“They got enough rooms?” I asked.
“Yeah, some of us are doubling up,” he handed me a key card and for once it was good to be King, or Captain as it was in this case, then Hope opened her mouth and blew any notion I had of some privacy with her out of the water.
“Better put us in a room with two beds,” Hope said, voice strained and breathless with pain, “I just got her back, I’m not staying separate from my sister.”
“Don’t you worry ‘bout that none for now, let’s get you checked out.”
We trouped into the roadside motel and went into the first room we had a key for. Nothing led Hope over to the little two seater table and pulled out one of the chairs for her. She obediently sat down and let him ease her out of her jacket while Marlin helped ease her sister into one of the beds in the room.
She was in real rough shape, the sister, shaking and jerking and just as fucking miserable as they got. Marlin had his hands full, but the determination on his face sealed the deal. He had every intention of doing right by the girl, I just couldn’t help but worry that he might lose his shit a little in the process seein’ as what he’d been through before. I worried about my brother but my girl’s sister was in the right hands for her particular needs. I sighed and turned back to Hope who gasped in pain.
“I know, I’m sorry,” Nothing said through gritted teeth. He was easing her black fitted top over her head, peeling the long sleeve down her injured arm so he could see it carefully, but there was only so much he could do with her arm lookin’ the way it did. It was bruised so deep the result was black edged in a deep grape purple midway between her wrist and elbow. What’s more, it was grotesquely swollen. Shit. It was broken just looking at it, didn’t need no x-ray to tell us that.
“Pyro…” I started but he beat me to it.
“Already looking for the closest ER, Captain,” and he was, nose buried in his phone, scrolling through some damn internet page or other.
“Okay, let’s get a shirt on you,” I said and was about to pull off my jacket and cut to give her mine to put something on her other than having her just sit there in her bra when Radar held out his plain white tee. I blinked and turned to look at him. He shrugged and I took the proffered shirt and let Nothing help ease it over her arm.
“Did you seriously just give me the shirt off your back?” Hope asked him.
“Yeah,” he grinned and Hope smiled back, though it was pinched.
“Aww I’ve been adopted,” she said and a chuckle swept through the guys. Faith let out a whimper and Marlin sighed loudly.
“Extra people, out! Get out, you’re making this harder than it needs to be,” he said curtly and the boys filtered out the open door and to their own rooms and shit.
“I’ll ride with you guys, she can’t ride on her own but she should be okay as a passenger. Best we can do.” Nothing didn’t look happy about it but he was right, short of taking the crash truck.
“I’ll be fine,” Hope said and shot a worried look over to her sister. Marlin was at the door speaking low and insistent to Trike sending him on some kind of errand run.
“Let’s go,” I ordered.
We rode to the hospital, Nothing and Pyro with us. Pyro stayed out with the bikes while Nothing and I took Hope inside. It was a chilly reception by the hospital staff, a couple of bikers escorting a wounded bird, but Hope set ‘em straight.
“How did this happen?” she was asked by the nurse.
“I’m a defense contractor, my boyfriend and a couple of his guys rode with me to New Orleans where I was giving a training and demonstration, it’s what I do for a living. Anyways, I was doing a live action demonstration and got hit with a Kendo stick, brought it down right on my arm, it was an accident. You can call Detective Joe Thibault, he was there,” she said. She even started going through her phone to give them the number.
“That won’t be necessary,” the nurse said frowning, “You’re an awfully long ways from New Orleans though; didn’t this hurt?”
“Hope’s Army,” I explained and gave the nurse my best winning smile, “She’ll always try to walk it off, I noticed her favoring it to the point she wasn’t using both hands, made the call to bring her in.”
“Well, at least she listens to sense,” the nurse smiled and Hope gave her a tight one in return. They weren’t busy which was good for us, Hope was taken right back into a room and was wheeled off to x-ray; much to her protestations that her arm might be busted but her legs were just fine.
She lay on her side, her injured arm tucked into her side on top of her body when the doctor came to see her.
“Well Ms. Andrews, all things considered it’s not a really
bad
break, but it
is
fractured,” he said by way of greeting and snapped the x-ray up onto the little room’s computer monitor. I guess they didn’t do film anymore.
