33. Hugo
33
HUGO
This shit never gets easier. I do not like seeing the inside of my friends, particularly when they’re conscious.
“Hold still.”
“I am holding still,” lies Trick.
I do not blame him for the lie. He thinks he is holding still. But no one holds still when they’ve lost the exact right amount of blood to hit the edge of hypovolemic shock. He’s not there yet, and I mean to keep him from crossing that threshold.
Trick is now perched on the edge of Preacher’s kitchen table, blood trickling down the table leg. Usually, the table is topped by a fruit bowl or a flower vase since Marie returned from Boston. Instead, it is now my operating theater.
Trick’s eyes glint with pain he’s trying to mask with a grin. He’s always been good at that—smiling through agony. He did the same thing the last time I cut a bullet from his arm.
A fine sheen of sweat coats his forehead, and his leg quivers where the bullet tore into the muscle. He’s gripping the edge of the table so hard his knuckle bones long to pierce through his skin.
I fish the needle from the kit I hid under the back seat of Sam’s truck. I modified my grandmother’s sewing kit to make it, and every time I have ever heard her ghost in my head telling me to grab it, I have needed it.
I always listen to that voice.
Trick’s grin flickers, more a grimace than actual amusement. “Still not moving,” he croaks. “But if you could hurry up, that would be stellar.”
I give him a flat look, letting my tension funnel into a mock scolding. “If you didn’t insist on getting shot every fucking year, I wouldn’t have to dig bullets out of your flesh all the time.”
“You love it,” he says, winking despite the droplets of sweat rolling down the side of his face. “Some part of you must get off on saving my sorry hide.”
“Oui, I’m thrilled,” I grumble, leaning closer. The bullet’s lodged deeper than I’d like. “But you’re definitely going to owe me a nice bottle of whiskey after this.”
“Speaking of…” Sam passes Trick a bottle.
I’d object on account of alcohol thinning the blood, but given the circumstances and our lack of painkillers, I say nothing.
“You’re a god among men, Sam,” Trick says, the corners of his mouth twitching upward. He only manages a sip, though. Which means he’s hurt far worse than he’s letting on. Probably putting on a braver face than usual for Marie’s benefit.
She stands nearby, at the edge of the kitchen. She looks more afraid than I’ve ever seen her. It tugs at something in my chest I usually keep buried—concern for both of them, a sense of protectiveness I’m used to channeling only in the heat of battle.
“Alright,” I mutter, letting the steel of the tweezers catch the overhead light, “let’s see how deep this bastard decided to bury itself.”
“Wait—you haven’t gotten to it yet?” Trick asks, grimacing.
“That was exploratory. The tissue is ragged at the edges, blocking my tools. But”—I dig in—“now we are getting somewhere.” I bet he did not wager he’d be laying on this table when he built it for Preacher.
Preacher remains silent in the corner, leaning against a broken cabinet. I catch glimpses of him occasionally, arms crossed, shoulders taut. The scowl on his face suggests he wants to say something, but he’s restraining himself.
Maybe because of the bullet in Trick’s leg. Or maybe he’s still reeling from the invasion of his home, from the fact that bullets whizzed through his living room and he was beaten half to death. He may hate us from this night forward. But at least he is alive to hate us.
Trick exhales, letting out a hiss of pain as I probe the wound with the tweezers. The bullet’s lodged a lot deeper than I’d like. His voice goes tight. “Christ.”
“Hold still.” Inside, my stomach churns with the memory of countless times I’ve done exactly this—on a dusty floor in a desert outpost, or in a cramped boat’s hull, or sometimes in a hideout. Once in a jungle. Trick has a knack for catching bullets.
“Is he going to be okay?” Marie’s voice breaks through the tense quiet, sounding small. She steps closer, peering at Trick’s face. “Hugo?”
I don’t look up, but I force a calm note into my voice. “He is too stubborn to die,” I assure her, leaning in. “This bullet’s not anywhere near an artery, from what I can see. He has always bled like mad.” I flick a quick glance at Trick. “Assuming he doesn’t squirm too much, he will live.”
Trick’s grin, though weak, surfaces. “I’m not the one squirming.”
“Alright, Trick,” I say softly, “I’m going to have to go deeper. You want to exhale when it gets bad.”
