Chapter Twenty-One
W hen awareness came to Mel, it slid in sidelong, one sense at a time.
First, sound: A rhythmic harmony of electronic notes slipped into his ears, towing low murmurs and other sounds of busyness nearby.
Then, smell: foggily familiar and vaguely chemical, with an undertone of something organic.
Taste followed: a hint of chemical and a heap of organic, like he’d eaten something rotten. A hangover taste.
Touch came as Mel understood he was waking up.
The sounds and smells that had crept into dreams stayed behind as wakefulness broke through the wall of sleep.
When that wall shattered, physical sensation roared in.
He hurt. Jesus fuck, he really hurt. His throat, his neck, his chest, his arms, his back—and fucking hell, his head throbbed and thumped like John Bonham was drumming on his skull.
What had happened ?
By the time he peeled his eyelids up and cleared the blear from his view, he wasn’t surprised to see the ceiling and wall of a hospital room. But he had absolutely no idea why he was in it.
He was lying mostly supine, the head of the bed raised only slightly.
Didn’t make for a great sightline. When he tried to lift his head to see more of the room, though, pain blasted through his neck, scimitar-sharp.
He gave up the effort with a groan that could not find sound, but found plenty of pain, and he let his eyes close again.
He needed to think, to understand, to remember, but his brain felt like it had been tossed like a salad.
What the shit-shoveling fuck had happened?!
Then a soft touch on his arm, a hand circling his wrist. “Mel? Hey, handsome! Hey!”
Abigail.
Her name was his first thought with any legs, and her touch calmed him, eased him, instantly. He opened his eyes again and found her leaning over him, smiling with trembling lips.
She was mussed and rumpled, and dark smudges colored the skin beneath her vivid blue eyes. Those eyes gleamed wetly. She looked exhausted. She was beautiful.
Goddamn, he loved her.
“Hey,” he managed after a few misfires. When he finally achieved sound, it scraped across his throat like barbed wire.
“Hey,” she echoed, brushing his hair back from his face to kiss his forehead. “Hey, you. Don’t try to talk, okay? I love you.”
“Love you,” he said, pushing the words into the air with pure willpower.
“Hush, hush,” she whispered between light kisses all over his face.
“Tell me later, when it doesn’t hurt you.
I never want to cause you hurt, in any kind of way.
” Reaching over the bed, she picked something up.
“The nurses said they’d likely see on your monitors when you woke up, but to give ‘em a buzz anyway. Let’s show ‘em the good news.”
He didn’t understand what the good news was. He wanted to ask her, and to ask why the hell he was in the hospital in the first place, what the hell had happened. But words were fading and the room was slipping away.
“Mel?”
He heard his name, knew it was Abigail, but she was far away, and he couldn’t remember how to reach her.
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~oOo~
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“T he bullet that grazed your neck made”—the doctor at the end of Mel’s bed grinned slyly—“a bigger splash , ifyaknowhwhatimean, because it brushed a carotid artery. At the scene, that was the real urgency, but quick thinking there kept you from bleeding out. I don’t know whose quick thinking, but you owe them some flowers and a bottle of something good.
For me, though, that was an easy repair.
The second bullet, entering your abdomen and not exiting on its own, that one made a mess for me to clean up. ”
Mel was too tired and spacey from the drugs to snipe at this doctor—who looked about twelve years old but was apparently a surgeon—but he was getting pissed off. The doc probably thought he was being lighthearted and making hard news easier with this jokey delivery. He was wrong.
Mel was too tired to get up any real anger, but that didn’t mean he had to endure this pup’s tight five. “Get to the point, doc,” he said, trying for a growl but ending up with more of a groan.
Abigail, sitting at his bedside and holding his hand, where she’d been as long as he could remember being in this bed, gave his hand an understanding squeeze. “What do you mean by ‘made a mess’? After the surgery, you said all had gone well.”
Looking like he’d been booed off the stage, Doogie Howser replied, “It did go well, because I did well. But there was a lot of damage. Rather than move clean through, that bullet bounced around in your abdomen. You’re now down both a gall bladder and a spleen.
It also took a hunk out of your liver and almost perforated your stomach, before it finally stopped. ”
“Jesus,” Mel muttered. Welp, he understood why the fun stuff in his IV was only taking the sharp point off his pain.