“Great, what does that mean?” she asked.
“Only one thing for it, going to have to put you in a cast.”
Hope groaned and the doctor chuckled, “Six weeks, preference on color?”
Hope glared at him, “Black, like your soul for telling me I have to wear a cast in the first place.”
The doctor laughed outright, “Well, now, don’t shoot the messenger…”
I half watched Hope and the doctor banter and half watched Nothing who was studying the x-ray with some intent, nodding to himself. He glanced at Hope when she made a childlike noise of protestation and a real unhappy face.
“What?” I asked.
“Ms. Andrews, I really recommend you take the pain medication, I wouldn’t wish setting a bone without it on anyone,” the doctor was frowning in clear disapproval.
“Fine,” she grated out, sullen.
I think she was grateful she took it when he did what needed to be done. He put her in a cast which wrapped around her hand and thumb and went to her elbow and wrote a prescription for pain which I would have one of the boys fill for her. It was dicey getting her back to the motel, the drugs the hospital gave her making her both loopy and tired, adding to her already mounting exhaustion.
When we got back to our room it was to a whole lot of whimpering and whining coming from the closed bathroom door. Hope threw it open, her sister curled in a ball in the back of the bathtub, the water running but she was in here alone. Hope knelt by the tub and Marlin came through the motel room front door.
“Shit, was hoping to have this taken care of before y’all got back but it’s been an ever loving bitch talking her into things,” Hope glared up at Marlin and he put up his hands, a box of something in one and some kind of comb in the other.
“Not saying I blame her, just taking longer than I’d like. She’s got head lice, I’m just trying to get her cleaned up is all. You up to helping?” he asked Hope.
Hope held up her casted arm, “Duct tape and grocery bag. Go! Go!” she said and it was cute as hell. She was loopy as all fuckin’ get out but I wasn’t about to deny her, not on this. She was the only other woman aside from Faith on our crew at the moment, so I took one of the latex gloves Marlin had bought as part of the head lice rid kit and pulled it over Hope’s casted hand. I duct taped a grocery bag to that and covered the rest of the cast, duct taping the bag in a good seal to the skin of her upper arm.
“Thanks,” she said, swaying on her feet.
“You up for this?” I asked.
“No one is ever up for this,” she said somberly and I nodded.
“Out here if you need me,” I murmured.
“Yeah,” she said, “Not even gonna lie, I’m gonna need you after this,” and then she took top spot for bravest woman I’d ever met, she marched unflinching into that bathroom with my VP and spent the next hour bathing her sister, dosing her long blonde hair liberally with pesticide shampoo while my VP did his best to help keep the fidgety junky victim still. Christ, what a mess.
At one point she booted Marlin clean out of the room, when Faith started getting a little too loud and a little too panicky. Didn’t need someone in a neighboring room not knowing what was what to call the cops.
Marlin dropped heavily into the seat across from me, where I’d been fucking around with some damned game on my phone. I tossed the phone onto the table and gave my First Mate, my second in command, a hard once over.
“You good, Brother?” I asked.
Marlin scrubbed his face with his hands and pressed his fingertips into his eye sockets, “Hell no, it’s like Danny all over again, except he wasn’t half as pretty. You get a load of those eyes?”
“Naw, not really,” I searched my brother’s face, “I gotta be concerned that this is gonna be too much for you?” I asked.
“Yes… No… Hell, I don’t know, Cap’n. Your girl know what comes next?”
“Don’t think so, we’ll have to worry about that when we get to it.”
“I gave her some, but there was no telling how much they had her on. I don’t want to overdo it, we don’t need her ODing on us, but fuck… This is gonna get a hell of a lot nastier before it gets any better.”
“How long you think?”
“Week, maybe two of the real nasty withdrawal symptoms, a full month or more for the rest of ‘em. This ain’t no quick fix brother.”
“Yeah, I figured that.”
“Had Trike hit the local Wally World and grab her some clean sweats, and some shit, hopefully at least clean she’ll feel a little better.”
