Jaded Warriors book 2 (Jade Series)

Chapter 21

Chapter 21


“You! Come help me, hold pressure!” One of the doctors’ called out as he pointed at me and assisted a wounded man to the table.


I headed to the table where he stood as I wiped at my brow with the back of my hand and sighed as I tried to muster up some energy. In spite of the cold middle of February weather, beads of moisture dampened my hair from the warmth inside the makeshift med tent as I kept busy all morning and it drained my reserves down to nothing. I’m sure my exhaustion had something to do with the fact that I’d been up all night, but the injured kept a constant flow and I couldn’t bring myself to stop.


I squirmed inside as Dr. Walstrom eyed me while I walked past. I wasn’t sure why he made me feel so uncomfortable. Marge had nothing but good things to say about the man. He helped me when I was sick, he did everything he could for Trey. 


“What can I help with…” I stopped in my tracks as I stood next to the doctor. My mouth dropped open with shock, stunned with who I saw before me on the table. His blue eyes wild and intense, his face black with ash and sweat. “Kane!”


  The doctor grabbed my hands and directed them to his side with the right amount of pressure over a wound that bled profusely despite the gauze before I had any time to react. Kane, obviously in pain groaned as his brows tensed, clenching his jaw tight. His misery didn’t stop his dagger-like stares that bore into me, the look he gave only when he was fuming mad.


“What in the hell are you doing here!”


“Holding pressure.”


The doctor laughed at my response while Kane writhed on the table, which didn’t help as he grew angrier by the second. “Hold still Kane… I’m glad to see you’re alive.” I tried to make light of it, but deep down I felt tears that threatened to surface.


“Do you two know each other?” The doctor asked as he looked at me with raised eyebrows.


“Kane is my bro…”


“Friend, I’m her friend.”


“Sounded like she said brother… so, this is the infamous Jade, huh.”


“Listen!” Kane fumed. His voice just above a whisper, but no less threatening as he grabbed the doctor by the shirt and pulled him down closer to his face.


“Kane!” I said, shocked by his abrasiveness but he paid no attention to me as he continued to speak to the doctor.


“She shouldn’t be here and the least amount of people who know she’s here, the better. Got it! She’s a friend.”


“I got it… I know which side I’m fighting on, Kane. And it isn’t Morrison’s.”


The intensity that raged in Kane’s eyes softened as he accepted the doctor’s response then was replaced by the pain he momentarily forgot about.


“Dr. Walstrom knows I’m here, he saw me… he’s right over there, Kane,” I said, irritation leaked into my voice as he glanced at me, stern browed and angry. He let his head fall back as he closed his eyes.


I watched the agitating bubbles fill the syringe as the doctor drew something out of a clear glass vial. He flicked the syringe then released the bubbles to the top and out through the needle. He capped it and set it next to another one filled with a white substance.


“What is that?” I asked. Kane opened his eyes.


“I don’t want to be knocked out.”


“It’s morphine, for the pain… this is propofol,” he said, then he pointed to the white one. “It won’t put you under because I don’t have enough of it, but it’ll make you very relaxed, sleepy… then I have some lidocaine, a local injection. You’re lucky I have some left.”


“I don’t want it, I need to stay awake.”


“Trust me, Kane. You don’t want to do this without it,” he said as he drew up the local into a third syringe.


“Kane, just take it,” I insisted.


At that moment, the tent door flipped open, whipping in the air and the three of us looked to see who barged in. I startled slightly but an instant smile grew on my face when I saw Gage, though I would have to say, he didn’t look as happy to see me. The worry on his face shifted to a silent rage as his warm blue eyes turned instantly to ice. With each step he took in my direction, the muscles of his jaw clenched tighter until it pulsated in rapid ripples under his skin.


Gage’s steps slowed as he saw Kane was on the table but he didn’t look any less angry. He left his disapproval of my presence silent for the moment, which I was relieved he spared me the embarrassment. I knew it would come later, I could see it in Gage’s eyes, and he didn’t want me here.


“He won’t take anything for pain.”


“I don’t need it.”


“Yes you do, just take it,” Gage said firmly, as he glared at Kane. “Do you want him digging around in your gut looking for the bullet without it? Trust me, you don’t.”


His glare shifted to me. I suddenly thought back to that night I was rescued, the night I dug a slug out of his arm. I flinched, the expression on his face softened momentarily, then he returned his icy glare back to Kane.


“Yes or no Kane?” The doctor asked.


“Just give it to him,” Gage said, as he glared at the doctor.


“All right,” he conceded. The doctor injected the two syringes into his arm, then the last one around the tissue of the wound.


“Didn’t he have a bulletproof vest on?” I asked. The one comfort I had while they were out here was that I knew they both had bulletproof vests.


“No…”


“Why?”


“Because he was being a dumb ass that’s why,” Kane said. His words slurred. I glanced at him, thankful he finally looked relaxed as his eyes closed.


