Page 31 of Pain

Gemini huffed out something that might have been amusement. “Better than nothing, small fry.”

I was shocked at the joke—yesterday he’d wanted to send me on my way—but I didn’t stop to stare at him. I’d take time to be surprised later.

Right now, we needed to get his shirt off and figure out where the hell he’d been shot and whether Mandy was going to be able to save him.

Mandy snagged a switchblade out of her pocket, flipped it to expose the blade, and cut Gemini’s shirt from the hem upward, her mouth held tightly and her eyes on her work. Once she’d sliced through the material, I helped her maneuver Gemini’s arm carefully out of the shirt and lay it out on the floor.

When my eyes moved up to his shoulder, I gasped.

There was a perfect hole in the meat of his shoulder, right below the joint. No wonder he’d been bleeding so heavily.

No wonder he’d grunted in pain when I’d moved his arm over my own shoulders.

“Help me get him up to sitting,” I said, assuming Mandy was seeing the same thing I was. She helped me sit him up, and I moved to look behind him.

Another bullet hole matching the first.

Thank goodness.

“Bullet went clean through,” I noted.

“Thank fuck for that,” Mandy answered. “Lay him back down and I’ll get the bandages.”

She was gone for no more than thirty seconds while I worked to stem the bleeding using Gemini’s shirt. I couldn’t remember any major arteries in that area of the shoulder, but he was losing a shit ton of blood, and we needed to get the bleeding stopped.

At least we didn’t have to go fishing for the bullet. That would have made it worse.

Mandy slid back into view and came to her knees beside me. “At least we’re not looking for the bullet in there,” she said, removing my hands and starting to clean the wound.

“Exactly what I was thinking,” I told her. “What can I do?”

She jerked her head toward the pile of supplies she’d brought with her. “Get the gauze and pads out of their packages but keep them off the floor. I don’t want them contaminated. I’m going to stitch him up, but I’ll need those bandages the moment I’m done to staunch the bleeding and keep any dirt from getting in there. Help me sit him up.”

I didn’t point out that if I’d already started getting things out of packages I wouldn’t be able to help her sit him up, but I kept my mouth shut. Gemini was making enough noise for all of us, taking it in turns to shout or curse at Mandy’s actions, depending, I assumed, on how much they hurt.

Mandy cleaned out the wound in his back and went to work with needle and thread, her mouth pinched and her eyes creasing in pain with every stab of the needle and grunt from Gemini. She worked quickly, though, and within five minutes, she’d stitched the wound as tightly as she could.

“Gauze,” she said, holding out her hand.

I handed her a generous portion of gauze, hoping I was giving her the right amount.

She glanced at it and nodded—which, I thought, was good enough. “Pad and tape,” she muttered.

I handed her the pad and watched her press it up against the gauze, ignoring Gemini’s gasp.

“Lord, woman, do you think I’ll heal better the more you hurt me or something?”

“You shut up,” she snapped. “As far as I’m concerned, you deserve the pain. You’re the one who went out there and got yourself shot.”

He hissed as she secured the pad to his skin with medical tape. “Believe it or not, the guy didn’t ask me first. I didn’t exactly get a say in the matter.”

Mandy slid around to sit in front of him, her eyes on the still-open wound that had come far too close to his heart. “Shut your mouth, Gem, or I’m going to start crying. And the stitches are going to hurt a whole lot more if I can’t see what I’m doing.”

Gemini shut his mouth, but I didn’t miss the twitch of his lips in suppressed amusement... or the tenderness in his eyes as he watched the woman he loved fight to save his life.

***

I HELPED MANDY GET Gemini to his feet, then waited while she situated herself to take all of his weight on her shoulders. When her eyes came up to meet mine, I saw acknowledgement there.