King Among the Dead - Lauren Gilley Page 0,27
throat burned. He couldn’t die; she wouldn’t let him. “I have to stop the bleeding.”
She left him perched on the table, prayed he didn’t fall down to the floor, and rushed across the kitchen to pull a clean hand towel from the drawer.
“Rose,” he said when she returned, and pressed the cloth to the wound – pressed tight enough that he hissed again. You had to put pressure on the bleed, she knew. Had to force it to stop. “I don’t want you…to see me like this.”
“Shut up,” she commanded. “Just shut up and don’t die. I’m going to get Kay.”
“Go get me for what?”
Rose turned and saw the woman standing in the doorway, in her own robe and slippers, her gray hair in its curlers, and could have sobbed with relief. “He’s hurt. He’s lost so much blood.”
The only sign of shock Kay offered was a quick jump of her brows. “Hellfire and damnation, boy,” she said on a sigh, coming into the room, slippers slapping on the tile. “What’d you do this time?” She waved Rose aside, and Rose moved, but only a step, hand still pressing the towel to the wound.
“Got – got myself – knifed,” Beck panted. He attempted another laugh. “Rookie mistake.”
Kay tutted and shooed some more until Rose peeled back the towel enough for her to get a look. “Dumbass,” she admonished. “How many of them were there?”
“Seven. I think.”
“Wonder you’re not dead in the gutter.”
“Heh.”
Kay pressed the towel tight. “Alright, I can fix this, but it isn’t gonna be pretty, and you’re gonna feel like hell. Walking all that way in the rain, bleeding out…” She tsked. “Rose, I need you to go up to my room and fetch me down my kit. It’s a big black bag under my bed, can’t miss it. Go lock that back door first, and pull the curtains.”
Before she complied, Rose glanced over at her, questioning. The glint in Kay’s eyes was unmistakable: the hard, knowledgeable assuredness of a general; competent, calm, determined.
“Yes, ma’am,” she said, and rushed to do as told.
The steps were old, and steep, and it was a long climb to the third floor, but Rose took the stairs at a run, losing traction with her slippers, clutching at the bannister on the turns. Her pulse was choking her by the time she reached Kay’s attic suite, making her dizzy.
The ceilings were sloped up here, the windows angled, and the sleet rattled against them, an ominous sound like the clicking of bones, she thought, wildly, as she crossed to the high bed – with its step-stool Kay used to climb up into it – and knelt down to search for the bag. There it was, a big, black zippered thing the size of a small cooler with a red cross on the side. It weighed a ton, but Rose looped her head and arm through the strap and started back down.
When she returned to the kitchen, Beck was slumped shirtless in a chair, his shirt, holsters, and the guns and knives they contained heaped in another. Hair in his face again; blood dripping in slow plinks down onto the tile.
Kay bustled over with a steaming tea kettle that she set on another chair, and waved Rose closer. “Here, there’s a sterile sheet on top, we’ll lay that down.”
Rose thumped the bag down and unzipped it; as promised, a cellophane-wrapped plastic sheet was on top, and she passed it up to Kay, who had it open and spread down the length of the table in short order. Under the sheet, the bag was full of compartments and trays. Rose spotted gleaming silver bowls, scissors, gauze, and bags stamped with the biohazard symbol.
“Breathe, honey,” Kay said, drawing her attention. When she glanced up, the woman offered a tight smile. “If you’re gonna be my nurse, you can’t be passing out when you go to hand me a scalpel.”
“Nurse?”
“He needs surgery. Take a breath. Take a shot of whiskey if you need it, but.” Her gaze hardened. “We need to hurry.”
~*~
They wrestled Beck up onto the table, flat on his back, hair fanning wet and limp around him on the blue sterile sheet. “Night-night for a bit,” Kay said, and gave him an injection that had his lashes fluttering and his breath hitching. She pulled up his eyelids and checked his pupils. “He’s out. I don’t like his breathing, though. Go scrub up.”
Rose took off her robe and washed her hands ‘til they felt raw at the