Page 109 of The Devil's Scars

“No. When can I go home?”

Wolf stared. “You – home? Scars… you have weeks and weeks of treatment here before you can go anywhere.”

“The fuck you say.”

“No lie, man.” Wolf was mystified at how the seriousness of his condition had totally escaped Scars; maybe he wasn’t as mentally aware as Wolf had assumed? He broke the bad news as gently as he could now. “You need skin grafts on sixty percent of your back, and on about half the backs of your legs… the wounds are still open under all those bandages, and they’re still healin’.”

“How many rounds of skin grafts?”

“Sam says at least three on your back, to build up the layers right. Your legs… I dunno. Maybe two? I mean – you’re lookin’ at months lyin’ on your front, Scars. Weeks in hospital, gettin’ a graft and then recoverin’ from it and buildin’ up resistance and checkin’ that your body doesn’t reject the new skin, because most of it can’t come from your own body and there’s a risk that you’ll reject donor skin. Then if that’s all OK, then you go into the next graft round and do it all over again. It’s – ” Wolf shook his dark head. “We’re in this for the long haul, man. You’re here to stay, for a while anyway. Well, here or another place that specializes in burns that Sam mentioned, over in California somewhere.”

Reality smacked Scars in the face right about then, suddenly and hard. Even drifting in and out of consciousness, on a blissful wave of morphine for the past forty-eight hours, he’d known that his back was bad – the pain was familiar, after all, and he well remembered what his arms, chest, and face had looked like before the skin grafts. Even all these years later, he remembered it like it was yesterday.

Some things never fade from memory, and when a nightmare comes to life, you don’t shake it. You learn to live with it, maybe, if you’re lucky. You build up emotional calluses, so that your raw, exposed feelings stop constantly rubbing against each other, stop keeping you up at night as your mind spins and whirls.

So, you move on. Mostly. But you don’t develop amnesia.

And if his memory served – which it fucking did – then Scars knew what his back and legs looked like. Even without laying eyes on them, he knew.

And worse, he knew what they were going to look like after months of painful treatment. Even with the wonders of modern medicine, and technological advances since he was nineteen years old, and good doctors, he was still going to be horrible. He’d have thick, raised scar tissue that would start off angry red and violent purple, and would stay that way for years. Oh, it would fade over the decades, of course, maybe turn white, if he was lucky. But still. For a long, long time, he’d still be…

Deformed. Ugly. Repulsive.

“Scars? Hey? You with me?”

With an effort, Scars wrenched his mind back to the conversation they were having. Now, what the hell had they been talking about?

“Uhhh.” He cleared his throat. “There’s a good place in California?”

“Yeah. Sam’s buddy from med school works out there, said that he’d find a bed for you. It’s probably one of the best burn victim centers in the country and it ain’t free, but don’t worry about payin’ for anythin’. The club would cover. I mean, if you want to go out there, but I don’t see why you would. We’re all here. Zoe’s here. Denver has good burn clinics, your brother told me. Right?”

“Damn,” Scars said quietly, not answering the question. “I didn’t realize, I don’t think. This is way worse than the first time.”

“I’m sorry,” Wolf said gruffly. “It’s a shit situation. But you’re here and alive, and you got this. You got us. The club’s takin’ care of everythin’ here with a private room and like I said, we pay for anythin’ and everythin’, from grafts to physical therapy stuff. Me and the boys ain’t leavin’ you here alone, not for one minute, and Zoe will move heaven and earth to be here, every step of the way.”

“That’s what I’m worried about.”

“You’re – what are you worried about?”

“Zoe.”

“Why?” Wolf asked, totally perplexed.

“Because I don’t want her to see me like this, Wolf,” Scars said simply. “I don’t want her to spend the next who-knows-how-many months here, every day, and trying to raise a baby, and get the parlor back up and running. I mean, Christ… we’ve just barely gotten together at last, after a rough start. You think she’ll be able to handle all of this? If she has to shoulder this responsibility so soon after us becoming a couple, she’ll run herself into the ground. Please don’t let her do that to herself.”

“You what?” Wolf gaped at his Vice-President. “OK… look. I am totally aware that you have a death wish, with all your damn runnin’ into burnin’ buildings and cars about to blow up and shit. But you are even more interested in kickin’ off this earth than I thought if you try to tell Zee that she can’t see you and help you. I mean – c’mon, man. Have you met Zoe Parish? You think she’s gonna accept that situation for one goddamn second?”

“She has to.”

“Nope. Wrong. She doesn’t, and she won’t.”

“I don’t and won’t what?”

Wolf leapt out of the chair, turned to see Zoe standing in the doorway. “Zee! Look who’s awake!”

“I see.” She crossed the room, her beautiful face bright with joy and love. “Hey, big guy. How’s my hero doing?”

“Wolf…” Scars said, ignoring her question, not looking at her, and she heard the pleading in his voice. “Please…”

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