Tally took Scar’s head, using a towel to dry him off while also speaking to him as his brothers stripped him of his clothing and ice skates.
Bulldog was also at his upper half. “Julian, brother, I will never make fun of your Batman vest again. Who the fuck carries around a breathing tube as part of their everyday arsenal?”
Scar’s sapphire eyes cracked open slightly to glare at his best friend.
Due to Scar’s touch sensitivity, his body reacted as if the club brothers were wearing gloves coated in lava as they stripped him. Even freezing, he couldn’t stand the touch of anyone but Tally. Bulldog handed her a fresh cloth and guided her hand to hold the material to Scar’s head injury.
Eventually there were too many cooks in the kitchen, and Tessa had everyone but Bear, Bulldog, and Tally move back. If the injured party was anyone but Scar, Steel knew she would have called an ambulance. But Scar wouldneverwillingly go to a hospital. Not after being held captive in a medical clinic at Primis and certainly not where he would be at the mercy of strangers. So long as there was nothing life threatening, Tessa would honor Scar’s wishes and treat him here.
Paige came running from inside, a bag of saline in her hands. When Tessa looked at her in confusion, Paige said, “I heated it.”
Tessa’s shoulders sagged in relief. “If our men wouldn’t enjoy it so much, I’d kiss you,” she told her club sister as she grabbed for the bag.
Bear got out the supplies to start a line. “I’ll kiss her for you. That was fucking smart, Paige.”
Eventually, they got Scar’s core temperature raised enough where Tessa was able to look at Scar’s head wound. Steel, like the rest of the club, stood back and watched in silent frustration and rage as Scar’s injury was revealed.
Tally moved to his center, crawling up on the table next to Scar and wrapping herself over his blankets to help keep him warm.
“Scar, stop!” Tessa shouted after the second time he pulled from her. “I know it’s painful, beyond your wound, and I am sorry. So fucking sorry. But I need to do this or you could die. Look at me!” she demanded when he turned his head away. Scar’s eyes shifted to land on her again. “The more you struggle, the longer this will take. I am trying to do this while also respecting your wishes, but so help me God, if you fight me again, I will sedate you andthentreat you. Because I fucking care if you live or die. So make your goddamn choice, because I have. Hold still and you get to feel Tally’s body on yours or be knocked out and unaware of what is happening to you.”
Scar’s body started to shake, and Steel had a feeling it had nothing to do with the cold. How fucking blind washethat he hadn’t realized just how touch sensitive Scar was after nearly eight years of knowing the man? Tally had been the one to inform the club last June, and she’d only known Scar a month or so at that point. She’d figured out what the others,his fucking brothers, hadn’t in eight years. Longer, for Bulldog.
“Get these fucking skates off me,” Tally suddenly demanded. She hadn’t been injured from Scar tossing her. Just stunned and having the wind knocked out of her. Disoriented, her concern was only Scar and figuring out what the hell had happened to make him throw her like that.
The closest to her without medical gloves on, Bulldog moved to do as she ordered. As soon as she was free of the blades attached to her feet, Tally started to strip. But she didn’t just stop at removing her jacket, hat, and gloves. As she started to lift her shirt, protests rose.
“Then fucking turn around!” Tally snapped. “He needs to stay calm and alert, and the best way is for me to join him under those blankets and my clothes are frozen.”
Steel and the others gave her their backs. Some were slower to turn, but a push from Steel got them moving. He didn’t knowif Tally was stripping down completely or just to her underwear, and that was not a question he needed answered. All he cared about was that her presence did as she claimed, and Tessa would not have to follow through on her threat to sedate Scar.
Unfortunately,Scar’s blunt-force wound, likely caused by a rock on the bed of the pond, was too severe for Tessa to treat without further tests. The fact that he was conscious was a very good sign, but after Scar admitted he wasn’t sure if he’d fully lost consciousness upon the initial impact while under the water, Tessa was not comfortable just stitching him up and sending him on his way. They ended up bringing Keys’ van around the back, which had been modified to be an ambulance if needed, and loading Scar and Tally together on the stretcher into the back. The van did not have a CT scanner, but Jasmine’s vet clinic, which had recently gotten some upgrades, did.
Tessa wasn’t happy about it, but Scar was much calmer when the option of going to the vet clinic over the hospital was offered.
Tessa, Bear, Bulldog, and Ranger went with Scar and Tally. It was…harder than Steel cared to admit to stand back and listen to Ghost taking charge and giving out the orders. The look his old commander gave him said that Papaw knewexactlywhat was going through Steel’s mind.
As soon as the van pulled away, Ghost turned to the rest. “Fathers, go check on your kids. Prospects, clean this shit up,” he pointed to the mess that had once been the hot chocolate bar that had been dumped in the chaos. “The rest of us?” He paused, meeting everyone’s eye. “Get out of those fucking skates and get back to the pond. I want to know how the fuck a solid piece of icesuddenly breaks like that, because this sure as fuck was not an accident.”
The others jumped to obey, but Ghost remained where he was. So did Steel. It took several long minutes before everyone cleared out from under the pavilion, with the exception of the prospects who were cleaning up the hot chocolate.
Ghost walked up to Steel. They stood shoulder to shoulder facing opposite directions, both of their eyes scanning the horizons.
“I thought for a moment that Scar had been hit by a sniper shot,” Ghost confessed. His green eyes betrayed his inner turmoil.
Steel nodded slowly. He could understand the assumption. That first initial crack had sounded very similar to an echoing gunshot.
“What are you thinking?” Steel asked him, wanting to be respectful of his authority.
Ghost held his head tall, wisps of his ginger hair falling loose from under his skullcap. “Too many things,” he finally said, “and none good. But until we figure outhow, we can’t figure outwho.”
Steel glanced at Ghost out of the corner of his eye. “You think it was sabotage too.” It was good they were in agreement: ice did not justcracklike that.
Ghost’s expression darkened. “None of us would risk harming the kids, but if it turns out to be some fucking prank gone wrong, I’ll kill my brother myself. It’s a minor miracle that it wasScarwho went into the water. God forbid, if it was one of the babies…” Both men’s spines stiffened at the very thought.Anyof the adults would have been better than one of the toddlers. But the fact that it had been Scar who went under? It certainly bettered the odds of survival. “This feels…”
“Personal,” Steel finished for him.
Ghost nodded, his jaw tight. “I might need you to stop me from going scorched earth when we find out how this happened. You’re more level headed than me?—”
