She looked at the motionless figure on the ground. Her voice went flat. “I knew he peddled drugs. I knew he could get me what I needed, and he did for a while. But, after a couple of deals with him, he started to hold back on me. He refused to deal to me because he said he had a limited supply. I had nothing to trade with him. I didn’t have bullets or beer. He didn’t care about my medical skills.”
“So why didn’t you just decide to stop taking the drugs?” Patton asked in a small voice.
Nikki glanced up at him and offered him a small smile. “You’re probably too young to know what withdrawal is, but if I stop taking the drugs, it will make me terribly sick. I’m terrified of it. I’ve seen patients go through withdrawal, and it’s one of the worst things people can experience, especially when they’ve been on drugs for a long time like I have. I’m terrified of feeling those things and getting that sick and having no way out.”
Patton looked up to Allison as if he still didn’t understand. “I’ll tell you later,” she whispered to him.
“But if Samuel was withholding from you, why did you think taking the hotel would make things better?” Matthew asked.
“It wasn’t just taking the hotel. He was giving me minimal doses, just enough to keep me hooked, but craving more. He told me that he planned to start a drug production operation at the hotel. There’s enough space out here and the conditions are good for growing poppies. He had the plan and the means to process the seeds into morphine. He promised that if I helped him, he would make me his partner. Then, I wouldn’t have to worry about going through withdrawal. Ever.” She put her hand over her mouth as if she was horrified with herself. “I was so scared that I believed him. I actually believed him. I thought we could grow a poppy farm and start making drugs. I was desperate to believe it would work, which was why I agreed to help him. God, I was such an idiot. But that was before I ever met you.”
“And after you met us?” Matthew probed.
“I didn’t want to betray you,” Nikki said in a rush. “I was so torn when Samuel told me what I had to do. But if I didn’t, he was going to stop giving me pain medication! I would have gone into withdrawal while I was tending to David. I couldn’t risk that. I might have done something to accidentally hurt him or missed some kind of diagnosis that could have saved his life. I had to ask for more pain meds and when I did, Samuel made me swear I would help him. I knew what I was doing and I still did it. All I can say is that I’m so sorry. I was desperate.”
Nikki hung her head in shame. Matthew looked at Wyatt. Wyatt looked exhausted both from his wound and Nikki’s story. Matthew could see every line on his face. His jeans were soaked with blood.
“What do you want to do, Matt?” Wyatt asked, as if answering Mathew’s silent question. “I get why you’d be furious. Hell, I’m furious just hearing that story. If you want to run her off, I completely understand. She won’t be welcome at the gun club. But she is the only doctor we have.”
That fact was a stark truth that slew the hatred welling up inside of Matthew. Yes, Nikki had done terrible things to them. But without her skillset and knowledge, they’d be worse off. She seemed genuinely repentant for what she’d done. Fear had driven her to help Samuel, and now she was facing the consequences of those actions along with the fear of going through withdrawal.
But he couldn’t make this decision on his own. He looked to Matthew and Jade as if seeking their advice. Kathleen shrugged at him. “I’m too angry to give you a level-headed verdict,” she said.
“Addiction is a nasty disease,” Jade said softly. “I know I’ve had a lot of desperate moments in my life, and things have just gotten harder since the power went off. I can understand Nikki’s pain and why she did what she did. I hate that she did it and put us in danger like that, but I can’t deny that she did have some difficult choices to make. The question is, can she overcome them?”
Nikki looked grim, as if she were waiting for the executioner’s blade to fall.
Matthew nodded his head and then studied the doctor. “I suppose you have a couple of choices,” he said to her. “No matter what happens, you’re going to go through withdrawal. There’s no way any of us can stop that.”
Nikki looked pale. “I know. I can feel it starting already.”
“The question, then, is would you rather work through withdrawal with the support of our community? Or would you rather go through it alone?” Matthew asked.
“With you,” Nikki said without hesitation. “I’m too scared to be alone.”
