Forging Day (Crucible of Change Book 1) (37 page)

“That hurt!” I complained, loudly.

“She has to get the glass out, sweetie. You need to hold still.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” I held out my hand and thought about glass, broken glass in me, and pulled.

I shrieked as pain blossomed across my body, and my hand filled with bloody glass shards. “Ow, fucking ow! That hurt!” I whimpered.

The nurse bounced away from the bed in a blur of pink and yellow stripes. “Oh dear Lord!” she shrieked, and the alarms in my room went nuts.

There was much annoying bandaging and asking of questions. At least I put all the glass in one tight little group for them. They should be thanking me. I pretended I only spoke Dark Elf and abandoned the mess to Cordie. She was still talking when the tech arrived to take me to X-ray. I don’t know why the security officer was following us. “Ater-lay, Ordie-cay.”

On the way down, the hallway looked like a funhouse tunnel. The other stretchers in the hall were a blur of brightly-hued fur and undulating limbs. It was like every cartoon I’d ever seen threw up in my brain.

Sometime during the multitude of X-rays, the clownfish turned back into an IV bag, and the pain started gnawing on me in a serious way. On the way back up, I was ready to crawl out of my skin. Waiting for the elevator was a painful eternity. Another stretcher was already in the large elevator. As the doors closed, I recognized the man handcuffed to the stretcher next to mine. He was one of Colby’s men. A motorcycle dropped on his leg. Everyone else was dead. All he had to do was blame one of the others, and he’d probably walk away with a slap on the wrist. Not if I could help it.

He had one of those pain drip controller machines attached to his stretcher. I bet his leg sure hurt, what with getting shot and having a bike fall on it. I wouldn’t want him to be too uncomfortable. I focused on the machine, and on the device that cut off the flow between doses, and then focused my will as I closed my fist.

His eyes drifted closed as his breathing slowed.

The elevator doors slid open and I smiled and waved goodbye. I was nearly back to my room when someone noticed a problem with the prisoner. Alarms blared and people went into panic mode. I already knew it would be too late. I was more than happy to wait patiently until they returned me to my own room.

Cordie was still there, waiting for me. I said, “Hey sis, I feel like hell. Is everyone else okay? Where’s Kat?

“I know you feel like hell, sweetie. They have to get the morphine out of your system before you can have anything else. Everyone else is being tended to and is being very cooperative. They said you could only have one visitor, and I’m being selfish and staying with you. I know you want to see Kat, but you would have scared her. They’re probably going to move you to a room, and Kat will see you then.”

Doctor Kingston came in carrying a pile of X-rays. “Olivia, I hear you’re back with us.”

“Apparently. If you mean I can think straight and my entire body hurts, then yes, I’m back. Back sucks.”

He pinned the first few X-rays to the light board. “This is your knee. You’re going to need surgery, but it’s not an emergency. We’re going to do a cast and you’re going to get an appointment with your primary care doctor and an orthopedist.”

He moved to the next set of X-rays. “This is your shoulder. While the slash is deep and needs to be cleaned and stitched, nothing important was damaged. You got lucky. This could have been a lot worse. Your lab results show you lost enough blood that we’d like to give you a unit, except that your blood doesn’t match any type we’ve ever seen. Your friend, Miss Davis, was kind enough to donate a unit for you. As far as we can tell, she’s a match. I suggest if you’re going to continue assaulting gangbangers that you plan ahead a few months and bank some of your own blood, just to be safe.”

“I’m feeling stupid, so use small words. My knee needs surgery but the hospital isn’t going to do it. I have to come back later. I need blood except you don’t have it but you do. You have to sew things up in my shoulder. Does that mean I get to go home today?”

“We’re going to clean and stitch the shoulder fairly soon. We’ll get you started on the blood. We’d like to keep you at least through tomorrow to make sure you don’t have a reaction to the blood, or to any other medications. We’ll numb your shoulder with locals. By the time you’re ready to go up to your room, we should be able to try another method of pain management. We’ll be much more conservative this time.”

As it turned out, the folks arrived to do the cast before whoever was supposed to do the shoulder. Since I got to pick the cast color, I went with a royal blue, to match Kat’s eyes. Cordie was on her phone for ages. She smiled at me whenever I caught her eye, but she didn’t put down the phone.