He grunts, resting his head against the wall behind the table. “Distract me,” he says, voice tight with pain. “Talk about something. Anything. Maybe something from the good old days.”
Sam exhales a soft laugh. “The old days weren’t exactly good , Trick.”
Trick snorts, letting out a strained chuckle. “Better than this bullet in my leg. Come on, Sam, make something up if you have to.”
A hush falls, broken only by the faint scraping of metal on bone as I maneuver the tweezers. The hiss Trick releases is pure agony. I clench my jaw, trying not to let my insides tie themselves in knots.
“You can tell her.” Preacher doesn’t elaborate, but there’s a weight behind his words.
I raise a brow his way, surprised by his words. Sam too.
“Tell me what?” Marie asks, the picture of innocence.
The room goes still. Sam’s mouth opens, closes. He glances at Preacher as if uncertain. Preacher meets his gaze with that old authority we used to know so well. “She should know,” he repeats, quieter, nodding at Marie. “We’re past the point of secrets.”
Marie’s eyes dart between Sam, Preacher, and me. Confusion edges her expression. “Know what?”
I speak before Sam can, if only to keep Trick from writhing while I operate. “We weren’t always doing…tattoos, or any of our day jobs. Trick, Sam, me, your father…we have a deeper history we do not discuss among mixed company.”
“A deeper history?”
“We used to run special ops for a government agency you have never heard of.”
Her brows shoot up, mouth parting slightly. “Wait—like…paramilitary stuff? Or…?”
“Military, intelligence…somewhere in that murky realm,” Sam clarifies gently. “We were never quite under normal regulations.”
“Or any regulations,” Trick grunts.
My tweezers grip something hard—a piece of bullet, maybe. Trick lets out a yelp, sweat pouring off him. I grunt, “Almost got it.” Then I glance at Marie, who’s staring, wide-eyed. I continue, “We can’t say much. Not because we don’t trust you, but because it’s…well, classified. Or was.”
“Still classified, technically,” Preacher says dryly, though an undercurrent of acceptance resonates in his tone. “But go ahead.”
“With all due respect,” Sam begins, “your word does not declassify our ops, boss.”
Preacher huffs a laugh. “You gonna try and tell me my business here? Now?”
“No, just pointing that out.”
Trick hisses, forcing a smirk. “We like to break rules now and then. Especially for you, Marie.”
The bullet finally comes free with a wet, sucking noise, and I drop it into a shallow cereal bowl on the table. The clack resonates through the kitchen. Trick sags, letting out a long breath of relief. A trickle of blood follows, so I press a cloth to the wound, ignoring the pang of sympathy I feel. “You’re not out of the woods yet. I still have to sew you up.”
He nods, exhaling shakily. “I’d say I love you, but I might vomit.”
I snort softly. “As would I.” Then I look at Marie, wishing we could spare her this. The tension in her posture suggests she’s shaken, but there are no visible wounds. Only mental scars. “And yes,” I add, turning back to her, “all of us. Preacher included, back in the day. That’s how we originally met. Missions that no one else was assigned to, or wanted, or even knew existed.”
“Dad?” she asks quietly. “You were in on that?”
“A long time ago, yeah.”
“Why are you telling me now? I should have known…I should have been told something?—”
Sam clears his throat, offering a subdued shrug. “It wasn’t exactly dinner conversation. We had to keep it secret for a reason—still do. That’s why we never said anything.”
“All of you,” she repeats, voice faint with wonder. “I guess that explains why you’re so good at…this.”
I set aside the tweezers, picking up a suture needle and sterile thread. “It is a part of who we are. Not our identity,” I say softly, dabbing disinfectant around Trick’s raw wound. He groans, biting back a curse. “Don’t move,” I remind him again.
Trick clenches his jaw. “I know the routine, Doc.”
Sam steps in to help hold Trick’s leg still while I start stitching. Each pass of the needle draws a hiss from Trick’s lips. My stomach flutters with that old, familiar anxiety—fear that I might fail, might cause more damage. Might not be able to get him antibiotics in time.
But I keep my expression cavalier. I’ve sewn up Trick countless times, and every time, I worry it could be his last. Every time, I pretend this is merely another day, another night in our world. That what I cut on is meat, and not the body part of one of my best friends. It is the only way to stay sane.