“All right then,” Matthew said. “Here’s the deal. You help to fix up Wyatt’s leg. Then we’ll let you stay at the hotel while you get clean. Once the drugs are out of your system, we’ll open up a conversation about if you have a place here. If you belong here, or if you belong on your own. Do you agree?”
Nikki didn’t think twice. “Agreed,” she said.
34
“Patton, I need you to run to the gun club and get Shawn and Max,” Matthew instructed as he stood up from his crouch next to Nikki and went to Wyatt’s side. Wyatt put his arm around Matthew’s shoulders and winced with pain as Matthew helped the Marine stand. “You need to tell them what happened and bring back any medicine or equipment they can to help Wyatt. I think he’s going to be here while he recovers.”
“We can’t have pain medication in the hotel while I’m detoxing,” Nikki mumbled.
“You’ll be locked in a room,” Matthew said. “We can’t let Wyatt suffer with a wound like this. You have to be strong for his sake.”
Nikki let out a long breath. “Okay,” she said. “I want to detox. I can do this.”
“I’ll be back as fast as I can,” Patton said, and took off running. He seemed to disappear within moments, and Matthew felt another wave of pride wash over him. Patton was the best of him and Kathleen.
Kathleen, Matthew, and Allison managed to lift Wyatt up and carry him into the hotel, albeit with grunts and cries of pain from the Marine. They situated him in David’s old room, and with shaking hands, Nikki bent over Wyatt and started to treat his wound. She cut off his jeans and eased the tourniquet off. Blood pumped out of the wound and soaked the rose-patterned quilt.
“Is that a good idea?” Matthew asked nervously.
“A tourniquet stops the blood flow to the restricted area,” Nikki said, her voice sounding just as shaky as her hands. She flexed her hands into fists as if she was trying to control them. “I’m sorry. It’s starting already. We have to make this fast. Kathleen will have to take over for me at some point. I had to loosen the tourniquet or the limb would die without blood flow and I assume you want to keep your leg,” she said flatly.
Wyatt nodded. Sweat beaded on his brow. “That would be nice,” he said.
“Okay then,” Nikki said. “I need fresh water and clean rags and linens. I need some kind of brine solution—that will hurt, but it will at least keep any infections at bay since we don’t have antiseptic. I need thread and a needle to stitch up the wound.”
Nikki rattled off another list, and the Rileys split off in different directions to gather the needed materials. By the time Nikki had patched Wyatt up, he had passed out from the pain. Nikki was sweating profusely, but she had an air of success about her as she dumped the bloodied linens back into the bowl of clean, sterile water. Patton had also returned from the gun club with a crew of people in tow. All of them insisted on seeing Wyatt and staying in the room. They all studied Nikki with grim expressions, and Matthew knew that Patton had relayed the story of what had happened to all of them.
Nikki’s list of allies had shortened to no one.
“He’ll live,” Nikki finally said, helping to ease some water down Wyatt’s throat. She turned to Kathleen as she washed off the blood on her hands. “Lucky for us, the bullet didn’t lodge in his body. This was, even though it doesn’t look like it, a graze. Keep it stitched, keep it clean, and keep it bandaged with fresh clean linens. Try to lance any boils that emerge and clean out pus. If t
hings go south, try to work him through it as best as you can, but if not, take a heated blade to it and cauterize it. If the skin looks green, we’re in trouble.”
Kathleen nodded. “Got it.”
Nikki gave her a weak smile. “The apprentice becomes the master.”
For a moment, Matthew was certain Kathleen might cock her elbow back and punch Nikki in the face again. Instead, Kathleen surprised him by returning Nikki’s smile, and said in a tight voice, “We’ll see.”
Matthew remembered how hard it had been for her to overcome Jade’s betrayal. If Nikki was going to become a permanent member of both the gun club and the hotel, Kathleen would have to learn to forgive Nikki too. But forgiveness came with time, Matthew thought. It would take time.
Nikki turned to Matthew and clasped her hands in front of her. “I’m ready,” she said quietly.
