“Mom!”
Heedless of Remy’s order to stay where she was, Triana raced for the door. She had no idea what the hell was going on, but her mother was in there. She’d be damned if she was going to stand there and do nothing.
She ran into the shop, absently wondering why it wasn’t locked like it usually was. The interior was illuminated only by the glow of the lone streetlamp outside and the neon in the windows, and she skidded to a halt, trying to make sense of the blurs of movement she saw in the near darkness as well as the grunts, growls, and curses she heard. The only thing she knew for sure was that Remy was in there, and he was fighting with someone.
Triana took out her cell phone to call the police when the lights suddenly came on, making her vision sparkle with stars. When it cleared, the image that met her eyes was enough to almost make her want to turn off the lights again as she saw her mother coming out from behind the counter with her baseball bat at the ready and Remy facing off against the three big goons from the other day. Well, actually there were only two of them now, since the third was rolling around on the floor, groaning and cradling a cast-wrapped hand against his chest. The cast looked like it had been crushed in a trash compactor. The other two men were still coming at Remy hard though, and this time they were armed. Triana’s heart almost stopped as she saw that one of the men held a gun, while the other held a long, wicked knife.
She hadn’t realized her feet were moving in that direction until her mother yelled at her to stop. Every pair of eyes turned her way, immediately followed by the barrel of the gun.
All Triana could do was stare. Why was everything moving so fast, but she was moving so slowly?
There was a deep growl, then the sound of her mother screaming, followed by a blur of movement as Remy smashed into the guy with the gun so hard the man bounced off the wall behind him and the gun went skittering across the floor. But going after that guy left Remy with his back to the man with the knife, who used the opportunity to take a savage swing at him.
“Remy, behind you!” Triana yelled.
Remy ducked and swung around, bringing an arm up to block the knife. She watched in horror as the sharp edge of the blade sliced through his upraised forearm, slinging blood across the room.
Triana expected Remy to gasp in pain and drop to the floor, but instead, he stepped back and kicked the guy in the chest hard enough to send him rolling across the floor…and straight into her. She went down in a heap of arms and legs, punching and kicking at the man, terrified he might still have the knife.
Everything went crazy after that. There was shouting and swearing; then she was being pulled to her feet by someone really strong. She almost took a swing at the person until she realized it was Remy.
“Are you okay?” he asked urgently, his eyes full of terror as he gently ran his hands over her, apparently looking for injuries.
Triana couldn’t answer him because all she could see and comprehend was the blood running down his arm.
He must have decided she was okay, because he turned to go after the men now fleeing the shop. Like hell, Triana thought. There was no way she was going to let him go anywhere with his arm bleeding like that. Slapping one hand over the wound, she buried the other in the fabric of his T-shirt and refused to let go.
Remy let out one of those growls like her father used to, then tugged at her hands. “Triana, they’re getting away!”
Triana held him tight, digging in her heels and refusing to let go. “You’re bleeding!”
Remy opened his mouth to argue, but closed it again as her mom came over to put her hand on his shoulder. “Let them go, Remy. We know how to find them.”
He clenched his jaw but nodded. Triana sagged with relief, only to tense again when she saw blood seeping out from between the fingers she had wrapped around Remy’s forearm.
“We need to call an ambulance,” she said, hearing a voice rising high in panic and realizing that it was hers.
Her mother gently peeled Triana’s hand away from Remy’s T-shirt, then did the same to the one clutching his forearm. “We don’t need an ambulance, Triana. I have a first-aid kit in the back room. I can patch him up just fine here.”
Triana released his arm, swaying a little on her feet, suddenly queasy. She’d seen a lot of blood in the crime lab, but none of it had come from someone she knew, much less a man she was falling in…
“Remy needs to go to a hospital, Mom. He needs stitches,” she said.
Triana had taken enough first-aid courses in college to know that.
Her mom shushed her and steered Remy over to the counter. “He doesn’t need a hospital or stitches. I used to fix up your dad after he’d get into fights down at the club. This is just a little scratch.”
Triana stood there in disbelief as her mother disappeared into the backroom, coming out with a first-aid kit in a big green canvas bag that looked like something an army medic would use. Inside it were forceps, clamps, retractors, and even scalpels. What the heck was her mother doing with a setup like this?
Triana was even more confused at the calm, confident manner her mother displayed as she pulled out the various pieces of gauze and bandages she wanted. A moment later, her mother snapped on some gloves and went to work, apparently not fazed at all by the amount of blood or the deep cut. Then again, now that Triana looked at the wound more closely, she realized it wasn’t nearly as bad as she’d thought. It wasn’t even bleeding that much now.
She glanced at Remy to see that he seemed as surprised as she was by the sudden appearance of Dr. Gemma, Voodoo Medicine Woman.
“Maybe I should run down to the emergency room and get this looked at anyway,” he said cautiously. “I’m sure it would make Triana more comfortable.”
Her mom made a tsking sound as she wrapped the wound in a thick bandage as though she’d done it a hundred times. “You know as well as I do that you don’t need stitches, Remy. Triana is a big girl, you know. She’ll figure it out soon enough.”
Triana frowned, wondering what the heck that meant, but before she could ask for an explanation, her mother announced she was done and began cleaning up. Triana moved to check the bandage, worrying there might be blood soaking through it, but Remy was already heading for the door.