I hurt and I wanted to go home. I started crying, which only made everything hurt worse. Cordie ended her call and came back over to hold my hand. “What’s wrong, baby?”

“I want to go home, but how am I going to get to my room? I can’t do the stairs. I lost my phone. It’s smashed in the park. My car and purse are still in the car, abandoned in the park. I’m tired. I can’t fix this.”

She squeezed my hand and stroked my hair. “Don’t worry, Olivia. I’m taking care of things. We’re setting up a bed downstairs until the tech can come out and get Grammy’s lift system working on the stairs again. Her wheelchair and walker will both be ready to go. I will buy you a new phone. You’re alive. You saved me and Berto. Everything else is minor details. Razaini knows where your car is. Someone will retrieve your stuff. It’ll probably be home before you are. Lieutenant Clark is even at bay for now. He’s getting his own cast.”

“What happened?”

“Apparently during the initial charge to battle, he tripped over a downed clothesline and broke his ankle.”

That made me nearly crack a smile. “How undignified. Did he shoot the clothesline for insubordination?”

“I don’t think so. No matter what fights you’ve had with him, he really had our back on this one. If he hadn’t supported us, and called in the SWAT team and extra officers, a lot of other people in that neighborhood might have gotten killed.”

“What about my necklace? And the dagger?”

“I have them. The paramedics gave me a bag and I put them away for you. Please stop asking about them, because I don’t want them taken away as evidence.”

“Okay. Thanks, sis. I’m glad you’re here for me.”

“I’m glad I’m here for you too, Olivia. Let’s not push each other away again, okay?”

“Okay.”

I was half dozing when the team showed up to work on my shoulder. I highly recommend avoiding this kind of repair if at all possible. They did numb it first, with about a million little burning shots all around where it already hurt. Cordie never let go of my hand the whole time. She was my anchor.

They finally pronounced me safely free of the morphine and administered a new pain med, before wheeling me up to my room. I had my nice new royal blue cast, and a spiffy sling for my left arm so I wouldn’t put any strain on the stitches in that shoulder. If one more thing happened to me in the next week, I was going to stamp my invisible Injury of the Month card and yell, “Bingo!”

Cordie followed me to my hospital room, excusing herself to make even more calls while they got me suitably arranged. I had one of those little trapeze things to help me pull myself up in bed, except I’m not sure how I was supposed to use it one-handed. I guess the shoulder team and leg team needed to send each other a memo or something. I was exhausted and the medicine made me sleepy, but I didn’t want to close my eyes without Cordie there in the room. I tried to not imagine Vivian’s blood turning all my honest little blood cells into devious little politician blood cells.

The nurse was helping me manage water with a straw when Cordie got back. “Kat’s on her way up, and I texted Leo your room number. You need to try and sleep. You’re safe now.”

“Not sleeping without someone here. What if there were more wolves? What happened to the ones guarding you and Berto, and how did you get out of the cage?”

Leo wheeled himself in, followed by Kat. He was sporting new bandages and hooked up to oxygen. “No catching up without me,” he wheezed.

Kat ran around him, and stopped, staring at me. “I want to hug you and I don’t know how. You’re a mess.”

“Come here.” I reached for her hand and squeezed it. “You can still give me a kiss. Part of me works.” She kissed me and held tight to my hand. There were tear streaks in her fur. “No crying. We won,” I told her.

She snuffled and wiped her eyes. “Right.”

I turned to my sister. “Cordie, you first. What happened to those two thugs with the hose?”

“You and Colby were arguing, and these guys reached over the fence with heavy duty dogcatcher poles. They hooked the guys around their necks and yanked them into the other yard. They were all in black and had greasepaint on their faces. That wasn’t even the weirdest part. One of them popped back up, and was staring at you and then me. He pulls this little flexible wire saw out of his pocket and tosses it to me, does this little salute, and then disappears again. He had this funky patch on his sleeve. It looked like a grey skull on a black background, with VM stitched in the middle of the skull. Berto got to the wire first, and was trying to saw through the metal ring in the ground. I took it away from him and threaded it through the leather collar. It cut through that in no time. Your cat appeared out of nowhere and did something to the padlock. It popped open and he disappeared again. I got the gate open as fast as I could and came to check on you.”

