Barber Shop Ink - Book 2: Between a Hedge and a Hard Place

by Penny Blush

  While deciding on what she wanted to do with her life, she received a phone call from her dad’s cousin, who she called uncle. Charlie invited her to come and stay for a while and reconnect with the family.

  It sounded like a good idea at the time.

  Hedge said that she had no idea what she wanted to do with her life anyway and was considering taking a year off to travel and just decompress for a while. After everything that had happened with her parents and her brother being away, she never really had time to stop take a deep breath and just be. So, she decided to take her uncle up on his offer.

  She was so excited and talked about it nonstop for weeks. We all thought a change of scenery would be good for her. Everyone that was except for Davan. On one of their rare Skype sessions, they had a huge argument, and Davan banned her from going.

  “Sorry, Little Bug but no, you can’t go,” Davan told her.

  He was so authoritative, going full ‘dad voice’ on her. I was walking past the door of her bedroom, and the command in his voice stopped me in my tracks.

  “W… What do you mean I can’t go?” She asked. You could hear confusion and heartbreak in her voice.

  “Because I said so, that’s why. Little Bug you don’t know Uncle Charlie as I do. You don’t know what he is really like.”

  “Because… Because you said so? Because you said so!” She yelled at him, his face on the computer screen showing shock at her raised voice. “Well, I hate to tell you this Davan James, but you don’t get a say!” She thumped her desk in anger.

  “Yes, I do. I’m your legal guardian, Little Bug.”

  “On paper, maybe,” she cut him off, “but that’s all! You’re never here! You left a few months after our parents died. You left me alone!” She looked over her shoulder at me. She always could tell when I was near. “Sorry, Jax, you know what I mean.”

  I shrugged. I knew Hedge meant no offence. I knew this was different. I wasn’t Davan. I wasn’t her brother. Sometimes a girl just needs her big brother.

  “Davan, I have seen you in person for what a handful of days in the last four-and-a-bit years? And that handful wouldn’t even amount to a full month. Even then, I’m forced to share you with everyone else. You are MY BROTHER, MY FAMILY!”

  “Little Bug, please. I’m just trying to protect you,” Davan said, seeking to get his angry, disappointed, emotional sister to see reason.

  “You’re doing a fantastic job of that Dav, from behind a computer screen, on the other side of the God damn planet! You have no idea who I am. What I’ve been through or what is good for me. You’re not my father you know. You’re barely my brother.”

  You could see the moment that her words struck his heart and the moment she realized what she had said. Instant regret registering on her face.

  “Everything I do. Every single day. I do to keep you safe,” he murmured. “I know that I’m not our dad. I would never pretend to be, and even on the other side of the planet I am still your brother.”

  “Dav… Davan, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” she said, trying to take the angry words back, emotion swelling in her throat.

  “Yes, you did,” he gave her a sad smile. “It’s okay. I know I haven’t been around for you that much and for that, I am so sorry. I truly am, and I know you’re upset. You’ll just have to find something else to do with your holidays,” he said, believing that he had won their argument.

  “I don’t have to find something else to do with my time,” she said flatly, her anger building again. “I’m taking Uncle Charlie up on his offer.”

  Davan started to protest, but she cut him off again.

  “I’m almost seventeen Davan I was smart enough and mature enough to finish school a year early. I think I’m quite capable of looking out for myself. And just for the record, this is my life, not yours and I don’t need your permission.”

  She got up and walked away from the screen, then turned back to add.

  “I love you Davan, and I am so proud that you’re my big brother. I listen to your advice on almost every other thing, but on this, I have to disagree. I am doing this. I need to do this for me. I am going to stay with Uncle Charlie for a while. I’ve made up my mind, so you’re just going to have to accept it. I love you Dav. Say goodnight to the moon, okay?” she said leaving the room.

  I stood in the bedroom doorway for a while watching as she descended the stairs. I turned back to the computer screen taking the seat that she had vacated.

  “You okay Dav?”

