Bass put his hand between Tag’s shoulders and gave him a push forward. “What do you think, Doc? Have a look and see if you can patch Sonny here up?”
The cue ball spun up into the air and smacked back into Shepherd’s hand. It was obviously not a request. Tag swallowed hard, wiped his hands on his scrubs, and stepped up to the table. The green surface under Sonny’s hips was soaked through with blood. Tag carefully peeled the sodden towels back to uncover a dirty screwdriver jammed deeply into a bloody thigh. The metal looked to be buried at least half the length of the shaft into his leg, and when Tag gingerly pressed the flesh around the wound, it was hard and swollen.
Sonny howled a stream of “fucks” forced through clenched teeth and squirmed in place.
“He needs to go to the hospital,” Tag said as he stepped back.
Toss. Smack.
“See, Doc, that ain’t gonna happen,” Shepherd said. “Sonny here, he doesn’t like hospitals.”
“Does he like having two legs?” Tag asked. “Because if we don’t get him to hospital, that could change.”
Shepherd wound back and threw the cue-ball at the wall. It hissed back at Tag’s head as Bass yanked him out of the way, and it smashed through the window with a crash. A moment later a car alarm went off outside, the shrill drone out of time with the steady flash of the headlights through the window.
“Fuck sake, Shep—” Bass spat, but he was ignored.
“You’ve misunderstood me, Doc. Either you fix Sonny up, or I fix your face so the next time you try to pick up a pretty boy, they puke on you,” Shepherd said, the affable mask still in place. “Understood?”
Tag did. He took a deep breath and shoved all the unhelpful stuff—the ball-clenching fear, the angry humiliation, the sour feeling of helplessness—down into the pit of his stomach. It wasn’t the first time he’d been threatened. People in trauma situations were either at their best or at their worst, and it probably wouldn’t be the last time.
Thestupidest, but not the last.
He pulled his keys out of his pocket and tossed them to the heavyset biker. The guy grabbed them out of midair and glared at Tag.
“I’ll need the first aid kit out of the trunk of my car,” Tag said as he tried to work out his wish list for a makeshift OR. “A bottle of whiskey, six feet of rope, and someone’s belt.”
Shepherd folded his arms and gave a slight nod of assent. “Go on, Boone. Get him what he needs.”
THE BELTwas thick leather but supple enough from the owner’s body heat to fold easily around Tag’s hand. He held it in front of Sonny’s mouth.
“Bite on this,” he said.
Sonny pulled his head back. “You ain’t fucking me,” he grumbled.
“It’s going to hurt like hell,” Tag told him. “This will stop you biting through your tongue or breaking your teeth. It’s up to you.”
It took a second, but Sonny grudgingly opened his mouth. Tag shoved in the wad of leather and waited for Sonny to set his teeth in it. Then he grabbed the bottle of whiskey, resisted the brief temptation to take a swig, and poured it over his hands. It stung in the raw patches between his fingers and where he’d scratched his knuckles earlier. He hissed in a breath and shook the stray drops of liquor off his fingers.
Bass handed him a pair of sterile gloves and draped the limp blue neoprene over his fingers. “I got you into this, I’ll get you out,” he promised quietly. “Trust me.”
Tag took the gloves but otherwise ignored him. He plucked a scalpel out of his kit and turned back to his patient. The leg of Sonny’s jeans had already been cut away and peeled back to reveal his swollen thigh and the solid jut of the screwdriver. It had stopped bleeding for now, but that wouldn’t last.
Despite what Shepherd had diagnosed, Tag didn’t think the screwdriver had pierced the femur. Instead it was just swollen muscle that wouldn’t release its grip on the dirty metal. Tag touched the drum-tight thigh, and despite the sweat that lashed off Sonny, the muscle was cold.
Compartment syndrome. More common with a crushing injury, but a penetrating object in the right place could cause it too. Tag had seen it once before, around a bit of rebar that had gone through a man’s forearm.
“Get the fuck on with it,” Sonny slurred around his leather bite guard.
Tag exhaled and sliced the knife along Sonny’s thigh in a single smooth motion. One of the bikers gagged and looked away. The others jeered and slapped him across the back of his head for his weak stomach.
Under the superficial calm, part of Tag’s brain was frantic with what a bad idea this was. He probably wouldn’t lose his license, since it was exigent circumstances, but he’d be suspended during an investigation. Everyone would find out what an idiot he’d been. Worst of all, he could have a death on his conscience by the end of the hour. While all that churned through his head, his hand stayed steady and his fingers light on the knife as he sliced deeper into Sonny’s leg.
He had to release the pressure he needed to get to the fascia, not just the surface layers of skin, and do it quickly enough so his patient didn’t bleed out on the table. Maybe Sonny deserved it—he had reason to avoid the police, if nothing else—but that wasn’t Tag’s call. He packed the wound with gauze as he worked to release the muscle.
“When I tell you to…,” he said without looking up. The back of his neck hurt, and the old scar under his ribs itched and ached. “Pull the screwdriver straight up and out. Carefully.”
It was Bass who grabbed the bloody yellow handle. Tag licked his lips, sliced deeper, and squashed the urge to be grateful.
