Page 7 of Black Site

I try to be as gentle as I can when I raise her head and run the water over her hair but she grimaces anyway. She has a cut near her hairline on the side of her head where it made contact with the floor. I run my hands under her so I can check to make sure there's nothing there to worry about. I find a few lumps on the back of her head but nothing bleeding. When I focus back in on her face I can see how glazed her eyes are. She's not going to be able to hold consciousness much longer.

"I need an ETA on the Doc, someone," I shout causing it to echo in the small shower. She jumps a little so at least she's still responsive.

"Been twenty, Boss. You got to give him time to get in the air. It's probably going to be another twenty."

I close my eyes and cuss. I don't know if she'll be able to maintain consciousness for another twenty minutes.

"Hey, stay with me okay. Let's talk about something. Anything."

Her face scrunches up and she tries to talk to me, it comes out as I whisper so I lean closer to her.

"What are you, a woman? Talk, really?"

Did she just insult me and half of the population with me? What the hell is that even supposed to mean? Before I can ask her, Remy sticks his head back in and tells me Ace is headed back with the doctor.

"Okay, I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that last part so if you die your last words won't be to insult your own gender." She narrows her eyes at me but doesn't respond with anything else. "The doc will be here soon and we'll be better prepared to fix you up. All you have to do is stay with me."

She tries to nod for me but her eyes lose focus again and she starts taking long, slow blinks again until at last, she doesn't open her eyes again.

"Libby, Libby." She's not opening her eyes again for me. "Liberty!"

I'm met with a pair of beautiful whiskey eyes when I say her whole name. She tries to say something but I can't make it out well enough. I position myself so her head is in my lap and lean over her hoping that she'll say it again.

"Take care of my sister."

Fuck, she's bleeding, she has a concussion, and she just watched us kill two guys right in front of her and she still worries about her sister. I nod and look up so I can grab one of my guy's attention.

"Steve, go find the sister. Have P help you. She can get close to her better than any of you guys would be able to. Have Hades watch her during the day and you watch at night. It shouldn't be too hard for him; he's there watching P anyway."

"You trust him?" Jack, the darkest of my men other than maybe Dante asks it like I would send someone I didn't have complete trust in to watch over her sister.

"Yeah, I trust him." Hades and his "brothers" have been working for me in an unofficial capacity for a very long time. If there was something I needed done that couldn't be linked back to me or needed to have done that would be frowned on by the people I work for then I would go to one of the Brothers. They really aren't brothers at all but a group of men that work together and take care of each other. They're assassins. And some of the best in the business. Up until a couple of months ago, now all of them are married and settling down like Ace and his Uncle. If it's something in the water I think I'll stick to whiskey and save everyone the trouble of seeing me lose my mind over a woman.

"Just make sure Zeus knows so he can keep Hades in line. He has a tendency to shoot teenagers." I mention another of the Brothers that I had helped not too long ago.

When I look down again, Libby has closed her eyes. This time no matter how fiercely I say her name or yell at her she doesn't open them. The doctor picks that moment to come through the door pushing my men back so he can get a good view of who he has to work on.

"Well you certainly made a mess, Jim. Is she something you did or something the guy with a bullet in his head did?"

"If you had time to observe the guy with a bullet in his head, a much-deserved bullet I might add, then you are taking too long getting to the person you are supposed to be taking care of."

Doc has never taken my shit. I've never intimidated or scared him but then I guess having your hands in enough people really puts things in perspective. Doc is a Jim too but everyone in my team calls him Doc. Hell, I think I've heard his momma call him Doc before. He was on my team with my guys, has kept more than one of us from dying, and still talks to most of us even knowing we are grumpy assholes. He's invaluable.

"Can we move her to the bed or maybe the dining room table? Whichever one has the best light and the cleanest surface."

I stoop to take Libby in my arms. This might be the first time I've actually picked her up. She's too skinny. She needs to eat more. Even when I pick her up and move her she doesn't open her eyes for me. It has me worried. I try not to show it because if I act worried my men will start to worry and there is no place on the battlefield for worry, doesn't mean that inside I'm not screaming at her to open her eyes. The doc works fast, something he's had to learn to do from working with us. He's methodical and the stitches he puts in her are tiny and won't leave much of a scar at all. I hover taking in everything done to her.

"She's going to need a transfusion. She's lost a lot of blood. As small as she is I'm guessing she didn't have much to give in the first place." He mouths the word anemia to me. It happens even to people like us, especially when you're shot and bleed out a lot more than you can build back up.

From the living room, Duncan wheels himself from his laptop sitting on a desk in there to the entryway of the dining room. "Type O positive. Should be easy to find a donor."

"I'll do it." I start rolling up my sleeve but the doc stops me.

"It would be better if it maybe came from one of the others or I could make a call and have the local hospital donate some bags."

"No, I appreciate your concern but if something is being put in her it's going to come from me. No one else."

A whistle from behind me makes me turn to Remy standing with Dante. "Damn, I knew when you finally found a woman it would be bad but never this bad, Boss. You won't even let someone else's blood inside of her."

---