  “Yeah Jax, I’m all right,” he sounded tired.

  “When are you coming home?”

  “Who fucking knows? When we get all the bad guys?” He shrugged with a small smile at his attempt at a joke.

  “We’re all very proud of you, and we thank you for your service. You know that, right?”

  “Yeah, Jax I know and thank you. Thanks for looking out for her and being a brother to her. I… I just wish I could be there for her.”

  “I know, and she knows it too. She’s just, being a brat.”

  “That is one of her many redeeming qualities,” we laughed at his comment.

  Hedge could be an award-winning brat when she wanted to be. She could make you so mad at her and then all she had to do was look at you with her big puppy dog eyes melting your heart and once again she had you wrapped around her little finger. Brat!

  “Uncle Charlie is not a good guy, Jax. I can’t give you details,” he gave me a look, I knew. Meaning all communication on and off the base was being monitored so he couldn’t give specifics over Skype. “Please just see if you can convince her not to go.”

  “I’ll try and don’t worry Dav. I’ll look after her,” I said.

  Two weeks later she was on a plane, with me beside her. Yeah, I hadn’t convinced her not to go, but I compromised and went with her. I was sure Davan would be okay with her going if I was there to watch her back.

  We met her uncle in Japan and spent two weeks doing touristy shit. Charlie was the perfect gentleman and loving uncle. I figured Davan was just the overprotective big brother. The whole time I was with them nothing happened to make me suspicious or concerned, and I happily left her with him and went home.

  I believed that she was in good hands and that her uncle would look after her.

  I should have listened to Davan.

  If I had, I would be standing in her kitchen watching her work. Using skills, she should never have learnt in the way that she did. But then again, if I had I might have been standing here watching my best friend die instead of watching my cousin save him.

  In the box, amongst other things were enough medical supplies to perform minor surgery. I stood in the kitchen with Hedge, watching her work. She had shed the jumper she’d been wearing, that was wet and covered in blood, dumping in on the draining board.

  She stood at the kitchen sink, scrub-cleaning her hands and arms in a way that would have passed any hospital audit. Hedge was silent staring out the window at the trees being back-lit by lightning as she prepared herself mentally.

  I studied her as she methodically cleaned the area around the large stab wound on Memphis’ abdomen. The expression on her face changed to one of intense concentration as she assessed his injuries. After what felt like an eternity some of the tension left her shoulders and I knew that he would be okay.

  “He’s a fortunate boy, Jaxon,” she stated almost clinically, while flushing the wound with saline and antibacterial solution. “It’s deep, but the knife was not very sharp, and it somehow missed everything. It’s just cut through muscle and some unimportant veins which are causing the bleeding. It could be much, much worse. The knife could have nicked his bowel, his intestines, a major organ, if that had happened, we would have had no option but to call an ambulance. Jaxon, he’s lucky, so very lucky. I can clean and close the wounds with some sutures, and then all we have to worry about now is an infection.”

  “I can’t believe how quickly this stuff comes back to you,” I sa
id in awe of her skills.

  “Jax, it was only like two-and-a-half years ago that I stopped,” she replied, not taking her eyes off her patient.

  “I know, but still.”

  I continued watching her go over Memphis’ body, stitching his wounds, checking his bones for breaks. Luckily the only one that she could find was a stable fracture in his cheek. It was fractured, but the bones had remained in place, she’d said it was more like a crack in the bone, so he wouldn’t need to go to the hospital and have a plate put in.

  Being a ‘field medic’ was just one of the skills that she learnt while staying with her lovingly caring Uncle Charlie - Note the sarcasm - Uncle Charlie is a fucking bastard, in every sense of the word. Hedge was only supposed to be staying with her uncle for two months when I left her with him. It turned into almost six years by the time she managed to get herself out.

  Hedge is so insanely smart that she could have gone to school and been a doctor for real. She has a photographic memory or something. She just has one of those brains that’s like a giant sponge. She just had to read or see something and boom she was an expert. She just liked to do creative stuff more than academic that’s why she chose hairdressing. Why spend your life doing something that you don’t enjoy that doesn’t make you happy? Money isn’t everything.

