6. GENIUS
6
GENIUS
Blair had a million questions but there was already dial tone echoing back to him. It took a few tries to get his phone back in his pocket with his hands shaking. The breeze from the water seemed to be colder than before, like someone was walking icy fingers down his spine.
“I’ve gotta go.”
The blackness engulfing his vision worried him at first, until he realized his unfocused gaze had fallen to Wren’s chest. Blair couldn’t keep his head raised to look at him—it felt heavy, everything felt heavy.
He groped his pockets for his wallet, cursing his fingers, willing them to just be still , goddammit .
“I’ll get you a cab. I’m sorry, it’s an emergency.”
“I take it you’re meeting them at the hospital.”
He started to ask how Wren knew what was going on before he remembered the fractional space between them, realized Spencer’s words had been just as clear to Wren as they’d been to him. He forced his mind to process the rest of what Wren said. The hospital… no.
“Adam’s wanted in just about every city in Queens for drug distribution. He shows up in the system and he’s gone.”
Wren reclined his weight back onto his heel, creating just a little more room, a little more air for Blair to suck in like he wouldn’t get another chance. “It sounded serious. For you and that dealer’s sake, I hope you have someone in Incindious who can patch up holes instead of just blowing them into people.”
Blair scrubbed his hands over his face. His legs had started to shake but he didn’t think it was from pain. He didn’t know for sure. Everything felt dulled. “We have him and Nolan.” His hands fell to his sides. “Shit.”
“What?”
“Adam and Nolan have been together since highschool...there’s no way Nolan’s going to be in any condition to help him right now. We’re going to have to get him that way, though, and I need to go be with them—I’m really sorry but I gotta go.”
“Take me with you.”
Blair paused in his fumbling attempt to unclip his keys from his belt loop. “Huh?”
Wren reached down and released the clip, and handed Blair the keys. “It doesn’t sound like you have any other options.”
“Wren...” Blair stared down at the keys, the blurry shapes finally coming into focus. “We’re at war with another gang. We have no idea where their eyes and ears are, we haven’t been able to pin them down. You could become a target if you help us.”
“I’ll manage. This could be a useful learning experience in working under pressure.”
He’s not a learning experience, he’s my friend, he’s family. Blair pushed those thoughts down as another, smaller voice rose up from the back of his mind. “Can Mr. Maxters do it?”
Tristan had been a learning experience, too, and he might only be alive now because of it.
“Let’s go.”
It was a miracle they didn’t need a hospital by the time Blair put the kickstand down, having done the drive in half the time it would usually take, but they reached the bar unscathed. He stood up and grimaced at the ache that had blossomed into sharp pain in his thigh. He ignored it; from what Spencer said, Adam had a lot more wrong than some leg pain. Blair could deal.
He wasn’t surprised to find the bar locked. He flipped to the right key on his ring and let himself in, holding the heavy wooden door for Wren to follow. Immediately, he found why the blinds were drawn and both the lock and deadbolt on the door were engaged.
Adam was laid out on two tables pushed together, heaving shallow, wet sounding breaths. Blair approached him shakily. The dim lighting did nothing to hide the sallow hue of his dark skin, the beads of sweat clinging to it.
Nolan was pacing at the window on the phone, probably talking to one of his suppliers, bits of the conversation reaching Blair’s ears over the hum of concerned voices around them. “I don’t have the equipment for an x-ray. I don’t know if he would make it long enough to get to you. I’ve sewn up my fair share of stab wounds and bullet holes but I don’t know about this and it’s fucking Adam.” Blair heard the choked sound of him trying to hold his emotions back. “I can’t cut on him, man. I can’t do it.”
Felix stood at the end of the table where Adam was spread out, arms folded and muscles taut. Blair could guess the conversation that had already taken place—Felix had probably told Nolan he was Adam’s best shot, and he could either man up and try to help him, or leave him to die on that table. That was the kind of boss Felix was. Strong, fearless, a little unhinged, and probably being a complete asshole about the situation. Blair had almost forgotten his company until the boss’ eyes flashed and a tic appeared in his jaw.
“Who the fuck did you bring here?”
Blair opened his mouth to answer, but Wren passed him and was standing in front of Felix with three long strides. It put his back to Blair, which Blair didn’t like. He needed to be able to get between them if things turned ugly.
“I’m training to be a doctor. I was with Blair when one of your lackeys called-”
Felix rose from his slouch to his full height. “You’ll show my second man some respect.”
