“No, I’m not staying here.”
Axe made a move to sit up in the hospital bed, and the chorus of whatthefuckdoyouthinkyouredoing from just about every single bone, sinew, stretch of skin, and muscle was so loud, he couldn’t hear Dr. Manello’s no doubt highly reasonable explanation as to why he had to chill.
“Nope.” Axe started to go for the IV in his arm. “I’m out.”
Dr. Manello snapped a hard grip on Axe’s wrist. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m taking this out if you won’t.”
“Listen, kid, I want to remind you that I operated on you, in a fucking alley, about an hour ago.”
“I feel fine.”
“Your lips are blue.”
“My body, my choice.”
As they bickered back and forth, the stark decor of the hospital room and the reclinable bed he was in irritated the hell out of him. As did the johnny he was wearing. The fact that his feet were bare. And also the idea that he might get trapped here during the day.
Actually, pretty much everything irritated him.
“Really.” At least the surgeon let go of his arm as the guy spoke. “That’s your comeback. Your body, your choice?”
Wait, was that what he had said? He couldn’t remember.
Whatever.
“I thought it was a good one.” Axe shook his head. “And come on, I fed from a Chosen back there. Within six hours, everything will be healed up. Inside and out. I have no broken bones, you yourself said I didn’t have a concussion, and I saved the life of a member of the Black Dagger Brotherhood.”
“And you believe that gives you carte blanche to AMA yourself?”
“Okay, I don’t know what AMA is—”
“Against. Medical. Advice. Asshole.”
“Actually, that would be AMAA, wouldn’t it?”
“You’re making me want to hit you in the thigh, FYI.”
“That rhymes, and isn’t there a hypothetical oath or something you human doctors take?”
“Hippocratic. And hypothetically, you could leave here and have a complication in the next three hours where you could need to be opened up again, but there you’ll be, at home with your thumb up your ass, bleeding out for no good reason.”
“My thumb has never been near that area.”
“Maybe you should try it. It might stimulate your brain to work right.”
Axe couldn’t help it. He started to laugh, and then Dr. Manello followed along—at least until Axe ended up coughing and grabbing for his side where he’d been stabbed.
“See?” Dr. Manello said grimly.
“Just sore.” Axe took a deep breath and mostly hid his wince. “Look, Doc, just let me go. I’ll catch the shuttle out and—”
“You won’t be able to dematerialize.”
Shit. The guy was probably right.
“What the hell you got at home?” Dr. Manello demanded. “A cat? Some kind of house-eating dog?”
“I just want my own bed.” Even though he slept on the floor. “It’s that simple.”
As Dr. Manello leaned back against the wall, the guy frowned as if someone who spoke a different language than he did was about to drop an anvil on his foot—and he had to figure out how to tell them no, please don’t do that.
“You’re really going to leave,” the surgeon muttered.
“Even if I have to walk all the way home.”
There was a long pause. And then Dr. Manello said, “Fine, I’ll drive you in the surgical unit.”
“What? Oh, shit, Doc, I can’t ask you to do that—”
“What’s my other option, you hardheaded pain in the ass. You’re just going to limp out of here, hide on that fucking bus if you have to, and then get out somewhere in Caldie—only to discover when you’ve been left there that you can’t walk much at all and you die an overcooked pancake from sun exposure. After I wasted seven feet of my best suturing thread and twelve gray hairs Humpty Dumptying your goat fuck back into place.”
“Wait, didn’t Humpty Dumpty fall and break? I think the metaphor you’re shooting for is more along the lines of Elmer’s glue? Duct tape?”
Dr. Manello smiled and pointed at the IV bag. “Do you have annnnnnnny idea the kind of shit I can put in your bag?”
“That sounds dirty. And I like females recently, so you’re not my type.”
The surgeon was laughing as he headed for the door. “Gimme ten minutes to get organized. Ehlena will be here to unplug you—and if you touch that line into your vein? I’m not letting you go. We do this right, on my terms, clear?”
“Clear.”
Just as the human opened the door, Axe said gruffly, “Can I see Rhage. You know, before I leave.”
Dr. Manello looked over his shoulder. “Yeah, he’s been asking for you. And you can take your time in there—you’re going in in a wheelchair. Oh, and shut the fuck up with the complaining on that, will you.”
“I haven’t bitched about it.”
“Yet.”
As the door eased shut, Axe thought, Well, at least the guy seemed to get him.
And what do you know, after he was “unplugged” and had shifted his bare feet to the floor, standing up turned out to be reallllllly tricky.
Turned out that surgeon had had a point about him not being able to go far.
Ehlena, his nurse, was patient as he grunted and shifted himself from the bed down to the wheelchair, and then she pushed him two doors closer to the exit and knocked.
“Come in,” a female voice said.
The nurse opened things up and Axe rolled himself in. The tableau over at the hospital bed was totally Norman Rockwell, Rhage on his back looking like death warmed over, his loving shellan and his dark-haired daughter by his side.
And it was funny, even though Axe didn’t believe in the nuclear anything, unless it was a bomb … the three of them together made him a little sentimental. After all, it was the kind of thing anyone would want—because he could tell the family was close, Rhage holding the little girl’s hand, and Mary, who Axe had met in passing once or twice, with her arm around their daughter.
“Don’t mean to interrupt private time,” Axe muttered.
“No”—Rhage motioned forward—“come here.…”
Axe wheeled over as close as he could and thought, Fuck it. He put the brake on, struggled to get out of the chair, and used the handrails of the bed to hold himself up.
Wow. Nauseous.
“Thank you, son,” Rhage said hoarsely. “You saved my life.”
Man, those eyes were so blue, they almost looked fake. And they shone with tears unshed.
“Nah, it’s good. I’m just glad, you know.…” Fuck, wait, what the hell, was he tearing up, too? “Look, I got to go—”
Rhage caught his arm in a shockingly tight grip, and repeated, “Thank you. For saving my life. And do us both a favor and don’t try to pretend you didn’t. You’re the only reason I’m alive right now.”
Axe just stood there like a planker. He had no idea what the hell to do.
Mary broke the silence, speaking up from the other side, her voice wavering. “I don’t know how to repay you.”