“Go, now, Danielle,” Julian shouted.
No need for quiet now. The world seemed very loud to Finn. Car doors slammed. People started to shout. There was a flash of bright light as he looked up at the street lamp, and then Finn felt his peripheral vision fading. Everything got foggy. All he could see were the twin holes on his forearm, and a mixture of blood and a weird, almost urine-like substance oozing out. It seemed so small for it to hurt so much. He tried to lift his arm, but movement failed him.
“Finn, stay calm.” Julian forced him to sit up. He pulled and prodded him until he was upright. “I’ve trapped the snake in the car. It won’t bite you again. You have to stay calm. We need to keep your heart rate down, and I can’t do that if you panic.”
“Been snake bit much?” Somehow Finn couldn’t see Julian as an outdoorsman. He groaned as his arm fell off his lap and hit the dirt of the parking lot. A strange almost metallic taste seemed to fill his mouth. Blood. He was biting his lip against the pain. Finn tried to force himself to relax.
“Not once, and I am very grateful for that.” Julian got in behind him, lending strength as he buoyed him.
Fuck, his arm hurt, but worse, a part of it was starting to go numb. Finn’s whole body started to shake.
Julian’s arms came around him. “It’s going to be okay, Finn. Danielle will be back in a moment. Abigail is a nurse. She’ll know what to do, how to prep you for transport. We’ll get you to a hospital.”
Abby Barnes came running out of the bar. There was no mistaking her determination, even from Finn’s distance. The pretty woman who seemed so soft and carefree had a ferociously competent look on her face. Her husbands were running right after her, but only Dani was managing to keep up. She ran next to Abby. Her mascara ran down her face, making little rivers of black where she’d been crying.
Abby fell to her knees beside Finn and immediately took his arm in her small hands. She briskly waved Julian’s hands away, forcing Finn’s arm down and away. Finn winced at the pain as she examined him.
“Hey,” Julian began.
“I need to get the bite below his heart, Julian. Let me do my job. This isn’t my first rodeo. Sam, find something I can wrap Finn’s arm in. I need something flexible. And get some short boards for a splint. I need to compress the lymph nodes around the bite. Then I need you to get the truck started. We can get him to the hospital faster than an ambulance at this point.”
“What do you need from me, darlin’?” Jack asked, staring down, obviously willing to concede any and all control to his wife at this point.
“Jack, you get that damn snake. We need to know what kind it is.” Abby Barnes was in charge. She looked down at his arm. “Unless you know the species. That would be very helpful.”
“Well,” Finn began gritting his teeth through the pain, “it was a snake with rattles, so I think it’s safe to assume it was a rattlesnake.”
Abby was not amused. She frowned down at him. “What kind of rattler? There are ten kinds in the state of Texas. This is important.”
Dani was biting her lip as she looked down at him. “Please, Finn, they need to know what antivenin to give you.”
“I don’t know. It was whichever one had the biggest mouth and the evilest eyes. I didn’t ask it for its contact information.” Damn, Abby was poking and prodding. Every single touch hurt like hell, and now he was feeling nauseous. He didn’t want to throw up, but he wasn’t sure he could avoid it. Couldn’t she just let him die in peace?
“It’s an eastern timber,” Jack stated plainly.
Bile rose like acid in Finn’s throat when he saw that the big cowboy had the damn thing in his hands. What the hell was he thinking? It twitched and rattled, and he held it like it was a kid’s toy.
Jack held the head between his thumb and forefinger, locking down the jaw. “Good size, too. Bet that hurt like hell, Finn. Don’t worry, we got an hour or two before it kills you. Last time I got bit, I managed to finish the fence I was working on before my hand went too numb. Baby, should I keep this one alive?”
Abby smiled up at him. “I think the hospital would appreciate it, Jack. They can always use antivenin.”
Dani took Finn’s gone-numb hand in hers. “It’s okay, Finn. I promise it’s going to be okay.”
Finn rested back against Julian’s chest and let himself give in to the darkness that overtook him.
Julian’s footsteps echoed as he paced the empty halls of the ER, and the florescent light made everything slightly green. He wished the hospital was larger. It was almost a clinic. Would they really give Finn the best care possible? He was surprised and a bit upset at the utter panic he’d felt at the thought of losing Finn. When he’d heard the snake rattle, he hadn’t been afraid for himself. He’d seen Finn and Dani being hurt, and it sent a shock through his system. He’d really only known Finn for a day, but what they’d shared had really affected Julian. He understood Finn on a fundamental level. He’d felt very much the same way as Finn, always on the outside looking in. He’d been there. It was an honor to begin to lead the young man on the path that would make him whole.
It had even been an easy decision to allow Finn access to Danielle. In the end, Julian hadn’t been able to help himself. They wanted each other so much. Years of longing had been etched on their faces as they huddled together, waiting for his discipline. He’d been the one to give them that, to give them a way to finally be together. He’d watched the way Finn had taken her, desperately, as though he was starving and had been forever.
Julian had felt the same way as he watched them. He’d wanted to join them. The impulse had been almost overwhelming. He’d wanted to force Finn to turn Danielle over and offer that sweet ass up to him. He’d wanted to feel the slide of Finn’s hard cock against his as they took Danielle together. He’d wanted to be a part of them.
“Hey, I thought you could use this.” Jackson held out a Styrofoam cup of coffee.
He didn’t need coffee. He needed a fifth of Scotch. Just standing around in a hospital was making him antsy. He took the proffered coffee anyway. It gave him something to do with his hands. “What is Finn’s status?”
It had already been an hour, and he hadn’t heard anything yet. It rankled. He wasn’t in control. He’d started to argue, but Abigail had interceded and explained that the nurses wouldn’t be intimidated. Nurses would simply call security, and before he would be able to buy the hospital and fire them all, Finn would either be well or dead, and Julian would have wasted his time. Julian had believed her. For the first time in a long time, he’d been forced to back down. The doctors had been very insistent on only one of them staying with Finn while he received treatment. Danielle’s hand hadn’t left Finn’s free one all during the long night. Julian hadn’t been able to force Danielle from his side. The fact that he was on the outside gnawed at his gut.
Jackson slapped him on the back. “Don’t worry about it. Abby talked to the doctors. She says he’s going to be fine. We got him here in plenty of time. He’ll be sore tomorrow, and they’ll more than likely keep him overnight, but he’s not even going to need surgery.”
Julian’s stomach turned. “Surgery?”
Jackson waved it off. “It’s nothing to worry about. Sometimes the bite kills enough of the skin that the docs have to take it off, but Finn was lucky. He didn’t get much of a dose of venom.”