Page 89 of Forty

“One, two, three.” They lift her while I keep pressure on. The bullet went into the fleshy part of her upper thigh, right under her hip bone. There’s no exit wound.

It’s not a mortal injury. If a guy got this in combat, he’d try to limp to the medic. The logical part of my mind knows this, but the rest of me has not received the message.

I’ve done everything wrong. What if I’m fucking up this call, too?

“Bring her through here.”

Half of the Dentist’s finished basement is a family room, big screen TV, overstuffed sofa, bar, pinball machine. Go through a door, and the other half is a dentist’s office on the right and fully-equipped surgery suite on the left. He’s got a heart monitor, all kinds of equipment.

There’s a hospital gurney in the narrow hall between the two rooms. We ease her onto it. Her eyelids are twitching. She moans as we resettle her, but she doesn’t wake up.

Maybe she lost more blood than I calculated.

Fuck.

The Dentist is snapping on gloves. “All right, friends, I’m going to take over for Forty here, and everyone is going to go wait out there except Angel and Grinder. Angel, scrub up, take Grinder across the hall, and tap a vein in case we need it.”

Hold up. “I’m not leaving her.”

“Then go scrub up.” The Dentist jerks his chin toward the double-sink at the end of the hall.

And why is Angel tapping Grinder’s vein?

Grinder notices me staring. “Type O neg, dude. Universal donor.” He grins, shirtless, from the dentist chair. “Happy to help.”

Jesus fuck. That man has at least three side chicks at any one time. They’re not putting his blood in Nevaeh.

If she needs it, we don’t have a choice.

Impotent rage floods my chest as I rush to the sink.

I’ve made every wrong choice. I was going to be a better man than my father, and damn if I didn’t make every mistake he did. My woman needed me, and I had my head so far up my ass, I couldn’t see it. I was so intent on doing thingsmyway—and I was so sure it was theright way—I let her go.

I was so fuckin’ positive she’d wronged me, and that’s unforgiveable, right? I never tried to fix things. I was willing to miss her for the rest of my life ‘cause I couldn’t bear letting go of a grudge.

It’s so goddamn obvious now that she’s pasty white and limp on a fucking gurney.

I am just like my father. I can hear Dad muttering,yearsafter Mom left,she could have hocked your Grandma’s rings. But she wouldn’t. She’d rather you kids starve. And Mom had been gonedecadesat that point. And you know what,hecould have gotten a goddamn regular job. I could have picked up the goddamn phone.

All the scales are falling from my eyes, too late. Nevaeh can’t die.

I’m a shell of a person without her.

I’ve fucked up so badly.

“Forty? Can you come in here? We need to make some decisions.” The Dentist calls me from the surgery. I finish rinsing my hands and forearms, and I head for Nevaeh.

I’m not leaving her again. Whatever happens. We’re in this together.

* * *

I walk through the door,and her brown eyes are wide open, blinking at me.

She smiles. “There you are.”

I rush to her, push the curls out of her face. Her pupils are huge.

The Dentist has an IV ready. He’s got a tourniquet on her arm, and he’s palpating a vein. Her feet are elevated. She’s covered in a heavy wool blanket, and Sunny’s at her side, keeping pressure on the wound.

---