Page 8 of Flint

He shakes his head as he continues to poke and prod her. “You’ve got a dislocated shoulder. Ankle looks only to be sprained. It’s swollen as shit but not broken. But we’ll take X-rays just to be sure. We need to clean off the mud to see if there are any more cuts or bumps. Think you got one on the head, might explain the amnesia, but we won’t know till it’s clean.”

He goes to his cabinets and pulls out what I like to call the pancake maker. Just a bottle with a nozzle on it, and probably filled with water or some cleaning shit, ’cause as he squeezes the liquid on her, the caked mud washes away.

The thing might have a technical name, but Mama Bear used a bottle just like it to make pancakes for Grace once. Made all sorts of designs. It was mostly flowers and hearts and shit, but it was pretty cool for a four-year-old. Okay, for all of us, as we ended up making up our own demands for a certain shape or two. Think Mama Bear called it quits after her fifth attempt at a motorcycle. It just looked like a bean on wheels. Still tasted great.

“Don’t try to move your arm, just let me manipulate it. Okay, going to pop it back in place now. Try not to scream like a little bitch.” He doesn’t even look like he does anything crazy, but as he’s talking to her, he moves her arm, and her gasp of air has the hair on the back of my neck rising.

“Fucking motherfucking hell. What the fuck, man? Fuck. Goddammit. You’re a little bitch.” Her words trail off as she grimaces in pain, and I can’t hold the laughter in.

Pretty sure no one has called General a little bitch before, and I know neither of us expected that rant from her. Seems she’s got a dirty mouth to match her exterior.

My my my, what do I have here? Something that intrigues me more than it should, it seems.

Chapter 4 – Julianne

A

ssholes.

I’m in a building full of them. Not one is a decent human being. So what if that was the only way to get my shoulder back to semi-working order? So what if I actually do feel a bit better? Why the fuck is the jackass laughing? I’d like to see him sit here and not say shit when you get zero warning. What the hell happened to the count of three, huh? I’m pretty sure I didn’t imagine that as an option. I might have lost my memory, but I didn’t lose my damn mind.

I’m glaring. Not that anyone can tell because apparently just drenching me in water is the best way to see the wound on my head. And fuck, if that doesn’t hurt. Who knew water could hurt? Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. But I do now. Not that I’ll show my torturers this. Why give them the satisfaction they want? Would it have been too much to give me a Tylenol or something? Hell, knock me out. I’m not even picky on how I pass out, but it’s got to be better than sitting here and feeling everything.

“You’ve got a few abrasions and will need some stitches but not many. Nothing too deep we have to worry about. You got a few bumps and bruises from what I can see, but nothing life-threatening.”

I’ll show you life-threatening.

I’m staring at my shoes, but the instant removal of hands from my head has me looking up. The guy hasn’t stopped touching me, albeit professionally, since I got here, so it’s unsettling when he stops. But I see now why he did, and I realize my mistake.

“Said that last part out loud, huh?”

He nods as Flint looks all bulky again, like he’s ready to pounce on me. Not saying I wouldn’t be into it, but I doubt he and I have the same idea about how the end of the pounce will go. For me, it would lead to banging—him, specifically. For him, probably just a solitary bang—into my head from a bullet.

“Sorry, but you sit here and deal with you poking with, like, zero feel-good meds to make this tolerable and see what slips out. Doubt you’d keep your mouth shut for long. I’m practically a saint with the torture you’ve been putting me through.”

Another snort, this one from the hands-on torturer—General, as the name patch indicates on his leather vest. “Suck it up, buttercup.” His words might be mean, but the smile has me rolling my eyes as he turns around to clean his hand.

“We’ll need to take off the shirt and see if anything else is deeper than the superficial wounds. I didn’t see anything on the initial pass, but I want to make sure we catch anything before infection sets in. Flint, if you could step out….”

He pauses midsentence as he turns back around at the sound of ruffling fabric.

“What?” I ask.

“Usually we have non-family members wait outside before the person gets naked on my exam table. We also tend to cut off clothes and try not to use an injured limb to remove it.”

I shrug. Ouch. Okay, so when he said take the shirt off, I thought he was telling me to do that. So I lifted the one side over and let it hang on my left shoulder, ’cause I’m not moving that arm. I was smart, up to the point that I shrugged. That was stupid, and it hurts like a motherfucker.

“It’s a sports bra. Covers more than the average bikini, so I’m not naked. Besides, I doubt either of you haven’t seen a pair of tits, and I’m betting mine aren’t any different from anyone else’s.”

It’s kind of hard to be modest in front of people when you don’t really know if you should be. You don’t know if there’s a part of your past that makes you cower at the possibility of showing skin or revel in it. I feel nothing either way, and unless they’re asking to see my strip from down under, I don’t see the big thing with tits. That might all change when I remember who I am, might even go into an embarrassing spiral for weeks on end, but that’s future me’s worry to work through. Right now, I’m just the girl who’ll do what she’s told in the hope it’ll get her a treat. Like Advil, or Percocet, or anything in the drug department that comes in the form of a pill.

I look around the room, hoping to see a sign with big neon lights that says “drugs in here,” but instead my eyes land on Flint. And the way he’s looking at me? Well, it’s not technically clinical like General. Actually, the more I stare at him, the longer I realize he’s only seeing about a fifth of me, because unlike a ton of the other girls who come in here, I’m sure, my tits don’t take up my entire body.

I cast them a glance of my own. They ain’t small—maybe a handful, depending on the hand. I don’t think they’re fake, but how would I know? But they ain’t bad from where I’m sitting, and the more I notice him noticing them, well, it gets at me. Not completely unpleasant, but I wonder if he’s comparing them to others he’s seen or whatnot. And that thought pisses me off way more than it probably should, which is why my mouth opens and word vomit erupts.

“Got something to say? Got to be a reason why you haven’t blinked in like a minute. Need the good doc to look you over? Make sure you’re not having a seizure or some shit from seeing my girls?”

He folds his arms across his chest—a deliberate stall tactic, I’m sure. And it works. Got me all wiggling on the table. His shrug is casual as he slowly looks away, as if he’s bored to death. “Seen better.”

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