  “Well that’s all I can do for him now,” she sounded as exhausted as she looked as she finished patching up Memphis. She silently finished cleaning the fresh and dried blood from Memphis’ body, dressed the wounds and packed her supplies away.

  She was quiet as she placed the blood-soaked sponges into the trash-bag along with Memphis’s ruined clothes. She disposed of the used scalpel, needle, and other medical instruments in a hazardous waste bag, taping it up.

  “What are you going to do with all this?” I asked as she put the hazardous waste bag in with the bloody clothes and then put them all in an industrial strength bin-liner.

  “I know a guy,” she muttered.

  “You know a guy? What do you mean you know a guy?”

  How did she know a guy? She told me she severed all ties to that life.

  “Henry’s brother works at the hospital. He’ll get rid of it in the medical waste. No questions asked.” I gave her a look. “Don’t look at me like that Jax. I have a lot of connections that I have kept but never used. Henry is connected to Charlie, but he got out and after I came home, and started to heal I needed someone who knew the life but was out of it to talk to. We got talking that’s all. The only thing that I’ve used him for is, construction doesn’t mean I’m not aware of his other skills, and he knows about mine. I trust him with my life.”

  “Right, sorry. It’s just with you asking for The Box and then saying you know a guy. I guess I just jumped to conclusions. I never wanted to see you do any of this ever again without ‘Doctor’ being in front of your name and a million additional letters at the end,” I scrubbed a hand down my tired face. “Sorry, it’s been a long fucking night.”

  She nodded her acceptance of my apology, looking back over at Memphis. “We’ll need to keep an eye on him. He might need a blood transfusion. He’s lost a lot of blood.”

  “And if he does? He’s going to have to go to the hospital. How the hell are we supposed to explain that?”

  “No, we won’t. I can do it,” she said flatly.

  “What do you mean, you can do it?” I was sure I didn’t want to know the answer.

  “I can do it. I can give Memphis my blood. I’m a universal donor. I got tested when everyone at the shop had their regular check, so I know I’m clean.”

  She was just so matter-of-fact in the way she answered; it was as if she was talking about giving him just some regular old thing like a cup of sugar, not giving him a fucking blood transfusion.

  As piercing, tattoo, and body-mods artists we are around blood and body fluid all the time. When Memphis first started Barber Shop Ink, he brought in employee health and safety practices that were above and beyond the industry requirements. At first, we all found them to be annoying and over the top, but now we wouldn’t do it any other way.

  Part of the standard practice that Memphis brought in was that we are all regularly tested, not just for the protection of the clients but the staff as well.

  “You know how to do that?” She gave me a look, and I knew it was a dumb question, of course, she would know, Charlie would have made sure she did. “Of, course you do, sorry. Is it safe? For you, I mean?”

  “As long as I don’t give too much, and he doesn’t need it too often, then I’ll be okay.” She stood looking down at Memphis lying on the kitchen island bench, gently running her fingers through his hair. I think it was more to comfort her than it was for him. “I… I just need him to be okay Jax, you know?”

  The look in her eyes tore my heart to shreds, she may not have said it out loud or even admitted it to herself, but she was head-over-heels in epic-love with Memphis, and I’m sure he felt the same. I wanted him to wake up and be okay, but I also wanted to kick his ass for putting the worry, hurt, and anguish in her eyes.

  “Can you please stay with him so that I can have a shower and get cleaned up?” She indicated to the blood all over her arms and legs.

  Her Davan jumper was sitting in the sink, soaking in icy water with baking soda hoping to dissolve the blood before it stained. The events of the last few hours have taken its toll on her, and she looked exhausted. I knew she was running on fumes and would crash soon.

  “Sure, thing Kid,” I gave her a one arm hug, wanting to comfort her without getting covered in blood. “When you’re out, I’ll help you move him. The last thing we need is for him to fall off the fucking kitchen bench and break a hip.”

