Chapter 8 Rocco #2
Garrett moves. The front door opens and cold morning air floods the stale cabin. I hear the truck engine turn over, the low, powerful register of the V-8 vibrating through the floorboards. Tires crunch on gravel as he reverses toward the porch.
I walk to the table. I look down at Killian. My brother’s husband. The man I drove ninety minutes through the dark to save. He’s breathing. His pulse is visible in his throat, a slow, steady beat that Adrian’s hands put back in order.
I slide one arm under his knees. The other under his shoulders. I brace my feet. My left hand screams—the sutures pulling hard, the wound bed compressing. It’s a bolt of white heat that shoots from my palm through my elbow and into my shoulder socket.
I lock the arm. I shove the pain behind the same internal wall I’ve been locking things behind my entire life.
I lift.
Killian comes off the table. The full weight settles into my frame—my legs, my hips, my lower back absorbing the load. One hundred and ninety pounds. My arms have carried more. My body has carried more.
But my body wasn't running on four days of fever and significant blood loss. My dominant hand wasn't held together by seventeen delicate stitches. The difference is immediate and catastrophic.
My vision tunnels. My quadriceps begin to shake uncontrollably. I can feel the warm wetness inside the gauze on my palm. The sutures are letting go, one by one. The tissue is separating. I can feel the blood seeping through the thick dressing and running between my fingers.
"Put him down." Adrian is beside me.
He doesn't ask. He grabs my right forearm. His grip is firm, a surprising strength in those thin, clean fingers.
"You’re tearing the repair. Put him down and let me stabilize his incision before you move him."
"There’s no time."
"If you carry him to that truck and his wound opens in transit, he will bleed into his abdomen and die in the back seat. Two minutes. Give me two minutes to reinforce the dressing and clamp the drain."
His eyes are wide. It’s the first time I’ve seen him look truly urgent. Not afraid, but intensely focused. The surgeon seeing a catastrophic outcome and knowing exactly how to prevent it.
I lower Killian carefully back onto the makeshift table. My arms are vibrating like plucked wires. My left hand is dripping—a steady patter of fresh blood hitting the plank floor. Each drop sounds like a drum in the sudden silence.
Adrian moves with blinding speed. He pulls the sheet back, checks the dressing, and applies additional pressure pads over the long incision. He tapes them down with quick, precise motions—war-zone triage muscle memory. He clamps the bloody drain tube. He disconnects the IV and caps the line.
"He’s ready," he announces. "But he needs to stay horizontal. Minimal jostling. And you—" He looks pointedly at my hand. The gauze is now completely soaked red. "You cannot carry him. Your grip will fail."
"Then who the hell carries him? You?" I look at his arms. Those thin, pale arms that probably couldn’t lift a bag of cement. "Garrett and I will take him. You keep his head stable and hold the drain."
"Your hand—"
"My hand is mine. I’ll deal with it."
I call Garrett in. We position ourselves—me at Killian’s shoulders, Garrett at his legs, Adrian at the head with both his hands cradling Killian’s skull to prevent movement.
We lift.
The weight distributes between us. My left hand is a fist of pure fire clenched around Killian’s shoulder. The fresh blood runs down my wrist and drips off my elbow, marking our path across the floor.
We move through the front door, across the sagging porch, and to the back of the truck.
The cold air hits my bare chest like a slap.
Garrett had arranged a nest of blankets and sleeping bags in the back.
We slide Killian carefully onto them. Adrian climbs in beside him, positioning himself cross-legged with Killian’s head resting in his lap.
His hands are already checking the fresh dressing.
I stand at the tailgate, swaying on my feet. My chest heaves. The world tilts and steadies. My left hand hangs uselessly at my side, dripping steadily onto the gravel.
Garrett is already in the driver’s seat. The engine is running. Headlights are off.
Adrian looks up at me from the back of the truck. Killian’s head rests against his thigh. His glasses catch the grey morning light, masking his eyes. His hands are red with my blood and Killian’s blood. It has seeped into the lines of his palms like dark ink into paper.
"Get in the truck," he says. His voice is steady. "When we stop, I’ll fix your hand. Again."
I reach into the waistband of my jeans and pull out the Makarov. I check the magazine—six rounds left. I hold it out to him, grip first.
He stares at the gun. Then at me.
"If I fall," I say. "If I go down and I can’t get back up and they’re coming up behind us—"
I push the heavy gun into his hand. His fingers close around the cold grip. They don’t shake.
"You shoot whoever comes through that back door. And if I’m the thing that’s slowing us down, you shoot me too."
He holds the gun the way a man holds something venomous—carefully, at a distance from his body. His index finger rests perfectly along the frame, not on the trigger. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
"Get in the truck," he says again. His voice is quieter this time.
I climb into the passenger seat. Garrett hits the gas. The truck lurches down the gravel road, tree branches scraping loudly against the roof. Behind us, the empty cabin sits in the clearing. A box with no one left in it to kill.
My hand bleeds into the seat cushion. The doctor holds a gun and a dying man in the back. And somewhere in the quiet woods, the Russians are closing the distance.