The Shack series

Chapter 30

I patted her arm weakly. "Ricochet off a stone wall."

She looked over at Delaney. "I need two Vicodin out of the bottle on the left." She handed me the whiskey with the pills. "Take these; this is going to hurt."

Pulling a sheet over the island, she laid out a water bottle, a package of plastic tubing, the Glad Wrap and several strips of duct tape. I had no idea what was about to happen, but her self-assurance was comforting. She sterilized the tubing with something from a very medical-looking bottle, then folded and snipped holes into the first six or seven inches of it. While she prepped, the operative made sure I stayed upright on the table. She glanced over at the woman, then took the whiskey out of my hand and took a tiny sip.

"Wow, that is the good stuff."

The woman spun and snatched the whiskey out of her hand. "Give me that."

I felt a moment of sudden horror as I realized what her reaction meant. "She's not old enough to drink, is she?"

"Hell, Delaney's not old enough to legally drive by herself."

She glared at the suddenly grinning girl who gave a careless shrug. "I've had a license for over a year. It's just not in my real name."

"Shit." I reached my hand out. "I'll take more of that whiskey."

"Hold on." She glanced up at the clock and handed me three more pills. "It's been five minutes, so you're going to keep it down. Azithromycin and ciprofloxacin. I don't need to do all this work and have you die of infection." She shook her head. "Save me a drink or two of that if you can."

Delaney smirked at her. "Sorry, Tiffany, you're preggers. No booze for you."

Tiffany gave me a weary smile as she sterilized the wound. "Once this baby's born, I'm going on a week-long coffee and red wine binge. Eric can take care of the baby until I come out of it." She looked over at Delaney. "And you can help babysit. Get up there and help her; just hold her still the best you can."

Once Delaney settled in behind me, Tiffany taped the unpunctured end of the plastic tubing down into the water bottle, then opened a pack of surgical tools.

Tiffany looked me in the eye. "Okay, 'whoever you are' this is going to be rough."

I faded in and out of agonizing reality over the next several minutes as she probed. Delaney's grip never so much as wavered.

"There it is." I felt a sickening tugging sensation, and then she held her forceps up, gripping a deformed chunk of metal. "Got it."

I heard it drop on the table next to me with a dull thud.

She looked me in the eye. "Okay, I know that was bad, but this will be worse."

I laughed weakly. "You need to work on your bedside manner."

"That's part of the premium package; you get that when you show up at the ER and not in my kitchen. This is going to sound crazy, but I need you to hold your breath while I do this next part."

Searing pain flashed through me; by the time I managed to focus, she was thrusting the free end of plastic tubing deep into my chest; it felt like she was trying to drive it all the way through my body even though I could see she was barely moving it at all. She suddenly stopped, glancing down at the bottle. "There it is; just hold it for a bit longer."

She pinned the tube down with a looped strip of duct tape, then slapped a square of Glad wrap down and secured that with more duct tape. "Okay, relax."

Tiffany studied her work. I could see air bubbling into the water bottle. Despite the excruciating pain, it was easier to breathe. "We need to wait a bit, make sure this is working."

I managed to turn my head enough to look at Delaney. "Just how old are you?"

"Sixteen. Well, sixteen in a month or so."

"Must be one hell of a school you go to."

"The 'Life Skills' class is a real b***h. Pass-fail grading."

I shook my head weakly. "Sounds like it."

She suddenly gave a kind of odd, introspective smile. "I'm homeschooled. I study stuff I'm good at."

"Like what?"

"Welding, metal shop, auto mechanics. I'm better if I can do things instead of reading them."

I could see Tiffany's expression out of the corner of my eye. She looked sad and proud at the same time. She caught me watching her and pushed forward. "Let's check vitals."

She glanced up at Delaney. "There's a spare curtain liner in the upstairs linen closet, second shelf; put it on the recliner in the great room and cover it with towels. We'll move her there in a couple minutes."

After Delaney left, I caught Tiffany's eye. "Sister?"

"Half-sister by our mom. But she lives with Needles -- my real dad -- and his girlfriend."

Before I could ask, she shook her head. "It's even more messed up than it sounds. Mom and Dad absolutely hate each other, but Mom screwed up bad with Delaney. Dad 'gets her' better than anyone else. She'd be dead or worse if it weren't for him. We almost lost her a couple years ago; she was spiraling out of control, and nobody bothered to notice. She ran away and got into real danger; we would have lost her if it wasn't for Dad."

"You're caught in the middle?"

"Not really. My twin sister and I sided with Delaney after we found out everything Mom told us about their divorce was lies, and then some other stuff she did that caused problems. We still play along in public so that she doesn't cause any problems for Delaney and Dad."

"Sorry about getting you dragged into this."

She shrugged. "I don't think you had much choice. I know who you are. Deputy Director of the FBI, Maria Hawthorne. I watch the news, and you're all over it."

"You don't seem as shocked as you should at your sister bringing me here."

"Dad and Delaney have been involved in some pretty grim stuff. And... Delaney... he sends her to stuff besides welding classes. High-performance driving schools, some pretty serious first aid classes, outdoor survival. Other stuff. He has a friend in Texas who runs some kind of bodyguard training school, and she goes down there all the time."

The school had to be run by K2. I knew they operated out of Texas. That explained how the woman at K2 knew to contact her. "That sounds kind of risky."

"I see kids all the time in the ER who ended up a lot worse off. She's living a dream, doing things she loves doing. Some people are just different. Some girls go to the Olympics at sixteen. She's like that, in a way, doing what she's really good at. There are other issues, too. She really does need to know all this stuff." She stopped, obviously unwilling to say more about that.