Page 35 of Hades

“How are you doing, Lemon?” I ask as I start to wash my hands and arms.

“Been better, Doc.” He chuckles, voice full of pain.

“Bullet told me you were beat. Anything else?” I ask.

Hades hands me a towel and begins to wash his hands and arms as well.

I grab a pair of gloves and slip them on when Reaper comes into the room.

“What happened to the buddy system?” Reaper demands.

“Answer my question first,” I snap.

Lemon looks between the two of us, and well, his face looks like he bit into a lemon. As he begins to talk, I grab morphine, making sure I get the correct dosage, and administer it to him.

“Don’t get mad at Kicks, Pres. The crossing gate at the train tracks came down. I was being a smart ass and drove around them because the train was pretty far down. Kicks didn’t follow. When he caught up, he found me,” Lemon tells Reaper.

“What happened? Don’t leave anything out,” Reaper barks.

“I saw the young woman leaning against her car. I knew Kicks wasn’t far behind, so I stopped to see what was wrong. She said it was her battery, so I looked under the hood. Two men came from out of nowhere. They came at me with a bat. When I went down, I rolled into the ditch and into fucking barbed wire from a downed fence.” Lemon winces as I start pressing on his ribs.

“Nothing feels broken,” I mutter as Reaper curses.

“I’m sorry, Pres. I know it was stupid, and I shouldn’t have done it,” Lemon gasps.

“His foot is fucked. He couldn’t put weight on it,” Kicks croaks from the corner of the room.

“Did you catch anything?” Reaper asks him.

Kicks shakes his head. “I saw taillights, and I could tell it was a dark-colored car, but that’s it. They didn’t have a light above the license plate or anything like that. Wrath and Colt went out to get tire impressions, so hopefully we can match them to a make and model. The train was so fucking short. I was less than eighty seconds behind him.”

“Goddammit,” I growl in frustration.

“What’s wrong?” Hades asks.

“My sleeves keep sliding down, and I need to cut off his boot. They are contaminating shit,” I mutter.

A minute later, Hades steps up to my side. “Stop. Hold your arms out. Reaper, can you give me a hand?”

My brother walks over to us. “What do you need?”

“Hold her sleeves up above her elbows,” Hades tells him.

My brother pushes them up right as Hades removes a strip of tape from the roll of medical tape he grabbed off the counter. Together they work quickly and tape my sleeves out of the way.

“Thank you,” I tell them as I turn back to my patient.

“You’re welcome. You cutting off the boot now?” Hades asks.

“Yeah, the drugs have hopefully kicked in by now. Will you guys hold him down? I can’t have him moving.”

All at once, everyone moves in to hold Lemon in place. Hades places his hands on top of Lemon’s shin, holding him in place. As carefully as I can, I cut off the boot. When the boot finally falls off, I take a deep breath.

“Thank fuck you didn’t compound fracture it. You’re swollen as hell, though.”

As gently as I possibly can, I press on his leg and ankle to see if I can feel anything broken. Lemon doesn’t cry out at all. I can feel his body go tense, but because the guys are holding him, he doesn’t move an inch.

“You good, Lemon?” I ask.