“—when one of your upper lackeys called and thought I would come along.”
Blair could see Felix’s fuse burning down at rapid speed and cut in before either of them could say anything else. “Wren is going to be a trauma surgeon, he trained under Doc—you know, Dr. Garrett, the one you met outside the hospital. He can help.”
“You bring some kid in here who’s not even a doctor yet and think he’s going to cut on one of mine?”
Again, Wren spoke before Blair could offer what would have surely been a less antagonistic response. “I came for the experience.” He looked over at Adam, whose shirt had been cut open and pushed away from his chest. “Those bruises on his chest and the fact it’s rising unevenly tell me he’s suffering from hemothorax. Internal bleeding as the result of blunt force trauma since I don’t see any open wounds. Hit by a car, I would bet.” Blair could tell by the narrowing of Felix’s eyes that Wren was right. “But whether he lives or dies doesn’t matter to me. So, by all means, you all hold hands around this table and hope the excess fluid stops accumulating in his pleural cavity. Let me know how that goes for you.”
Felix entered the last bit of Wren’s space, his larger frame letting him tower over the student even without a great height difference between them, his eyes bright and livid. Blair still couldn’t see Wren’s face, but he had a feeling he knew what it looked like; calm, disinterested. Bordering on defiant. Like he wasn’t less than a foot from the most dangerous man in Flushing.
Julian’s hand closed on Felix’s shoulder. “Felix, I know the kid is arrogant, but we have to think about Adam. You can punch him later.”
I would rather you don’t punch him at all, Blair thought, but he wouldn’t dare voice it or Felix might punch them all just to make sure it was out of his system.
“You do anything to fuck with him, and I’ll bust your hands up so bad you never write again, to hell with being a surgeon. You got that?”
“Oh, don’t scare me like that, I might be trembling too much to work,” Wren said flatly, and turned away from him. He looked at Blair. “I need whatever surgical tools you have, and preferably a catheter tube. Also, please keep Clifford the Big Red Gangster there out of my way.”
Blair cringed when he heard the scuffling of feet as Julian held Felix back from pummeling Wren right then and there. “Yeah, I’ll try to find what you need, but you can’t talk about the boss like that.”
Wren carried on like he hadn’t said anything. He glanced at Nolan, who had ended his conversation and approached the table carefully, like just looking at his lover’s condition would make it worse. “You’re his partner?”
“Partners in crime both literally and figuratively,” Nolan said with a rueful smile.
Wren pressed his fingers to the side of Adam’s neck while he looked at his watch. “Tell me what happened.”
“There’s a member of a rival gang, Jinx. We found out where their apartment was. Jinx is out of the country, but we’ve been keeping an eye on the place to see if we could catch any other members coming and going. Maybe follow them back to whatever they use as a base.” His eyes fell to Adam’s bruised form. “I had to make a delivery last minute, and he went alone. He called me when it happened and talked to me for as long as he could while I was on my way to him. A team from Phantom caught on to us. Whether they were waiting for a single target or it was coincidence that they showed up while he was alone, I don’t know, but one went upstairs and as soon as Adam went into the alley to follow them, a car came around the corner and hit him.”
Blair brought over the first aid kit from behind the bar, and Wren took out a pair of gloves as he said, “Good. Having to round a corner slowed them down, lessened the impact. They probably weren’t counting on that. I’m sure this was intended to be fatal, and it still might be.”
Nolan’s face darkened at that, but it didn’t look like it was news to him that Adam’s injuries could kill him. He left to get the medical equipment he had brought in his car, and Blair looked up at Wren as soon as the door closed behind him. “Look, I’m definitely no doctor, but what can you do about internal bleeding without doing x-rays? I mean, you can’t see what’s going on in there,” Blair said.
“No, I can’t.”
Spencer had been silent so far, standing by Felix, but he stepped forward now. “Then what’s your plan?”
“Use what I know about the accident and the physical evidence of the bruising to narrow down where his chest wall is bleeding from. Then, I’ll know where the blood is pooling.”
Spencer lowered his head for his eyes to be visible above the tint of his glasses. “I thought you said it was some cavity in the chest.”
Nolan returned, putting an end to Spencer’s questioning as he spread out two armfuls of equipment onto the next empty table. Sleeves of surgical tools, a respirator, some plastic tubes wrapped in more plastic, a few small machines that Blair didn’t recognize, it all fell from his shaking hands on to the polished wood. An ill-timed thought occurred to Blair that they were going to have to do one hell of a sterilization job before they served any customers.
