under the sink,” he told Hope, as I stripped mine off onto the edge of the vanity. Hope and I traded places, and Cutter said unnecessarily, “Go on, we got the rest of this.”
I slipped down the hall towards my room and thought to call out, “Charity, it’s me, you okay if I come in?”
“Yes, of course,” she called back softly, and I rounded the doorframe to see her sitting on the edge of my bed body wrapped from armpit to mid-thigh in one of my towels, another turban style, wrapped up around her hair.
“How you doing?” I asked.
“I’m okay,” she said quickly. A little too quickly, but I let it slide and didn’t press.
“Cool, you need help packing up, or you got it?” I asked.
“I’ve got it,” she murmured.
“Mind if I stay in here, change and pack a bag myself?”
“No, I think, honestly, I’d like the company,” she said and when she smiled, it was a fragile, tremulous thing.
“Come here,” I uttered and went to her. She met me half way, standing, her arms going around me. I folded her into my arms and sighed, just holding her. I don’t think there was any doubt in my mind at this point that I was in love with her. It just really didn’t seem to be the time to say it, so I just did my best to show it. I held her close to me, breathing in her clean, fresh scent, pressing my lips to the smooth, soft skin of her shoulder.
“I’m okay,” she said, “really.”
“I know, Baby, and I promise, I’m going to keep you that way.” I drew back so she could see the seriousness on my face and in my eyes. She smiled, and pulled the towel from her hair, tossing it towards the dirty clothes hamper in the corner, before turning back to me.
“Then I promise the same thing,” she murmured and held up a pinky finger. I couldn’t help it, I laughed and obliged her, hooking her little finger with mine, bending and kissing them. She smiled and kissed our linked fingers too, and just like that, I think our first ‘thing’ as a couple was established and it was cute as fucking hell.
“I think those jeans are a lost cause,” she murmured and I looked down, they were bloodstained for sure, but I had a few tricks up my sleeves for that.
“Nah, some hydrogen peroxide and they’ll be fine
if I can get ‘em soaking in it quick enough.” She arched one golden brow at me and I smiled, “Paramedic, remember? Blood is par for the course, that’s why the uniforms are so dark, even still, blood gets on the patches sometimes. Hydrogen peroxide is color safe and breaks down the proteins in the blood if you can get it on the stain fast enough. Pretty sure you would’ve learned it as a nurse eventually, consider this your inside track.”
She looked at me thoughtfully, and nodded slowly, “Thanks for the tip,” she said softly, but I could see the wheels turning. I let it go for now in favor of changing, and getting this pair of jeans into a tub with a bottle of the aforementioned stuff. They were my favorite pair, so yeah, I wanted to take a crack at saving them.
Charity dressed in shorts and a tank top, the ones she had on earlier today, and shoved the rest of her stuff into her bag. I dressed quickly in a fresh pair of jeans and a clean tee, shrugging into my cut. I took the time and I threw a bag together, tossing my bloodied jeans into my bathroom’s sink and pouring the industrial sized bottle of hydrogen peroxide I kept under it, over the soiled denim. It immediately began to froth, the stains beginning to lift.
“Huh, I’ll be damned, it really does work,” Charity said over my shoulder.
“Told yah,” I said.
“Do you need to do anything else?” she asked.
“Antsy to leave?” I asked, deflating just a little on the inside. I didn’t want her to not come back to my home. I didn’t want this place to be a bad one for her, not when there was a potential to build new, less painful memories in it now.
“Just a little, I’m worried about Faith,” she confessed.
Ah, of course, “Yeah. We’re good to go, just let me throw these in the wash and get it going.”
“Won’t they go sour?”
“Not worried about that, I can always re-wash them later.”
I shouldered my bag and Charity shouldered hers, we met Cutter and Hope in the hall, my soaked jeans dripping I shouldered my way through and into the garage, Cutter and Hope moving aside to oblige me. I dumped the jeans into the wash, added detergent and started up the machine.