Leo gave her a really weird look. “Tell me more about Olivia’s cat later. Are you positive about that patch? Would you know it if you saw it again?”

“Of course I’m positive, Leo,” said Cordie. “When have I ever not been positive?”

He undid a tiny pin from his collar and handed it to her. “Did it look like this?”

She examined it closely. “Yes. Where did you get this?”

“It’s my unit insignia. The VM stands for
Vehemens Mestitia
. It means ‘furious misfortune’ in Latin. Give me a minute.” He pulled out his phone and tapped out a quick text. He didn’t look happy. “I want to know how they knew when and where we were going to be there. There’s no way this was a coincidence. I have a pretty good idea, but I’ll need to confirm it.”

It wasn’t long before his phone beeped with an incoming message. “Skeeter wants to know if my hot sister with the dark hair is currently dating anyone, and he’s sorry he only had time to toss in the saw. He wasn’t allowed to do more.”

“Skeeter? Seriously? And no, I’m not dating anyone.” Cordie turned kind of pink. “He said I was hot?”

Leo tapped away again. This time the beep was immediate. “He’d like your permission to ask you out next time he’s in town. He says you look feisty. He likes that in a woman. He also promises to treat you with all due respect so as to not make me kick his ass.”

“Skeeter, huh? Tell him okay. But he’d better not be wearing greasepaint.”

“Leo, why is he called Skeeter?” I wanted to know, even if Cordie didn’t.

“Skeeter comes from Louisiana in the Bayou. He swears he was raised by mosquitoes big enough to wrestle grizzlies and win.”

“So, do you have a nickname too?” I asked.

“Um, yes,” he said, but didn’t elaborate.

“What is it?” asked Cordie.

“You know how guys are. It’s really not important.”

“Now I really want to know. Don’t make me hobble over there and tickle it out of you,” I told him.

He mumbled something.

“I didn’t quite hear that, Sergeant Mitchell. Could you repeat it?” demanded Cordie.

“I said, they call me Casanova,” he finally admitted.

“Oh, Leo, you bad little heartbreaker, you.” I felt a real smile for the first time in days.

Cordie laughed too, playfully punching him in the shoulder. “Casanova. Somehow I was guessing Thor.”

He tried to put on his serious face. “Thor was already taken.”

The nurse came in while we were all laughing. She shook her head and smiled a bit. “It is after hours. You have to keep it down, or I’m going to shoo you all out of here, and send you back to your own room, young man.”

“We’ll be quiet ma’am. We promise,” said Leo.

“See that you are, Casanova,” she said, and winked at him as she left the room, pulling the door closed behind her.

Cordie got quiet, and she got those worry wrinkles in her forehead. “Leo, can you tell us what happened in the basement? I don’t know how, but that other prisoner was still alive when they moved us outside to the dog run.”

“It was a clusterfuck. I went down with two guys from the SWAT team. We saw the person on the floor and he appeared to be breathing. We did a quick check for other hostiles, and then approached the victim, telling him he was safe now. He erupted off the floor and did the fastest change into a werewolf I’ve ever seen. He tore out the one guy’s throat and threw him at us.

“We both started firing. The SWAT guy’s bullets didn’t work. Mine did. The bastards unhooked the gas line before they came outside, but the stench was so bad down there that we didn’t smell the gas in time. I don’t even know which one of our shots caused the explosion. The one officer and the werewolf were already down, so I grabbed the other guy and got us both the hell out of there.”

My eyes were so heavy, I thought I’d just rest them a minute while Leo filled her in. I snuggled Kat’s hand against my cheek and finally relaxed into sleep.

Memo

To:General Dxxxx

From:Major Parker

As ordered, I am submitting the following addendum to my rules of operation.

#84
—
I am not to suggest at the morning briefing that we “hug it out”.

#85
—
I am not to distribute “weird happening” Bingo cards prior to mission briefings, and I am not allowed to call “Bingo!” during said briefings.

#86
—
I am not to entice the captured werewolves to do tricks for bacon treats.

#87
—
I must not give the captured werewolves flea collars and chew toys.