“Yeah, pretty much a scramble of your digestive system. But you’re lucky—a perforated stomach in that situation, with all the other damage, could have been very bad, possibly fatal before you could get to the hospital.
The nicked carotid also could have killed you quick, if somebody on the scene hadn’t known what to do to safely minimize blood flow before pressure split the artery wide open—and that’s medic-level knowledge.
Like, combat medic. The liver is a big bleeder, too, but the damage there was small enough that it didn’t dramatically compound the blood loss.
In terms of the future: if you follow medical advice, I anticipate a full recovery.
The liver regenerates and should heal completely.
The functions of your spleen and gall bladder can be replicated with medication and diet.
All in all, considering how many ways your injuries could have been fatal, you’re very lucky, Mr. Lind. ”
Strangely, despite his pain, despite the significant recovery period ahead of him, despite his still-spotty memory about what the fuck had happened at the bonfire, despite the trouble among the Night Horde charters, trouble he didn’t yet fully comprehend because all the patches who’d visited so far had wanted him to ‘worry about getting well, not about that bullshit,’ Mel did feel lucky.
He’d been shot, but he didn’t remember it.
He’d lost some minor organs, probably gained some pain in the ass with the meds and the new diet, but otherwise, he was on track for a full recovery.
“Okay. Thanks, doc. When can I get out of here?”
Dr. Doogie laughed like a sixty-year-old high school science teacher who’d just heard the star jock ask how he could pass the class.
“You’ve got some healing to do before you’re ready for that.
You’ll be our guest for at least five more days, if everything goes well.
Then you’ll have several weeks of recovery at home, too.
Right now, though, our job is to guard against infection and get your levels where they belong.
You lost a lot of blood, Mr. Lind. About as much as you can lose and still be talking to me now. ”
Again, Abigail squeezed his hand. Mel squeezed back.
He met her eyes. She was fucking gorgeous, but she looked like she hadn’t slept in days—and she hadn’t.
If he was counting right, she’d spent a night in a waiting room, and then two nights in that recliner thing she was sitting in now.
She’d insisted she wouldn’t leave him. Apparently the Horde were taking turns keeping her animals and gardens cared for so she could stay with him.
Mel liked that a lot. It meant the club saw her as one of their own. Not simply a Signal Bend resident, but a member of the family. She was his, so she was theirs.
Yeah, he felt damn lucky.
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~oOo~
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“F or now, it’s settled enough,” Badger said wearily, staring at his boots.
“There’s still damage control to do in town—not least with our own women, who are collectively mad as fuck at the mess we made of the festival—but for the club, everybody’s where they belong, back home, licking their wounds.
We parted ways in some kind of peace. But I’d be a liar to say there’s no trouble down deep, and a fool to think it. ”
Their president looked like shit. The gash on his face was long and had gone down to bone, forehead to left cheek, and the sutured wound looked like something out of one of those old black-and-white horror movies.
A few more injuries like that, and his face would be in Gravy Grayson territory.
He was pale and gaunt, too. Mel didn’t think he’d slept since the day Montana had rolled into town.
He wasn’t exactly sure how long ago that had been. Seemed like years, but it couldn’t have been more than a few days. Right?
“Rot,” Showdown muttered. “That’s what’s down deep. Rot.”
“And it’s not settled enough, Badge,” Isaac said, “Saxon died in that mess. And Montana lost Maniac. They’re not gonna set that aside anymore than we are. It’s not settled at all.”
The mention that Saxon was gone, a reminder no one in the room needed, turned the air to stone. No one spoke or moved, or even made eye contact with anybody else.
The surviving Missouri Horde, including their wounded, were arrayed in a sloppy circle in the hospital chapel, finally gathered for a debrief of the Harvest Festival mess.
Mel still couldn’t walk much—getting shot in the gut and then opened wide so the doctor could find the bullet and repair its damage turned out to pretty much fuck your whole bottom half—so Thumper had wheeled him down and parked him in the aisle between the oaken pews.
They’d waited this meeting for Mel, the most injured of the surviving Missouri patches.
Aside from losing Saxon, Badger’s burgeoning scar and Kellen’s dislocated shoulder were the other serious injuries for Missouri, but almost everyone else was sporting a bruise or a sprain or a healing cut.
Most of them had a collection of such injuries.