Preacher stands watch from a few feet away, body rigid. I imagine he’s also grappling with old memories, times we performed half-baked field surgery on each other under gunfire or in seedy safe houses. He and I share a look for a moment. Something passes between us—a recognition of the past. Then he looks away, focusing on Marie.
“So,” Trick says through clenched teeth, evidently wanting to lighten the mood, “should we tell her about that time Sam refused to break protocol in the desert, and we almost died of dehydration?”
Sam scowls, arms folded. “We didn’t almost die. We were just delayed.”
“Delayed in 120-degree heat with no extraction for two days. If that wasn’t ‘almost dying,’ I don’t know what is.”
Tonight came close to “almost dying” again for him. If Marie hadn’t gambled with her own life to save ours, he would have died. We all may have. We owe that girl our lives, and I will spend the rest of mine showing her my gratitude. If she lets me.
Marie sits perched on a chair with her hands clasped tight. “So you were all, what, paramilitary spies?” she asks, half laughing at the absurdity.
I finish one suture and move to the next, over and over again. “Something like that. We did a lot of missions normal soldiers never saw.”
Marie shakes her head, letting out a breath. “And Dad was part of it too?”
Preacher clears his throat, posture stiff. “I joined earlier than them.” He fixes a hard stare on Sam, who shifts uncomfortably. “But then I found my calling in marriage and the church, realized I needed something different. But they stuck around a bit longer.”
Sam nods solemnly. “We parted ways with the agency a few years back. We decided enough was enough. Enough secrets, enough black missions.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Tattooing felt like an honorable living. We’re artistic, so it works for us. It’s simpler. But we never forgot the skills we learned.”
Preacher scoffs, “You never forget.”
I tie another neat stitch. Trick hisses, nails scraping the edge of the table. “Damn, Hugo,” he breathes, face pale. “When’d you start sewing like a professional seamstress?”
“I always have, thanks to my grandmother. That is why the tattoos so easily hide your other scars.”
Marie exhales, eyes flicking to the bullet chunk in the metal dish on the table. “Is it—does that mean you’ve done a lot worse than this?”
Trick glances at her, face still twisted in pain. “Oh, yeah. The bullet holes I’ve had in my shoulder, my side…you name it. Hugo’s pulled me through. Sam’s pulled me through. Hell, your dad once saved my life in a sticky op I’d rather forget.”
Sam nods. “We’ve seen situations far worse than a home invasion.” He glances around the battered kitchen, wincing at the bullet holes in the walls. “Doesn’t mean this wasn’t bad. Just…we’ve been in deeper shit than this. One time, we were behind enemy lines south of the border. A diplomat’s infant son had been kidnapped and ransomed. But the diplomat didn’t have the pull with her government that the kidnappers thought she had. They told her to get them the money by any means necessary or they’d send back parts of the ba?—”
“I do not need to know the end of that sentence,” she says, throwing up a hand to stop him.
“Right, well, the diplomat happened to be an old friend of Trick’s?—”
“A naked friend,” he brags with that trademark grin.
Sam continues, “And so, she called him. While we were in Mexico, we got pinned down, stuck between a hail of bullets and an ancient tank. I still have no idea why they had that relic in their compound, or how Preacher was able to get it working again, but that was the night we used an old World War II tank to rescue an infant.”
Marie’s lips part as if to ask something, but Preacher intercepts with a grunt. “I think that’s plenty for her to chew on.”
“Dad, how in the hell did you get an old tank to work?”
He huffs a laugh. The man is still angry, of course. He’s been through hell tonight. But he can’t resist telling his daughter about the old days now that the cat is out of the bag. “Never go anywhere new without a can of WD40, paperclips, and some duct tape.”
I snip the final suture, pressing a clean dressing over Trick’s leg. “There,” I say, exhaling the breath I’ve been holding. “That should hold. No arteries or major vessels. You’ll be limping for a long while, though. Switch from whiskey to water—you’ve got a lot of blood to make.”
“Thanks, Doc.” He attempts a grin, but it falters into a wince.
I snap off my gloves, dropping them into a nearby trash bin. My arms tremble from the adrenaline and tension. “Do us all a favor and stop jumping in front of bullets.”