As his life’s blood ebbed away, mercifully taking his searing agony with it, he locked eyes with the man who had just signed his death warrant. Keplar’s face was a mask of resolve, devoid of any regret.
Not that JD expected any. Keplar was a heartless bastard, after all.
“Y-you’re a sonofabitch,” he managed to cough around the hot, metallic blood that filled his mouth.
The last thing he saw before everything tilted and his world faded to black was Keplar’s joyless smile. The last things he heard were his own words thrown back at him. “Takes one to know one, asshole.”
28
Northwestern Memorial Hospital
Eight days later…
Julia came awake to the sound of her brothers’ bickering.
“Stop giving me the evil eye,” Sean, her middle brother, said. “I think it’s a law or something that you can only use it if you’re Italian. And last I checked, we’re Irish.”
“I’m not giving you the evil eye,” Patrick, her oldest brother, countered. “I’m looking at you with pity because all this bluster isobviouslyyou compensating for an embarrassingly tiny set of sex organs.”
“Ha!” Sean snorted. “Please. I’m hung like a horse. It runs in the family. Too bad that particular gene skippedyou, though.”
“I hopebothyour lives are plagued by stray Lego pieces, wet socks, and chronic hangnails,” Oscar, her youngest brother, interjected.
“Oh, ho!” Patrick crowed. “Lord Dickbreath of Doucheville has deigned to join the conversation.”
“You see this?” Oscar asked, and Julia cracked a lid to discover that her youngest brother was flipping off her oldest brother. “This is my asshole antenna. I’m happy to report you’re coming in loud and clear, Pat.”
Patrick frowned. “I’m a ball’s hair away from breaking that antenna.”
“And I’ll tear youbothnew assholes you can fit entire deep-dish pizzas in,” Sean declared, wearing a shit-eating grin.
Usually, Julia appreciated the middle school banter of her overgrown brothers. But her doctor had been slowly weaning her off her high-powered pain medications in preparation for discharging her later in the day. As a result, the wound through her shoulder had grown teeth that relentlessly gnawed at her. The IV needle in the back of her hand smarted and burned. And to top it all off, she was working on a nagging headache.
All that to say, she could do without the name-calling and dick jokes.
“Will you three shut up?” She wrestled with the pillow behind her head in an effort to sit up. “I’m in sorry enough shape as it is. I don’t need visuals of your nether regions dancing in my head.”
As a group, her brothers raced to her bedside. Sean pushed the button that folded the bed like a taco shell to aid in her bid to get vertical. Patrick tucked the flimsy, over-washed hospital sheet tighter around her socked feet before pulling the quilt their mother had brought from home over her lap. And Oscar patted her hand solicitously.
She could smell their Old Spice deodorant. She wasn’t sure if it was a firefighter thing or a Southsider thing, but most of the men she’d grown up around insisted on that brand. And thus, they all smelled like spice and cedarwood.
But it’s better than the overpowering scents of bleach and antiseptic,she thought, feeling sick and tired of being sick and tired in the hospital. She wanted to go home. Wanted her bed and her animals and her Keurig.
“How are you feeling?” Sean asked, brushing her hair back from her face and wrinkling his nose when his fingers came away greasy.
“I feel like I’ve been shot.” The look she gave him was withering. “And I feel like I haven’t showered in a week.”
The sponge bath the nurse had given her had been glorious. But the lovely woman hadn’t touched her hair, andthatwas what needed water and soap the most.
Her mother had promised to help her wash her greasy scalp and ratted mop in the kitchen sink once she was home and ready to tackle the task.
“That’s because youhaven’tshowered in a week,” Oscar supplied helpfully.
Her withering look was transferred to her youngest brother. “Iknowthat. I was being sarcastic.”
Never one to miss a chance to razz one of his brothers, Patrick quickly lifted a hand to shade his eyes. “Your stupidity is blinding me, Oscar. Please turn it off.”
“Never tell me to hide my light under a bushel, Pat.” Oscar’s smile said he was quite pleased with that comeback.