  “Thanks, Jax. I won’t be long.”

  “Take your time Doll, I’ve got this,” I said placing a hand on Memphis’s shoulder. “Just so you know, when he’s up to it, I’m going to kick his ass.”

  “Jax, you don’t have to do that. We still don’t know what happened and besides, I’m sure he’ll be beating himself up enough for the both of you.”

  She gave a small smile and headed to the bathroom. I stood in the silent kitchen with my hand still on my best friend’s shoulder, comforted by the slight rise and fall of his breathing.

  “Is… is she… Okay?” Memphis croaked as the bathroom door clicked shut.

  “Memphis, you know, I’m getting really sick of you asking me that,” I said as I leant against the kitchen bench, looking at my beat-up friend.

  Memphis rolled his head to the side, looking at me. There were so many emotions swirling in his chocolate coloured eye; the blue one had swollen shut. Memphis has something called Heterochromia Iridium, one blue eye, one brown. They were freaky when you first saw them, but I was used to it. I’d been looking at them for years.

  “Jax, please,” his voice caught in his throat.

  “Memphis, you know I consider you my brother, and I love you, but I really don’t like you right now.”

  Memphis closed his eye, turning his head to stare up at the ceiling. “I don’t… like me much either.”

  My tall, larger-than-life friend lay on the plastic covered bench in the middle of the kitchen, looking small, weak and a shadow of the man he was. Unimaginable rage coursed through me looking at him. The side of his face and his eye were a red angry and swollen. Black and blue, ugly looking bruises coloured more of his body than his tattoos. The white surgical dressings taped over the stitches that Hedge had applied were standing out in clean, crisp contrast to the kaleidoscope of colour that made up his bruises and tattoos.

  Memphis drew in a ragged breath asking again, “Jax is she okay?” A single tear slid from the corner of his eye, disappearing into the matted hair of his sideburn. “Tell me… she’s okay.”

  “It was Vex, wasn’t it?” I asked quietly, but it was a rhetorical question. The only reason that Memphis would have been in a situation to get the beat down of his life and why he wouldn’t let us call the cops or at
the very least an ambulance was because of that fucker Vex.

  “You have to talk to her,” I told him point blank.

  “No,” he turned to me, his chocolate coloured eye blazed with fury. “She can’t know any of this…”

  “It’s too fucking late for that Memphis!” I hissed in anger trying to keep my voice down, so she wouldn’t hear. “Hedge found you bloody and broken. She called me freaking out because she thought that someone was breaking into the shop and then she found you. She begged me to come and help your dumb ass.” I stepped closer, standing over him, thumping my clenched fist on the countertop. “SHE thought that you were dying or dead.”

  “Jax she…”

  “SHE was the one who found you. SHE was the one who kept you from bleeding out. SHE is the one who kept her cool and kept you ALIVE. SHE is the one that spent the last three hours up to her elbows in YOUR BLOOD!”

  “Jax I…”

  “No!” I cut him off again. “Hedge is the one who had to stitch your ass back together. She quite literally had her hands inside your guts making sure that you haven’t severed anything major!”

  “Jax, you don’t understand…”

  “No Memphis. You don’t understand.” I stabbed my finger at him. “I don’t ever want to see that look on her face again. A look that you put there.”

  “What … What look?” Talking was becoming more of a struggle for him.

  “The look like someone had just ripped her heart right out of her chest threw it on the ground in front of her and stomped on it.” Another tear slid down his face as I continued my onslaught. “Because of all this,” I seethed pointing at all the dressings and bandages that covered his body, “you made Hedge tap into a part of her past that was supposed to stay fucking locked, bolted, and sealed, exactly where it was. In the God damned past.”

  He really had no idea what this could potentially do to her. He wasn’t there; he didn’t hear the screaming, didn’t witness her falling apart after a nightmare. He didn’t see what her body had been subjected to, the evidence like a sadistic treasure map across her skin.