Matthew nodded and guided her out the door. He took her to another room near the back of the hotel. It was a single room with one window that looked out onto the majestic mountains. While Nikki had been stitching up Wyatt and while Kathleen had been acting as nurse, he and Ruth had taken the opportunity to create a safe room for Nikki. Anything sharp or dangerous had been removed. The window could open, but not enough that she could escape or hurt herself. He worried about the sheets and the covers, but there wasn’t much he could do about that.
Nikki walked into the room and surveyed everything. She checked the closet and nodded in approval when she saw it was bare inside. “This looks good,” she said, and then laughed sadly. “I mean, it doesn’t look like a comfortable place to spend a couple of weeks, but it looks good from an outsider’s perspective. Just...don’t be sympathetic toward me when it really starts, okay?”
“What do you mean?” Matthew asked.
Nikki sighed and sat down on the bed, “I mean that when things get bad, I’m going to try and do anything for you to open the door or to give me what I want.”
“What else should I expect?” Matthew leaned against the doorframe.
“To be blunt? It’s going to be awful,” Nikki said. “Not just for me, but for all of you. I’ll scream and cry and beg to be let out. I’ll promise you anything for drugs. I’ll say terrible, hurtful things.” She gazed into his eyes and Matthew felt the weight of her next words. “I’ll say awful things about David just to get a rise out of you. But I promise you here and now while I’m in my right mind that they will be lies. I did nothing to hurt David.”
“So there will be a lot of emotional manipulation,” Matthew said and tried not to show how worried he was. “What else?”
“I’ll be really sick. Sweating with chills and then sweating from fever. My body is essentially trying to purge some unknown assailant. It thinks it needs something to survive, but that’s the only way to prove I don’t need the drugs. Things will get ugly.”
“What can I do to help you in that regard?”
Nikki bit her lip. She held out her hand in front of her, which was starting to shake worse than before. “You’ll need to check in on me to make sure I’m eating and drinking enough fluids. Staying hydrated is critical. There might be a time where I pass out and you have to make sure I don’t aspirate my own vomit. It will be a thankless job, but I am thankful right now. This will save my life. Keep the kids away. They don’t need to see or hear any of what will happen in this room.”
Matthew nodded. “All right,” he said.
“Once I’m through the worst of it and the drugs are out of my system, things will get easier. I will be incredibly weak. I’ll most likely be depressed and anxious. You’ll have to take it one day at a time. We can’t think beyond that if you’re truly going to help me. It will be a long process. But please know I appreciate everything you’ll be doing for me. Even if it won’t feel like it for a long time.”
“I hate that you have to go through this,” Matthew said in a low voice. “No one should have to deal with something like this.”
“It will be part of my penance for what I did to you and your family,” Nikki said. “I can’t apologize enough for everything. I swear that I will be better in the future. I swear it.”
“I believe you,” he said. “We will get through this.”
Nikki smiled weakly at him. “While I’m in here going through a living hell, what will you be doing? Going to a movie? Taking in the sights? No, I should be realistic. It is you, after all. What kind of tasks will you do?”
Matthew smiled, but the question was a valid one. He paused for a moment. “I don’t think I will have an agenda,” he said slowly. “We all deserve a break. We’ve been going at a breakneck pace since the world ended, and I think we all need to recover. There’s a lot of trauma that’s happened, and I don’t think we’ve all dealt with it.”
Nikki nodded slowly. “That’s…actually really smart of you, Matthew.”
“Thanks. The well is on its way to being completely functional. The garden won’t be dug up by unknown assailants at night anymore.” He winked at Nikki.
“Too soon,” she said.
“Too soon,” he agreed. “We’ll see what becomes of the garden now that it’s back in its right space. Any and all bans will be lifted from Patton, and he’ll go out hunting with the other boys. I shouldn’t say boys. They’ll be men before I know it. Come to think of it, he’s probably a better shot than I am. I could learn a thing or two from him.”
“The apprentice becomes the master,” Nikki repeated.
