Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
“Think he’s dead?”
The black void was slow to fade. I could hear things before any of my other senses came back to me. The loudest sound made me think of glass crunching under boots.
“Maybe. That’s a lot of blood.”
The more I roused, the more pain registered in my back and my right side just above my hip. My arms felt weird, like they were being held on puppet strings. I couldn’t feel my wrists or fingers.
“Fucker got me good. My shoulder’s messed up. I need to get to a hospital.” The words were clipped, pained. The accent was also midwest American.
“I don’t give a fuck about your shoulder. Pull!”
This time, I felt the tug against my shoulders. I was finally able to piece together that I was being dragged by my arms across my debris-covered floor. That’s what the pain in my lower back likely was.
“I’ve only got one arm. You pull!”
I recalled the fight. Ironically, the pain was helping me wake up faster, making me more alert.
But I wasn’t fully there yet. Which sucked, because I could feel my shorts getting soaked with blood and it felt like there was a hot poker in my side.
I couldn’t quite feel my legs yet, so I didn’t have much of a choice but to just let myself get dragged.
I knew I’d taken down six of the Bloody Scorpions.
The sedative in the tranquilizer dart must not be very strong if I was waking this quickly.
I was not familiar with chemical sedatives enough to take a guess at which I’d been dosed with.
I knew natural toxins taught to me by my father during my training.
Like the neurotoxin the twins were fond of, there were a lot of poisons and paralytics in nature. One just had to know where to look.
The one who shot me with the dart was obviously the one without the arm injury. I was trying to figure out whose shoulder I had messed up when I heard the telltale squeak of my front screen door. It grated on my brain like nails to a chalkboard. Motherfucker, I needed to burn that door.
I should have done it the day Lu walked out on me. Every time I heard that fucking door close, it was like a spike being driven into my soul. Even with her back in my life, I still hated that sound.
“Drop him!”
My body was jolted to a halt just before my stairs. It was only three steps from the top of my little porch to the dirt, but I was still not looking forward to being dragged down them.
Unfortunately, the order to drop me was taken literally.
When the Bloody Scorpions holding my arms and torso up suddenly released me, my weak body went crashing down onto the steps and gravity took care of the rest. I fell forward like a rag doll, toppling ass over head, down the steps to land in a crumpled heap on the dirt.
Pain lanced my entire frame, my muscles still weak and useless. “Ow…” With my face pressed into the dirt, the word was muffled.
“Damn, Paniolo, that looked like it hurt.”
That was one of the twins, which was a different voice than the one who had ordered the Bloody Scorpions to drop me.
I groaned at the fucker.
“Geez, your back is torn up, Prez.” I had no idea if that was the same twin or the other one.
“No shit,” I growled into the dirt. “Help me sit upright!”
Two sets of hands grabbed me around my arms, answering the question as to whether both twins were there. They got me to my knees. It took a modicum of effort to get my eyes to blink open.
I saw Bacon standing in front of me with his gun pointed over me. I would assume at the two Bloody Scorpions still on my porch. I glared at my SAA. “‘Drop him’? Really?”
Bacon shrugged, not entirely apologetic. “You’re alive, aren’t you?”
My jaw ticked. “Are there anymore?”
“Just these two that we’ve seen so far. Any alive inside?” Bacon asked me without taking his eyes off of his captives.
I was barely able to lift my head towards one of the twins. “Turn me around.”
The three of us spun, my legs dragging in the dirt of my yard.
I saw the two Bloody Scorpions on my porch steps with their hands raised.
One had one of my daggers still sticking out of his shoulder.
My head lolled forward in a less than graceful motion as I looked down my chest. My bandolier was no longer around my shoulder.
I noticed the guns scattered at the Bloody Scorpions’ feet. Bacon must have had them disarm while the twins were helping me up and I’d missed the order.
The sight of my house was disturbing, to say the least. What I could see was destroyed. Anger hit me even harder. My fingers twitched as the realization of what could have happened if I hadn’t been awake.
Lu and Pua could have died tonight. So fucking easily.
“You’re bleeding, Prez,” the twin on my right said. He crouched down. “You’ve got a chunk of wood in your side and your back is covered in splinters.”
“Get Tommy back here.” He was the closest thing to a medic we had.
“They’re already on their way back,” the other twin said from my left.
“They called right around the time your lady did,” the one on the right informed me.
“When they couldn’t get ahold of you, they called Bacon,” came from my left.
