Page 97 of The Devil's Scars

Chapter Eighteen

Doctor Sam Innis strode down the hall to the second, smaller doctor’s lounge, already knowing what sight would greet his eyes when he entered. The head nurse Marcy had taken one look at the general waiting room heaving with huge, glowering, scary bikers, and had used her initiative to send them up three floors to the lounge. She’d had no interest in seeing worried families and kids intimidated by the terrifying men. Also, they’d taken up an incredible amount space.

Sam was braced and ready and professional to talk to the Road Warriors. Even if he did want to fucking beat Wolf Connor into the goddamn ground.

I always knew this day would come… always, always.

Sam paused in the lounge doorway, gauging the mood of the thirty or so big, surly MC maybe-ex-maybe-current-one-percenters. Vic’s brothers were not the most level-headed, mellow guys on earth, and so Sam had fully expected tension and anger, of course.

But not this much.

This wan’t tension and anger on any measurable human scale – this was bubbling, boiling rage. Oh, nobody was rampaging around like a crazy person, there wasn’t any shouting or even any raised voices. No, quite the opposite. It was still, quiet, somehow dark with shadow. Like a clenched fist, or a snake all coiled up and eyeing its prey. Simmering, silent – but not patient. No… not patient at all. This was the stillness of men gathering their energy and focusing their purpose, waiting for the opportunity to be set loose on an enemy.

This wasn’t the calm before the storm; this was the silent gathering storm before the damn apocalypse.

“Sam.” Wolf was immediately right there beside him, and Sam drew himself up to his full height. Sam wasn’t a short man, but somehow Connor made his extra two inches in height feel like two feet. “How’s Keira? And Scars?”

“Vic is hopefully being stabilized right now,” Sam said, really making a point of stressing what he would always consider his brother’s real name. “He went into shock and cardiac arrest in the ambulance – did you know that?”

The dark, dangerous edge in the room got keener, sharper, more cold and silver.

“No,” Wolf hissed. “We didn’t know that.”

“Well. Now you do.” Sam met Wolf’s eyes full-on. “I ducked into the trauma room quickly, but too much was going on, so I stayed out of the way. I wouldn’t be much help, to be honest. I’m – I’m too close. I couldn’t be emotionless about my brother, not even if you demanded it with a gun to my head.”

The men around him all nodded, and despite his anger at them, he did feel their hurt for him. Yeah, they understood what working on Vic’s burned body would have meant for Sam. After all, these were the men who had smothered the flames as his strong, indestructible, protective brother had screamed and writhed in agony in a fucking tattoo parlor parking lot. They’d seen the hair burned right off his head, they’d seen the skin hanging off his back and legs in long, jagged strips.

They knew. They knew as well as Sam did how bad it was.

“And Keira?” Wolf asked quietly. “Zoe hasn’t been back to say anythin’.”

“She’s sedated and intubated,” Sam said. “She’s having lots of trouble breathing on her own, and when she does, she coughs up mucous. Her nostrils and throat have some soot, which we’re still trying to get out completely. It’s harder with babies, just because their nasal passages and throats are so small and tight, but now that’s she’s out, it should be easier.”

“Is her blood work back?” Viking asked. “Her metabolic profile?”

Sam nodded, knowing Viking’s medical background. “A minor change in pH in the blood. No carboxyhemoglobin or methemoglobin levels.”

“Thank fuck,” Viking said.

“Translation?” Jinx asked. “For us non-doctor types?”

“Keira doesn’t have any signs at all of severe smoke inhalation,” Sam explained. “She won’t suffer any permanent damage. Vic – maybe Vic just got to her in time, but all I can think is that she must have been on the ground, or close to the ground in her crib, and it was a huge help. She had cleaner air for longer.”

“My God,” Saint said, looking at the bandages covering the smarting burns on his forearms. “I can’t believe it… I went back to get her, man, and couldn’t breathe for the smoke. Not even shallow, half breaths. I can’t – I don’t understand how that little thing survived.”

“Luck,” Sam said. “Blind, sheer, stupid luck.”

“Yeah.” Wolf took a deep breath, feeling grateful for the sweet, pure oxygen. Funny how he’d never really thought about the simple, physical act of breathing before today. “That’s the long and short of it.”

“So.” Sam shrugged. “I should get back to Vic. If you wait half an hour, you can see Zoe and Keira. Just let the doctor finish cleaning out Keira’s nostrils and throat, OK?”

“You’ll let us know how Scars is?” Arrow said, haltingly. “When we can – can go see him?”

The question hung in the air, because the truth was, they didn’t know if they’d be seeing Scars again… when was optimistic, maybe to the point of foolishness. But they needed that hope, needed the when not the if, and since Sam needed it as badly as they did, he went along with it.

“Yes,” he said crisply, cleaning his glasses on his white coat, and they watched him slip back into E.R trauma specialist and surgeon mode with that small gesture. “I’ll let you know as soon as I know anything.”

“Thank you, Doctor Innis,” Cole said, and one by one in a rippling murmur, the Road Warriors thanked Sam as a doctor. It was the rarest of events, for these men to show any deference or respect for authority, but they did it for him. It was the emotional equivalent of a lunar eclipse spontaneously happening in the waiting room, and Sam recognized it for the little miracle that it was.

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