“Blair, put on a pair of gloves.”
“What, me?”
Wren took an elastic out of his jeans pocket and pulled his hair up in a ponytail. He cocked his head toward Nolan. “He won’t be steady enough to help and I need another set of hands. Put on some gloves or let this guy keep bleeding internally until his lungs can no longer expand under the weight and he suffocates. Take your pick.”
“ God , you’re an asshole.”
Blair took the damn gloves out of the box, though, and pulled them on.
“There’s a grey sleeve of tools rolled out to your left. Hand me the second scalpel.”
Blair did as he asked, and saw the rigid form of Felix move from his place a few feet away.
“You sure you know what you’re doing?” Felix asked, looming over Wren, so much as he could with only a couple inches of difference in their height.
Wren only smirked, spinning the scalpel between the fingers of his left hand—his non-dominant hand, for fuck’s sake. “Let’s find out.”
Felix snarled, but Julian put a hand on his shoulder and reeled him in.
“Blair, hand me that rubber tube.” In a flurry of movements, Wren had flayed the end of the tube into strips, and put it to the side. “I need a dry plastic jug, preferably one that’s only held water.”
“Got it,” Spencer said, already making his way behind the bar and into the storeroom.
“The sealed plastic tube that has the number thirty-two on the wrapping,” Wren added when he saw Blair looking down at the array of them on the table.
Blair finally found the one Wren was looking for and passed it over. Wren never raised his eyes from his patient. Unease had spread throughout the room, a mutual feeling of anxiety as Adam’s skin lost more and more of its color, but either Wren was unaware of it or was able to tune it out.
Wren fastened the rubber tube he had cut to the end of the plastic tube he had just unwrapped. “We don’t have a drainage system so this is going to have to suffice as a flutter valve, make sure airflow is directed away from his chest and none goes back into it. Blair, pull out a chair for this jug. It needs to be below his chest level. Gravity is going to be our vacuum.”
“What now?” Blair asked after he sat the jug in its place.
“Now we make the incision.” Part of Blair had expected to see him show some emotion, being in his element, doing what he was in school training to do, but his indifference was unwavering. Wren extended his gloved fingers. “The clamps.”
Blair picked up the only thing he thought Wren could be referring to, which looked like a small pair of scissors with more square blades. Adam’s shirt had already been cut away, letting Blair see the glisten of antiseptic as Wren cleaned an area on his ribcage. He met Felix’s eyes from further down the table. The hostility had left Felix’s gaze, leaving only the suffocating tension of watching Adam’s life hang in the balance. Nolan stood at the other end, by Adam’s head, and he looked one staggered breath away from a panic attack. The rest of Incindious gradually moved in closer until they could all see what was going on. Marie pushed Jake’s hand away when he tried to cover her eyes.
Wren felt along Adam’s ribs for a couple of moments, and then silver flashed among red as a slit opened in his side. Blair wanted to look away, felt his stomach churn as Wren opened the hole wider, but it almost felt like a disservice to Adam, who was laid out on the table for trying to get a lock on Phantom’s base. He steeled himself and fixed his eyes on the wash of blood over latex when Wren held the hole open with his finger.
“The tube.”
Blair handed it to him. A sour taste rose in the back of his throat as the tube was inserted, and began to disappear further into Adam’s body. He couldn’t help but flinch when blood began to surge through it. Someone sucked in a sharp breath at the sight but Blair didn’t look to see who.
He couldn’t count how many times Nolan and Adam had saved their asses. They had the most anatomical knowledge of anyone in the gang, and Blair had seen them close up stab wounds, reset a dislocated shoulder or two. Always them. Always together. They were not individual members of Incindious, they were a team who didn’t seem to function separately or be inclined to try. Adam’s blood looked as dark as an omen, running through the clear tube. There was so much of it.
Then the lopsided appearance of his chest began to change, and Blair realized only one side of it had been rising and falling when he breathed. He jerked his head up to see a look on Wren’s face that could almost be called relief.
“The thoracostomy was successful. Blair, sutures.”
He fumbled for the kit, dropped it a couple times before he managed to get it into Wren’s hands because if he heard that right then what Wren had done worked. The casual statement had given the rest of the group pause, as well; a collective moment of making sure they had heard and understood it right. Wren didn’t elaborate further as he began the process of removing the tube and closing the hole in Adam’s ribs.
Nolan’s shaky voice finally broke across the murmurs of the others. “S-So, he’s going to be okay?”