“I seem to remember you pulling the same dumb ass move yourself, Gage.”


“That was different.” 


“You still took it off.”


“What!” I asked, on the verge of being visibly upset. Gage looked at me but didn’t say a word. “Oh fine. I see how it is.”


I dropped the subject for now, but would definitely have a few words of my own later. If I was going to get my butt chewed, so were they. My cheeks felt hot, as I looked the other way.


My anger mellowed down to a dull ache in my chest and I turned back and watched the doctor work on Kane. His eyes were closed and his jaw tense, but he didn’t say another word, not to me, not to Gage, not to the doctor. I knew he was in pain, he had to be. He looked lethargic but still awake, enough to mumble his objections. I looked around at the non-sterile conditions Kane was exposed to. I was beyond worried, beyond upset, but Raύl was right when he said there was nothing I could do about it.


“Is he going to be okay?” I asked, as the doctor pulled a slug out from the wound that was now cut to a two inch incision.


“I don’t know…”


“What do you mean, you don’t know?” My voice wavered with shock as my heart plummeted in my chest. I glanced at Kane, flashbacks of Trey flooded my mind, the pain of his death surged like a hot current through my heart. He looked at me.


“I’ll be fine.”


He sounded weak, his eyes hazy from the drug. I swallowed at the knot in my throat and took a deep breath as I looked to the doctor for some kind of reassurance.


“The bullet is out and somehow managed to avoid causing serious damage, the bleeding has stopped but he needs antibiotics. Everyone here does, our biggest risk right now is infection. We took a big hit these last few days. Morrison might have really crippled us if these men don’t recover.”


“What kind of antibiotics,” I asked as I watched the doctor stitch the incision, his hands swift and precise like he could do this with his eyes closed.


“Penicillin’s, sulfa drugs, but you won’t find any around here. Drug stores were the first hit when the virus came. People thought if they treated themselves with antibiotics, they would be safe but antibiotics aren’t effective against viruses. Medicine doesn’t work that way.”


“Are you finished with him?” Gage asked as I placed a gauze bandage over the wound. My bloody fingerprints marred the clean, white dressing. My brother’s blood. I wiped my hands on the end of a damp, dirty towel just before a young woman walked by and picked it up along with the other dirty linen.


“Yeah, you can take him back to his tent.”


Kane insisted on walking and I wasn’t sure how he even managed to be upright still as he staggered like a drunk out the tent. I winced at the sight of him. He moved stiffly, obviously in pain but he didn’t complain. Their tent was just on the other side of the fence along the tree line closer to the mountains.


Kane grimaced as he crawled onto his bedroll and rolled onto his back. His eyes closed, his forehead wrinkled from the scowl on his face and I wasn’t sure if it was due to the pain, my presence or the conditions on the front line.


Gage crouched to his knees in front of their portable stove and tossed in short cut logs. Each one clanked against the walls inside the hearth, then he crumpled up some paper and shoved it into the small spaces around them. A flame flickered as he struck a match on a stone and started the fire.


“Stay here,” he insisted. The tension between us thick then he grabbed a bucket and went to stand.


“Where do you have to go for water?”


“The stream, I’ll be right back.”


“Can you take me home after?”


“Yeah.”


His persistent anger towards me tore my heart in two and I sat on his bedroll and glanced around the tent to avoid his penetrating eyes that watched me. I noticed a box at my side with a hinged lid and an unlocked lock that dangled from the opened lid. The contents, a toothbrush and toothpaste along with some deodorant as well as a few odds and ends which I assumed to be Gage’s and an envelope tucked in the side with my name written in his handwriting across the seal.


“What’s this?” I asked, as I picked it up and looked at him. His angry eyes shifted instantly to guarded, as if I discovered his personal belongings he kept only to himself.


“You weren’t supposed to see that,” he said, then pulled it from my hands and placed it back in the chest and closed it. The lock snapped as he shut it, closing the contents inside.


“Why not?” I asked, my voice raspy by the knot that formed suddenly in my throat.


“It’s a letter,” he said, his somber expression saddened. “A letter that I’ve asked Kane or Casey or Joel to give to you if anything happens to me… we’ve all agreed to do that for each other if it comes to that.”


An audible gasp escaped me as I felt tears well in my eyes and I had to turn away. He reached for my hand and I pulled it away and wiped angrily at the tears that flowed down my cheeks. I heard him sigh, then he stood with the bucket and walked outside into the bitter cold.


***





The sun was up full force once we drove out of the black plume of smoke and was quite deceptive in how warm it looked. The brightness stung my already weary eyes and caused them to tear. The constant hum from the truck made it harder to keep my eyes open as I struggled to stay awake. The clock on the dash said two fifteen and I was going on thirty-six hours without sleep minus the forty minutes I slept in the semi last night with Mateo.