“I can’t even begin to know what this shit is like, you want I should call in a favor with the guys up North? Reave and his buddy Trig have some firsthand experience with this shit, that doctor of theirs might be of some help too…” but Marlin was already shaking his head no.
“No man, last thing that girl needs is more strange men around her, it’s gonna be an uphill battle just for me to get up and over them walls,” he let out a gusty sigh and I nodded.
“Round two?” I asked when he heaved himself onto his feet.
“Yeah, after I have a smoke.”
Marlin let himself out of the room and I sighed. He was right, there was no quick fix for this shit. I closed my eyes and listened to the wretched sobbing coming from the cracked bathroom door, and the soothing sounds my girl made as she tried to fix up her busted sister. It wasn’t pretty in any way, shape or form.
Chapter 29
Hope
I lay staring across Cutter’s gently rising and falling chest at my sister perched on the edge of the bed next to ours. She was sleeping the sleep of the exhausted, her brow drawn down, creased with some nightmare as she lay curled on her side, facing us. She was in an oversized tee shirt and some black stretchy yoga pants that were still a size too big for her but were better than the filthy stained dress we’d found her in.
Marlin and I had gotten her cleaned up as best we could but he’d had to put more of that poison in her veins to calm her the fuck down. I didn’t blame her, but it broke my heart and killed a piece inside of me to see what kind of a state she was in. Marlin and I talked about it. He seemed to know his shit and he’d finally shared exactly why he did and my heart broke all over again, for him this time.
When Faith had gone all dreamy eyed and out of it and we were sure he hadn’t given her too much, we’d been able to take stock of what was what with my sister. She was a mess. Bruises on her arms where she’d been held were bad, but the bruises on her thighs, that’d made me murderous all over again.
She was malnourished, lice ridden, track marked and some of
those
were infected. There was no telling if she had any STD’s but probably. I prayed that whatever she did have, when we got her checked out in Florida, that it was all shit that was treatable. I was terrified she had HIV or Hepatitis, both from the rapes and from the needles they’d been shoving into her flesh.
“Hey… shh,” Cutter’s voice was low and soothing as I choked back a sob, stuffing the back of my hand into my mouth to try and quell it. It made Marlin look over from where he sat behind my sister, back against the headboard, arms crossed over his chest, legs straight and crossed at the ankle in front of him. He looked like some kind avenging guardian sitting behind my sister like that and I was grateful for it. That her situation tripped all his protective instincts because just after trying to bathe her and get her fixed up I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I just wasn’t equipped for this. I didn’t have the first clue on how to fix this. I was fucking lost without these guys.
Cutter’s hand smoothed up and down my back, and he made soothing sounds like I was some messed up child and for once, I let myself be just that. I let him hold me, and comfort me and believed the lie, “It’s gonna be okay…”
I needed to believe it, not just for me but for Faith and even Charity. Oh God. Char. I hadn’t called her, hadn’t told her we’d gotten Faith back but looking across at Faith, shit. I couldn’t call Blossom just yet. Not when I was staring at this tweaked out broken junkie girl wearing my sister’s face. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I mean, I knew I had to but I didn’t have to
right now,
did I?
“Hey,” Cutter nudged me.
“What?” I asked looking up at him.
“Whatever you’re thinkin’, just stop. This whole mess is gonna be here when you open your eyes, Baby. We just gotta take it one day at a time. You get me?”
He jostled me a little, gently, when I didn’t answer right away, I startled and agreed and his words somehow made it bearable again. He was right, there wasn’t anything I could do about any of it right this second. I closed my eyes but sleep was still a long time coming.
When I woke, I felt like shit. My sister looked like shit, Marlin looked like shit and Cutter… well he looked rough around the edges too. We all moved around the room slower than usual and I stood with some serious misgivings while I watched them load my baby into the back of the crash truck. They had some apparatus on there to keep her upright and they ratchet strapped her in place, still, I was pissed I couldn’t ride.
Instead, Cutter helped me into my helmet and I got on the back of his bike. I wasn’t good to drive but I would be damned if I couldn’t ride. Besides, I didn’t want to crowd Faith and driving the crash truck didn’t appeal to me in the slightest. Selfish moment? Yeah. Yeah it was.