I was getting dizzy trying to look back and forth between whichever one was talking. I closed my eyes and just pretended only one was speaking until my head stopped spinning. Fucking sedative.
“Spirit went inside the warehouse they were using as a homebase to try to get some information as to what they’re doing here. He found surveillance pictures of your home, but no Scorpions. Tangaloa’s been trying to call you.”
I grunted. One of these days I was actually going to have to remember where my phone was. “Lu?”
“Still in the basement.” That came from Bacon. “Can you hold yourself up? I want to get these two cuffed—Motherfucker!”
My eyes flew open at the exclamation to see both Bloody Scorpions falling down the stairs and Holly standing in my shot-up doorway. Both landed in the dirt and did not move again.
“I count five down inside, Sir,” she said as she casually walked down the stairs after them. “Four are dead. One’s breathing but his neck is broken.” Her blue eyes turned on me, and I was grateful for the nearly full moon and cloudless night that let me see clearly. “Impressive.”
Bacon lowered his gun as he headed towards his woman. “I told you to stay put!”
“And I told you that I won’t ever stay put when you’re in danger.” She smiled up at him. “That’s one punishment I’ll gladly take, Sir.”
Bacon growled something low under his breath before pulling her to him and kissing her mouth.
I put my teeth to my lip and blew out a sharp whistle. “Romantic,” I snapped when they both turned a glare on me. “Still bleeding here.”
Since there was no furniture upstairs that had survived the onslaught of bullets, the twins had to help me down the stairs to the basement.
I was shaking off the sedative but I figured it was less dignified to fall down the stairs and break my neck than it was to accept help from them.
Shortly after they laid me out on a couch that had seen far too much ass, Tangaloa, Tommy, and Spirit came charging down the stairs.
My ex-brother-in-law took in my condition and gasped out, “Lu?”
I inclined my head towards the fake wall. “Inside.” When he went towards it, I called out, “Tangaloa!” He paused, looking back at me. “Pua’s in there, too.”
Now was not the time for my brother’s sensitivities towards my niece. To my surprise, though, Tangaloa didn’t hesitate. He rushed faster towards the door. When he realized it was locked from the inside, he started talking to Lu, instructing her to come out.
I had told her not to open the door for anyone but me, but she trusted Tangaloa as much as I did.
As soon as the door opened, Tangaloa reached for Pua, who was now awake, in Lu’s arms. “Is she hurt? Is she okay?”
Lu looked just as surprised as I felt. Apparently Tangaloa’s statement from the other day that he felt nothing when he’d looked at Pua had been less than truthful.
“She’s fine. Where’s Alo—” Lu stopped halfway through saying my name when she saw me on the couch. She took a step towards me, but then froze, looking back at Tangaloa and Pua.
“I’ve got her,” he told Lu, bouncing Pua in his arms. He was turned so her back was to me. “It’s fine. Go to him.”
Lu hurried over, tears in her eyes. “I told you not to get yourself killed!” she complained.
“Do I look dead?” I asked her in all seriousness. She knelt by the couch, taking my right hand. I stretched my neck a little so I could kiss the back of her hand. “I’m fine, Hōkūpa?a.”
Tommy snorted as he knelt down next to Lu. “You need to have your medical license revoked if this is your definition of ‘fine’, Prez.”
I glared at my Enforcer. I did not need him upsetting Lu.
Tommy slipped on a pair of latex gloves, completely ignoring my irritation at him. I had no idea where he got a large, red first aid kit from, because it certainly wasn’t mine. If they came from his boat, it might explain its presence.
I hissed when he touched my side. I hadn’t looked yet, and it was at an awkward enough of an angle where I couldn’t see easily when standing up. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a shard of my bedroom door sticking out of my side above my hip. “Well, fuck.”
Lu squeezed my hand, turning away from the sight of it.
“I don’t think it hit your kidney,” Tommy said, assessing. He looked up at me. “Your choice if you want me to take it out here or we head to the A and E.”
“Just take it out, Gov’na,” I quipped in a god-awful British accent.
Tommy snorted. “You’re about to go under my knife. I don’t think this is the time to be making fun of my accent.”
When he reached into his bag, pulling out a bottle and a syringe, I said, “No anesthetic.”
Tommy raised his eyebrows. “Prez, you’ve got a lot going on back here. Pun intended,” he deadpanned. “Trust me, you’re going to want it.”