“Can I wash my face first?”
He nodded and went over to the stainless-steel sink. Running a stream of cool water, he got a clean towel from a stack and wet it before returning to her. As she held out her hands, he put the damp cloth in her palms and watched as she slowly pressed it against her face. It was hard to see her so frail and he thought back to how he had always known her: strong, powerful, edged-out.
Her hair had grown longer and was starting to curl up at the ends, suggesting that if she didn’t cut it, it would have a thick wave in the length. God, he wanted to touch the softness.
His eyes moved down to the table and abruptly popped wide. The sheet had twisted out from under her... and there was a dark spot on the towels that had been wrapped around her hips.
As he inhaled deeply, he caught the scent of fresh blood and was surprised he hadn’t before. Then again, he’d been pretty fucking distracted.
Oh... Christ. She was bleeding...
He tapped her lightly on the arm and mouthed, Doc Jane.
Xhex nodded. “Yeah. Let’s get this over with.”
Frantic, John stalked over to the door of the exam room. Out in the hall, there was a legion of worried faces, with Doc Jane at the head of the group.
“She ready for me?” When John stepped to the side and motioned urgently with his arm, the doctor came forward.
He stopped her, though. With his back to Xhex, he signed, She’s injured somewhere. She’s bleeding.
Doc Jane put her hand on his shoulder and maneuvered him around in a circle so they traded places. “I know. Why don’t you wait outside. I’ll take good care of her. Ehlena? Would you mind coming in—I’m going to need a second set of hands.”
Rehvenge’s shellan went into the exam room and John watched over the doctor’s head as the female started washing her hands.
Why isn’t Vishous assisting? he signed.
“We’re just doing an ultrasound to make sure she’s all right. I’m not operating.” Doc Jane smiled at him in a professional way—which was oddly frightening. And then the door was shut in his face.
He looked around at the others. All the males were locked out in the hall. Only females in there with her.
His mind started to churn and it didn’t take him long to come to a conclusion that couldn’t possibly be right.
A heavy hand landed on his shoulder and V’s voice was low. “No, you need to stay out here, John. Let go.”
That was when he realized his palm had locked on the door handle. Looking down, he told himself to release his hold... and had to send the command twice before his grip slid off the metal.
There was no more screaming. No sounds at all.
He waited. And waited. And paced and waited some more. Vishous lit another hand-rolled. Blay joined him, firing up a Dunhill. Qhuinn drummed a beat out on his thigh. Wrath petted George’s head while the golden retriever watched John with kind brown eyes.
Eventually, Doc Jane poked her head around the door and looked at her mate. “I need you.”
Vishous put out his cig on the sole of his boot and tucked the butt into his back pocket. “Scrubbing in?”
“Yup.”
“Let me go change.”
As the male jogged off to the locker room, Doc Jane met John’s eyes. “I’m going to take good care of her—”
What’s wrong? Why is she bleeding? he signed.
“I’m going to take care of her.”
And then the door shut again.
When V came back, he looked every bit the warrior even though he was out of his leathers, and John hoped like hell the guy’s competency on the field translated into the medical racket.
Those diamond eyes of his flashed and he clapped John on the shoulder before slipping into the exam room... which evidently was now functioning as an OR.
As the door closed, John felt like doing a little screaming of his own.
Instead, he kept with the walking, going up and down the corridor. Up and down. Up... and down. Eventually, the others dispersed, heading into a nearby classroom, but he couldn’t stand to join them.
With each pass by the door that was closed to him, he went wider afield, until the trip took him all the way to exit into the parking area and then back to the locker room. His long legs ate up the distance, turning what was a good fifty yards into a matter of mere inches.
Or at least it seemed that way.
On what must have been his fifth trip down toward the lockers, John pivoted around and found himself in front of the office’s glass door. The desk and the filing cabinets and the computer seemed relentlessly normal and he took a strange comfort from the inanimate objects.
But the deep breath was lost when he stepped forward once again.
In his peripheral vision, he saw the cracks in the concrete wall across the way, the fissures spidering out from a single impact source.
He remembered the night it had happened. That horrible night.
He and Tohr had been sitting together in the office, him doing schoolwork, the Brother trying to keep calm as he called home over and over again. Every time Wellsie didn’t answer, every time he got voice mail, the tension was cranked up more—until Wrath had appeared with the Brotherhood behind him.
The news that Wellsie was gone was tragic... but then Tohr had learned the “how”: Not because she was pregnant with their first child, but because a lesser had killed her in cold blood. Murdered her. Taken her out and the baby with her.
That was what had caused these marks.
John walked over and ran his fingertips across the fine lines in the concrete. The rage had been so great, Tohr had literally imploded into a supernova, the emotional overload dematerializing him to some other place.
John never had learned where he’d gone.
A sense of being observed had him lifting his head and looking over his shoulder. Tohr was on the far side of the glass door, standing in the office, staring out.
The two met each other’s stare and it was male to male, not elder to younger.
John was a different age now. And like so many things in this situation, there was no going back.
“John?” Doc Jane’s voice came from far down the hall and he wheeled around,then ran to her.
How is she? What happened? Is she—
“She’s going to be okay. She’s just coming out of the anesthesia. I’m going to keep her in bed for the next six hours or so. I understand she fed from you?” He flashed his wrist and the doc nodded. “Good. I’d appreciate it if you’d stay with her in case she needs to again?”
Like he would be anywhere else.
As John stepped inside the exam room, he moved on his tiptoes, not wanting to disturb anything; but she wasn’t there.
“She’s been moved into the other room,” V said from over by the autoclave.
Before he went through to the far door, he stared at the aftermath of whatever had been done to Xhex. There was an alarming pile of bloody gauze on the floor and more blood on the table she’d been on. The sheet and towels she’d been wrapped in were off to the side.
So much blood. All of it fresh.
John whistled loudly so that V would look over. Can someone tell me what the fuck went on in here?
“You can talk to her about it.” As the Brother got out an orange biohazard bag and started to gather up the used gauze, V paused, but did not meet John’s eyes. “She’s going to be okay.”
And that was when John knew for sure.
However bad he’d thought she’d been treated, she’d gotten it worse. Much worse.
Generally speaking, when there were injuries sustained in combat or on the field, the information was traded back and forth without a thought—femur broken, ribs crushed, stab wound. But a female came in, was examined without males present, and no one would speak a word of what had been operated on?
Just because lessers were impotent didn’t mean they couldn’t do other things with...