Page 51 of Vow of Vengeance
When we bought the house, the realtor explained the attic wasn't traditional, that it was added in above the garage after the trusses had already been put in place. It was created by sectioning off a small portion of the primary suite.
It didn't mean anything to me, since I could care less about an attic when we had an entire garage for storage. I never cared enough to go up there, and I sure as hell never realized it was right on the other side of my bedroom.
I moan, the first semblance of pain hitting me, like my body is trying to remind me that I just fell through a fucking wall and impaled myself on a nail.
"Pull it out." I tell Declan, gritting my teeth as I try not to look at it.
I've slit my wrists before. I know that was a lot more blood than this, but it still makes me feel oddly faint as I look at the crimson dripping down my arm fast and thick. It's nowhere near fatal, and it could have been way worse. That could have gone through my fucking eye. But it doesn't make me feel any less woozy.
"Declan." I pant. "Please."
"I don't think you're supposed to pull it out." He says slowly. "It could cause more damage that way. That's your dominant hand... we don't want to risk nerve damage."
"Well, we can't leave it in!" I snap.
"Just ‘til we get to the ER. You're probably not current on tetanus shots, anyway, right?"
"It's not bad enough for the ER." I shake my head, but he's right. I don't think I've ever had a tetanus shot, and this is my writing hand. I can't risk him yanking it out if it means I may not be able to grip a pen anymore.
Fuck.
"Come on." He doesn't argue, just helps pull me up to standing and grabs my bag off the floor, shepherding me toward my bedroom door. "You go ahead, I'm just going to grab a towel."
I'm not even to the steps when he's beside me again, pressing a hand towel gingerly against my palm.
I try not to focus on the burn in my hand. It's certainly not the worst pain I've ever felt. The embarrassment of being so graceless that I fell through a fucking wall burns a little brighter than the physical.
Declan's quiet as he helps me into the car and buckles my seat belt for me, letting me hold my own hand without moving it much. The pressure counteracts a bit of the pain, so I focus on that and close my eyes, breathing through it. If I think too hard about the fact that there's a nail in my hand, I feel woozy all over again.
It feels ridiculous to go to the emergency room with this, but it's not like I could schedule in with a primary. That's why I don't feel too bad when the nurse goes from looking bored to intrigued when she peels back the towel, sticky with drying blood, to look at my hand.
I look away from her as she prods around my hand, and bite my lip when the motions jostle the skin around impact. Declan growls at her when I wince, and it makes her freeze to turn her eyes on him. I'm sure she doesn't have people growling at her often.
Who the fuck even does that?
"Stop fucking around and get the nail out or give her something for the pain." Declan snaps, as if that explains why a grown man just made a sound like a pissed off pit-bull at an ER nurse.
"I can't give her anything until she fills out the paperwork." The nurse indicates the clipboard in my left hand, the one that I never even got a chance to view before they pulled me back here. The ER was so empty, I suspect they jumped at the chance to treat someone.
"I'll do it," Declan insists, taking the clipboard and balancing it against his knee with the pen poised in his hand.
I expect he'll ask me for the answers so that he can write everything down, but he doesn't need to. He runs down the paper while the nurse asks me again to explain what happened and I try not to suffocate on my embarrassment, because seriously, who the fuck falls through awall? I watch Declan hesitate only once, probably over my blood type, and then he brandishes the clipboard for the nurse who steps back to take it. She glances down at it like she's looking for something.
"Any chance of pregnancy?" She asks, and I shake my head.
"No allergies?"
"No."
"And this was really an accident, right? You didn't 'fall'?" She puts air quotes around the word, implying sarcasm. Her eyes shoot to Declan meaningfully and I shake my head quickly.
"It was an accident. I lost my balance and went through the wall. Declan came running when he heard the crash."
The nurse nods summarily, her blonde ponytail bobbing. "It's not a straight through and through. Normally, I could get this out on my own, but I don't want to risk any soft tissue damage, so I'm going to have a resident come take a look and get this out for you. I'll get you something for the pain in the meanwhile, okay?"
I nod.
"On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate the pain? With ten being the worst you've ever felt?"