“Truer words have never been spoken,” he said. “Other than that, we’ll need to evaluate the future. What will we all become? What will the next year look like? The next five years?”
Nikki shifted on the bed. A ray of sunlight shone through the window and painted half of her face in a bright white beam. “I admire you, Matt,” she said. “You’re a good man. I hope that I can be worthy enough to join you when I get through this. You’re thinking of the future for your people, and that’s the best thing a leader can say. I wish I could talk more, but...”
“Is it time?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Good luck,” Matthew said and stepped outside of the room. Before he closed the door, he saw Nikki turn her face into the sunlight and close her eyes. He hoped she would emerge from this experience stronger than before. He locked the door and turned and left her alone. Whatever was going to happen to her, it wasn’t something he could help her with. He could only be a pillar of support for her.
He walked down the hallway and back into David’s suite. The room was still packed full of people. He studied the faces. Some were of his own family. Others were gun club members he knew well. Others were people he’d never seen before. They all greeted him in some way, and he was humbled by the respect for him that shone in their eyes.
Patton stood near Wyatt’s head and put his hands on his hips. “I told them what happened,” he said proudly. “I told them what you did, Dad. I told them everything.”
“Matt,” Shawn said, stepping forward. “We’re so sorry about Nikki. I never thought she’d be the one causing so many problems.”
“We’ll talk about it once she’s out of withdrawal,” Matthew said. “One day at a time.”
“We brought in that other scumbag who was outside,” Shawn said, pointing his thumb out the window. “Guys seemed pretty beat up, but Kathleen is tending to him now.”
“Maybe he can tell us more about the people who are living at Samuel’s compound,” Matthew said, running his hand through his sandy blonde hair. “We’ll need to figure out a way to help them, too. I have a feeling a lot of them might have been in dire straits like Nikki and might need a safe space.”
“Lots of people need help around here,” Shawn said. “You’ve helped us. We can’t thank you enough for saving Wyatt. For letting us use your well. For being...well, for being unofficial members of the gun club.”
Wyatt cracked his eyes open and smiled at Matthew. “Maybe it’s time to change that,” he said.
“Aw,” Matthew
said. “Are you sure about that? I thought you might want to get a million miles away from me and my penchant for getting into gunfights.”
“Life wouldn’t be as exciting without you, Matt,” Wyatt said. “But seriously. If I get into one more showdown because of you, I swear...”
“I promise I’ll keep the gunfights down to a minimum from here on out,” Matthew said. He put a hand on Wyatt’s shoulder. “Thank you, though. For everything.”
“Well see, here’s the thing,” Wyatt said, “I’m getting pretty tired of having to keep thanking you for stuff. I’m sure you’re getting exhausted from thanking me. So, I think we should make this official. We’re not just allies. We’re our own community. We’re part of the hotel. You’re part of the gun club. What do you say?”
“Really?” Matthew asked. Hope swelled up inside of him.
“I think we should make sure everyone is on the same page going forward,” Wyatt said. “No more doubting the gun club, no more doubting the hotel. We’re all in this together. We all live by the same rules. No more surprises if I can help it.”
“I’ve had one too many of those,” Matthew said with a grin.
“So you’re in agreement then?”
“Yes,” Matthew said, and pulled out some hotel stationery that was in the bedside table. He clicked a pen and smiled at the group. “We’re not just a family, we’re also a community. One that is now coming together for the first time. We need to hammer out some laws we should abide by and how we can learn to trust each other. So, in our first official community meeting, what should we talk about?”
The other members clamored to speak, their enthusiasm infectious. Matthew hoped that one day he’d be able to greet everyone at the gun club by name. He hoped that he could rely on the gun club members to take care of his family in case something happened to him. All of a sudden, he was overwhelmed with a myriad of emotions. He wanted those feelings to last. The need for hope, trust, and community had been building inside of him for a long time, but now it felt like somehow, against all odds, they had built all of those things here in this very room.
EMP Catastrophe | Book 3 | Erupting Chaos Page 23