Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 76698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
It felt like hours but was maybe only twenty minutes before I found myself back at my cabin, two of the dogs still standing guard beside the front door, making space for us as I went to the door, letting out little whining noises as their noses picked up the scent of blood.
I lowered her body down on my dining room table, going for the lights, rushing into my bathroom for my medical kit, grabbing a bottle of vodka out of a cupboard, then going back, finding her staring blindly back up at the light and fan above her.
Light on, I could see that the one eye that wasn't full of bloody broken vessels was green. A light sage type green.
Shaking my head, I looked away from her eyes, from the unnatural size of her pupils.
My hand went for my kit, unzipping the sturdy material, laying it open beside her head, reaching in for the scissors, making short work of slicing her shirt down the middle.
"Okay," I hissed on an exhale, tipping the bottle of vodka over my hands and the edges of fine-tipped tweezers before quickly removing every prickly pine needle, every strip of dried leaf, every little twig.
"Sorry," I told her as she writhed and arched. "Can't give you shit with eyes like that," I added, mostly to myself since she wasn't likely hearing - or processing - anything I was saying.
Twisting off the tip of a saline tube, I poured it over the cut, washing the dirt slide away, giving me a better few.
Superficial.
Ugly, but superficial.
Nothing deep enough to do real damage.
Why it was there in the first place was a question for another time, preferably whenever whatever drugs the woman was tripping on were out of her system.
Out of saline, I reached for the vodka, casting a look at her eyes for a long moment before tipping it.
I knew that pain.
I'd experienced it myself many times before.
The searing, burning, all-consuming pain of alcohol on a gaping open wound.
There was the start of a cry that got cut off as unconsciousness claimed her. "Probably for the best," I mumbled, reaching for the suture kit.
Stitches were something I was an old hand at. Living in the middle of the Pine Barrens, constructing a homestead, well, there were sure to be mistakes, miscalculations, things that led to injuries of varying degrees. I'd learned how to stitch with my non-dominant hand. I'd done it on myself, on some of the animals, on old buddies in the service a lifetime ago.
I could do them in my sleep.
But it was always easier on someone who wasn't moving around.
Twenty-two stitches later, I moved onto her palms, then her feet, cleaning, sanitizing, smearing on some antibiotic cream, wrapping in gauze.
Lastly, I moved onto her face, wiping away the dried blood with a wet washcloth, cleaning out the two cuts, sealing one with a butterfly bandage.
They'd both likely scar. She'd walk around the rest of her life with the ghosts of a cut through an eyebrow, a light spot through her lower lip, and a giant gash down her belly.
A low whimpering dragged me back out of my head, finding Captain standing beside me, panting hard, nose sniffing the air.
"Couldn't catch 'em, huh?" I asked, rubbing his head as I moved away from the woman, going into my bedroom to find a red and black flannel shirt, carefully rolling her so I could slip her arms in, buttoning up the front, covering her body from view. "It's alright, Cap," I told him as he followed me, making low whimpering noises I wouldn't consider characteristic of him as I gently settled the woman down in the twin-sized bed in the spare room - if you could call it that.
It was there for one purpose - work. I had it to house the - for the most part - spoiled, rich, entitled upper-crust who got themselves into some kind of situation that needed fixing. And while my boss and the rest of the crew handled whatever that situation might be, I got to have the client up my ass, complaining about the heat, the cold, the food, the gnats, the mosquitos, the dog fur, the lack of fancy crap to dress up coffee. The list was endless.
And, holy fuck, the shit I got when I set them to work.
If I had to work for my dinner, so did they. Case closed.
The room had been empty for the better part of five months. People seemed to get into less trouble in the cold winter months. It seemed that as soon as the weather turned warm and clothes started stripping off, all hell broke loose.
And if there was one thing worse than sweating it out in the hot Jersey summer, it was having to do so with another person breathing down your neck, making everything more frustrating.