“He’s going to live. Okay might be an optimistic word for how poorly he’s going to be feeling, but he’s not going to die.”
It was a good thing the stitches didn’t take long, because Blair’s mind blanked out when he circled the table and he honestly wouldn’t have cared what he disrupted once Wren was within reach. He wasn’t about to get on his toes to reach for the taller man’s neck but he didn’t think twice about throwing his arms around Wren’s slender waist. He heard the pop of Wren discarding his gloves, felt the warmth of his own breath puff back against his face when he exhaled into Wren’s tank top. Wren’s hands settled on his shoulders and just kind of… patted them. Whatever. Blair wasn’t even surprised that Wren didn’t know how to hug properly.
Blair laughed as he released him. He would have stood there with his arms around Wren until the sun came up if it got him any closer to expressing the immeasurable gratitude he felt, but the adrenaline was wearing off and his leg’s protests were no longer willing to be silent. He eased himself down in a chair at the table full of medical supplies. Nolan seemed to have used his last reserve of strength as well, his head down on the table next to Adam, holding his partner’s hand.
Ricky had been staying out of the way since they arrived, but he made his presence known as he raised what had to be the biggest bottle of liquor Spencer had on the shelf. “We’ve got all the more reason to kick Phantom’s ass now, but for tonight I think this calls for celebration!”
Blair looked back at the boss, who had taken his place on his favorite leather couch. “Adam is gonna live to fight with us another day. Pour us a round, Spence,” Felix said.
The room erupted into a comforting, familiar chaos. Blair gladly took the shot that Ricky brought to him and lifted it to Adam, unconscious though he was, before throwing it back.
Once everyone had a drink, Spencer sat down next to Blair and leaned forward on his elbows with just a hint of a conspiratorial smile. “So,” he said, running a finger along the edge of the shot glass dangling in his hand, “That’s him.”
Blair didn’t have to ask who he was referring to. “Yeah. That’s him.”
“He’s something else.”
A smile of his own came unbidden to Blair’s face. “Yeah, he is.”
“If he’d stuck around, I’m sure the boss would have thanked him. Felix doesn’t have to like him to appreciate what he did.” Spencer sat his glass down in favor of taking out his Zippo and a cigarette.
Blair straightened. “He’s already gone?”
“He bailed out as soon as Ricky called for drinks.”
He looked around but, sure enough, Wren was gone. Not one for socializing, is he? Spencer watched, drawing on his cigarette, but he didn’t stop Blair from making his way to the door.
The streetlight in front of the bar was flickering, nearly burned out, but the artificial glow of the surrounding businesses was enough for Blair to scan the sidewalk. Wren was nowhere in sight.
He took out his phone and hit Wren’s contact.
“It didn’t take you long to start missing me, Blair.”
“Where did you run off to? I could have taken you home, it’s the least I could have done after what you did for us.”
“I told you, I did it for the practice. I have no desire for your gang of well-dressed pyromaniacs to be in my debt.”
Blair sighed and moved back enough that he could lean against the wall, take some of the weight off his leg. “I still would have taken you home.”
“It’s fine, I’m meeting Reymond at the hospital and going back with him.”
Stubborn ass. “You didn’t have to put your boss, or senior doctor or whatever, out of his way. I really wouldn’t have minded.” I really, really wouldn’t have minded having a chance to thank you somewhere that wasn’t full of people.
“It’s not out of his way. We’re both going home to the same place.”
The words didn’t register as unusual at first, but as soon as they did, it felt like someone had doused him in cold water. Pieces that he would have rather not gone together slowly fell into place; Wren planning to do his residency under him, the fond way Doc looked at him, the first name basis.
Blair stared at the sidewalk. Wow, he was an idiot.
“Okay.”
He didn’t wait to hear Wren’s clipped version of a goodbye. He ended the call with an odd pressure on his chest. The weight of his naivety, maybe. The thought of Doc’s— Reymond’s— striking features sent a wave of irritation through him. They were a perfect fit. Doc’s easygoing nature with Wren’s colder demeanor, his people skills to make up for Wren’s lack thereof. They were both so fucking smart. He didn’t realize his grip had been tightening on his phone until pain shot through his hand.
He pocketed his phone. It wouldn’t be long before someone came looking for him. He just needed to go back inside and let Spencer make him drinks until he stopped trying to figure out why he was upset.
Chink, chink. Chink, chink.
Something was bothering Spencer. It was dark, but Blair didn’t have to see to recognize the sound of that restless habit.
