Page 20 of Gunner

“Stay there. I’m going to get my kit.”

“Mmmmm.”

It takes her a while, and in that time, I retch again, covering my side in it. I screw my eyes shut tight, painfully and utterly humbled by the disgusting mess I am. How could I havebrought this to her doorstep? What is wrong with me? Fucking up the past few times like I- like Iwantedto get caught. Now this.

I turn to let the spray wash everything away.

When Diletta returns, she’s dressed in a red crewneck sweater and black yoga pants. She has a toolbox in hand, like someone would bring to a torture appointment. She sets it on the sink and opens it. No tools. Nothing torturous unless you count all the medical shit inside. Forceps, scalpel, gauze, bandage, ointments.

She leaves wordlessly and comes back with an IV bag and the accompanying shit for that. I had no idea she’d been able to get stuff like that here, but of course she had the money to purchase whatever she wanted if she asked the right person.

She closes the lid of the toilet and then stands on it, hooking something over the shower curtain rail, she then hangs the IV bag on it, and turns to me. “Get out of the shower.”

I turn off the water. I try to lift off my t-shirt, but I have no power in my arm. I wonder how much damage the bullet’s done. I should have gone to Archer, but the thought of going under for surgery actually makes me gag again. Nothing comes up this time.

“Stop. I’ll cut it off you.” Diletta frowns. “When you said you were sick, what kind of sick?” She gets out a pair of nitrile gloves from her kit and snaps them on. “Is it something life threatening? Do you have trouble clotting? Heart problems?”

“Just a stomach bug.”

“Did you catch that before or after you caught the bullet?”

“Before.”

She points at the toilet. I’m dripping all over the place. Ruining her bathroom with water and blood. “Sit.”

I obey.

She picks up a pair of wicked looking scissors, sharp blades glinting in the light. “Hold still please.”

I don’t even so much as breathe, as she cuts a line clean down the front of my shirt. She’s the one who sucks in a breath when she moves the pieces of my ruined shirt aside.

Not because of the bullet wound and the blood. She hasn’t even looked there yet.

How could she when my whole chest is a mess of twisted, scarred flesh? I’m a nightmare character come to life. It’s so bad, healed so wrong, it looks like a patchwork map of melted flesh. The tattoos cover it, but there’s no escaping what they’re hiding.

Diletta’s eyes tear up and her throat works. Her hands tremble as she reaches for my shoulder, finally inspecting the wound. “How did you burn yourself?”

“With fire.”

She bends me roughly forward. “You don’t say,” she mutters dryly, but then hums with approval. “There’s one hell of a nasty exit wound back here, which is good, unless it’s damaged something. I’m not a specialist, but it looks like you got lucky, other than the idiotic amount of blood you’ve lost and the extreme risk of infection.”

She eases me back and her eyes travel down my chest again. My abs flex under the scarred skin like they’re bracing for impact. I know what I look like. How twisted and mangled I am.At least when I pulled Adolfo Rossi out of that burning car, the flames didn’t reach below my waist. I can’t say that burning my dick off would have been worth endearing myself to the Don, or anyone else.

I expect some level of horror and disgust, despite the fact that Diletta is a trained nurse who has likely seen countless amounts of gore and death, but her eyes are soft. Sad. She can’t block it out.

“I’m so sorry that you had to endure that.”

At least the mangled skin hides the myriad of other scars. I tattooed what I could of my arms. The burns that reached down past my elbow weren’t nearly as bad. Even my upper arms are nothing compared to my chest.

“Scars tell a story,” she whispers as she douses a wad of cotton balls in antiseptic. “Fuck.” She drops the wad and goes for the IV instead. “You should start feeling a lot better once you’re hydrated and now that you’re warmer. I don’t think the blood loss was too severe, so most of the symptoms are probably more from the stomach bug.”

I’m still sitting here soaking, but she keeps her house hot. I’m no longer shivering. No longer numb, either.

I feel it when she presses the alcohol to the exit wound. The burn pretty much imprints itself on my brain. I’ve been shot before. It’s not exactly a good time, but I’d take it over getting burned and having to heal from that any day.

“It’s pretty jagged,” she says. “Exit wounds usually make a mess.” She pauses before wiping gently, cleaning the area. “But then, you probably know that.”

“Why? Because you think I go around shooting people?”

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