Page 35 of Love Bound

Slowly we hit a pattern. Step, lean hard, release. Step, lean hard, release.

By the time we reach the bottom, my arms are shaking, from cold, from bearing weight, from panic, I don't know. But as we descend down the dark, narrow staircase, the temperature begins to rise.

His breath comes jagged, uneven, and he leans against the bottom newel. "Okay, you rest for a minute," he says.

I want to protest, but he's right. I shake out my arms and see that my fingernails are blue. My teeth chatter, but I slip an arm around him again and slam the old attic door shut. We both focus on the third door down on the left—his bedroom. Finally, we're inside.

He sits voluntarily on a stool while I go to the bathroom and rip the plastic shower curtain off and lay it on the bed.

I try to get him to move, but he shakes his head. "This has to come out first."

"That's a bad idea. It'll make the bleeding worse," I say.

"Yeah." It's as if he's talking about the weather. He smiles at me. "But you're a vet. You’ve got this."

No, I don't! I want to scream, but no. Must. Stay. Calm.

"You okay here? I've got to get some stuff from the clinic," I say.

He nods. "Believe me, I've been in worse shape.” And then, seeing my undoubtedly startled face, he adds, "I'm not going anywhere."

The trip back to the clinic seems to take forever, skidding over ice and snow, grabbing what I need out of drawers. I grab my bag, toss stuff on the exam table, and grab three containers of QuikClot gauze, modular compression bandages, iodine, needle, dissolving thread, morphine, gloves, bacterial soap, syringes, antibiotics. A lot of antibiotics. And surgical drapes. I should have asked if he’s allergic to anything.

I stand, shaking, and get a glimpse of myself in the mirror. There's blood smeared all over my left side and my hands are stained as well. I grab the antibacterial surgical soap. Slipping on my oilskin coat, I make it back over to The Inn, the ground now so slippery I have to stomp to break the ice with every step. The green surgical drape droops under my one arm, my bag in the other. Never have I made a house call for a human.

When I come into the room, Finn is standing, unsteady on his feet, slightly bent over, his shirt and windbreaker on the floor, one hand on the wrought iron headboard the other holding his side. There's a footlong piece of rebar on the ground at my feet.

Jesus.

He's bleeding everywhere.

Seeing my face, he smiles again. "At least it was the skinny stuff. No half-inch rebar."

"Why did you pull it out?" I want to cry. I can't believe he did this. He's bleeding out in front of me.

"To spare you. You're not trained for this. Help me into bed."

Dropping the bag, I pile up three pillows, pull up the shower curtain to cover as much of the bed as possible and smooth one surgical drape, my biggest one, over the whole thing, suddenly oddly embarrassed by the stains from previous patients.

As soon as he's sitting, all his strength seems to go and I have to lift his legs up. Instinctively, he rolls away from me onto his left side, the bleeding from his back just along the edge of the serratus anterior—those muscles that dive into the rib cage. Even now I see how tucked each is, in a cascade of perfect muscle.

I dump soap all over my hands and hope it’s enough. Blood is flowing freely from his back. "This is going to sting," I say, "Here, turn toward me more.”

He obliges, and his torso twists slightly, engaging his obliques and creating two small dark, symmetrical hollows.

Damn.

I begin flushing the wound, alarmed when the saline oozes out the other side.

"It didn’t hit anything important," he says, his voice steady, low, and authoritative.

"Nice. But you can’t know that. Here, roll a little. Yes." I tear open the bag of QuikClot gauze with my teeth. The stuff works in a minute.

"That stuff'll be a bitch to dig out later," he says, but he doesn’t fight me.

How does he know?

I cut the gauze, and tape it into place. This is how I use it on farms for large animals. "You'll be fine. It works immediately. Listen, I'm closing up the back, but flooding the front with antibiotics, I need you to roll all the way over."