Chink, chink, chink. Chink, chink, chink.
His own heart rate picked up in time with the flipping of Spencer’s lighter. Why was it making him so nervous? He didn’t know where he was, but he felt hot, getting hotter by the minute.
Chink, chink, chink. Chinkchinkchink.
He just wanted the noise to stop. Something bad was going to happen and everything was so dark.
Chinkchinkchinkchinkchinkchink.
Blair, he’s got my—
BANG
Blair threw himself upright with a cry withering in his parched throat. He fisted his hands in the sheets. He was scared to look down, to see his leg soaked in blood. The gunshot was still echoing in his head. There was so much pain accompanying the phantom sound in his head that he almost thought he’d been shot there, instead. He pressed a hand to his temple and groaned. He didn’t even remember going to bed. A reluctant glance down told him he was dressed in the same clothes as yesterday. He was laying on top of the blankets, so he knew from the quick look at himself that his leg was perfectly fine, or as fine as it was going to get. No blood, no hole in his pants.
He stood up and immediately sat back down when pain shot from knee to hip on his recovering leg. Okay, maybe fine was generous. He had spent way too much time on it yesterday. He begrudgingly snatched his crutches from beside the bed and pushed on to them. That was one pain eliminated, leaving only his throbbing head to trouble him. He began the awkward descent downstairs to his kitchen, and more importantly, his aspirin.
He cleared the last step and heard, “Look who’s finally awake. Good afternoon.”
His hand flew to his lower back to find his gun missing, but he realized its absence about the same time he realized the voice belonged to Spencer and exhaled with a few curses on his breath. “What are you doing here?”
Spencer craned his head back over the arm of the couch, where it looked like he had slept if the presence of the rumpled throw blanket was any indication. “By the time I got you in bed I was pretty whacked, and I figured I would keep this out of your hands until you’d had a little less vodka.” He held up Blair’s cell phone.
“Oh, shit.” Blair twisted the cap on the bottle and shook a couple white tablets into his hand. “What did I do?”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t let you do too much damage. You came back into the bar asking for Goose so I knew something had to be wrong.” Spencer stood and crossed the short distance from the couch to the kitchen area. He laid Blair’s phone on the Formica countertop that would have done a good job impersonating marble if it wasn’t peeling at the edges.
Blair unlocked his phone with dread. His messages were still up, and his stomach dropped as soon as he saw who he had texted most recently. He tapped Wren’s name to bring up the conversation. One look at the texts from last night had him groaning and shoving the phone back at Spencer, like the strategist could undo them.
if u and doc r happy then im happy fr you im sure you guys are good tgether
Wren
Can you resend that message in English?
sry been drinking
youre so fuckng pretty i hope he tells you that
Perhaps out of mercy, Wren never responded after that. Blair pulled the bag of grounds from the cabinet and started the coffee maker. He didn’t drink much, and after seeing his phone, he didn’t think he was ever going to do it again. The idea of being upset over Wren seeing someone was bad enough, but he had actually sent Wren that nonsense; tangible, irrevocable proof of his own stupid jealousy. There was no taking it back. He waited for the last drops of liquid to taper off before he poured him and Spencer each a cup of coffee.
If fate was kind to him, then he would never speak to or cross paths with Wren again and be spared the humiliation. After the attack on Adam, it wasn’t like he was in the mindset for...for whatever had been going on between them, anyway. He stared at his reflection in the dark surface of his brew. The smell wafted up to his nose, and suddenly coffee was the last thing he wanted.
“We got any leads on the guys who hit Adam?” he asked.
Spencer stirred milk into his coffee until it was more the color of milk chocolate than ebony. “We have a license plate. Nolan was too out of sorts yesterday to remember it but it came back to him this morning. That car has probably been flattened into scrap metal by now but it’s the most solid thing we’ve had yet. If you want to clean up and get changed, I’m going to Felix’s when I leave.”
“Yeah. Sounds good.” Blair put his untouched drink down on the counter and started to turn away, before faltering and looking back at the blond man leaning there. “Thanks for staying over and keeping me out of trouble. I know that’s not really your job.”
Spencer laughed. His glasses were still folded up on the coffee table, giving Blair a rare display of amusement in his eyes, hazel just like Blair’s, though his favored the brown side where Blair’s were more green. “I’ve been cleaning up after Felix since high school. Keeping you all out of trouble is exactly my job. Now, go get ready. We have work to do.”