Gage didn’t say much which was okay with me. We both were tired and it was probably better if we saved this conversation for another time after we both rested. I settled down across the seat, curled into a ball and sighed as he smoothed a hand over my hair. I let my eyes close, my thoughts drifted back to the letter in the box. My heart ached at the thought of him writing it. His final goodbyes if something happened to him. I wanted to rip it up as if doing so would prevent his demise.


“We’ll be home soon, and then you can sleep as long as you need,” Gage said, he pulled me from my thoughts as his hand gently touched my head. He brushed a wisp of my hair out of my face and tucked it behind my ear.


“I’m not going home to sleep, Gage. I need you to take me home, to my home,” I said, as I sprang upright and looked at him with heavy eyes. He looked just as tired.


“Why?”


“Antibiotics.”


Gage didn’t say anything else as he passed his house and headed to what was left of mine. I knew my mom had some stocked somewhere and I was sure they were under the front porch with all of the other storage. I hoped I was right and it wasn’t my over tired mind that played tricks on me.


Gage followed me down the ash and debris covered cement stairs and moved in front of me to unlock the door. He pulled open the door and a smell of stagnant, stale smoke wafted out of the room.  Sunlight filtered through the doorway into the damp room.


I scanned over the rows of shelves as I searched desperately for the antibiotics.  An overwhelming fear surged through me. What if I couldn’t find them? I couldn’t lose another brother and I shuddered at the thought of it. Raw painful aches tore into my chest, still very real. I’d forgotten how painful they had been when Trey died. I’d buried them deeply but they rapidly resurfaced and reminded me of how much I missed him. Surprised and mad by my emotions that flooded my mind, I wiped angrily at my cheeks.


I tried to look through blurry tears while I attempted to rummage through the overwhelming stacks of stuff, nothing I needed at the moment. Antibiotics, all I needed were the stupid antibiotics. I knew she had some, my mom thought of everything, she always did. She knew I might need them someday, that Kane might, or Emery or Trey.


“Jade, there not here,” Gage said, as he startled me. After five minutes of my desperate search, I’d forgotten he was here and I looked at him stunned. The months of worry and stress back in his soft blue eyes as he searched mine to find me.


“They have to be.”


I continued to search. I know I saw them down here at one time. I leaned forward and rested my head against my arms to hide my face as I used the shelf for support. The heaviness in my eyes pulled them closed. I was so tired. Think! I cursed at myself. My mind felt so foggy, bogged down. Where were they? Where did I see them? I guess it wouldn’t matter if I saw them anywhere else but here. There was nothing left of the rest of my house. If they weren’t in here, they were lost forever.


“Maybe the Militia took them, Jade… When they raided the house last year.”


“Yeah… Probably.”


“What about this?”


I looked up slowly, angry with myself for giving up the search. Through heavy lidded eyes, I watched Gage hold out a book, my mom’s book. Filled with different recipes and concoctions she’d made and had preserved, an alternative to medicine she said could be just as effective as the modern kind. As a nurse, she’d believed in them whole heartedly, and practiced both. She’d even perfected some and Marge sold some at her store.


I looked closer at the jars in front of me, hundreds of them stacked in rows. Much of it was food Gage and I had canned last summer, but some were from my mom. Stuff I knew was there but never paid much attention to and had no idea why we even had it to begin with. I hadn’t needed it before now. I read across the labels as if visible for the first time, like it was placed before me to see, to find at this moment. Stuff the Militia had overlooked and cared nothing about.


I grabbed an old empty box from the top shelf. With dividers already in place, it would be perfect. Carefully, I placed the jars inside. She had boxes of clean, sterile, pre-packaged dressings, antiseptic and ointment, so I grabbed a duffle bag and placed some inside along with the book. “Okay, let’s go.”


“Jade, you’re not coming back. Tell me what he needs and I’ll make sure he gets it.”


“Like hell I’m not! Gage! There are worse things than dying! Living, while everyone else around me dies is not okay! I’m going back!” The tears ran down my cheeks. I felt panicked, I felt sick to my stomach. Gage took a step towards me and I took a step back. Suddenly, my legs felt weak. I couldn’t support myself and I let myself down to my knees as I cried. I tried to hide my pain from him but I couldn’t so I covered my face with my hands to muffle my cries.  “It’s not okay! I can’t… I can’t lose another brother! I can’t lose you! I don’t ever want to read that letter!”


“Okay… Okay, Jade, I’m sorry,” he said as he knelt next to me, his strong arms pulled me to his chest. The beat of his heart, vibrant, alive against my cheek, his breaths, deep, steady. “Okay… shhh… It’s okay, Jade, I’m sorry.”


***


“Can you find the tent?” Gage asked, as we pulled into camp.


“Yeah, aren’t you coming?”


“No, I’m going back out.”


“But…”


“Joel and Casey are still out there. If you are going to be here you have to change your mindset, I have a job to do. We all do.” Gage slipped his hand through my hair and pulled me close. He leaned into me and sighed as he kissed my forehead.


“Okay.”


“Go take care of your brother, I’ll be back. Love you, beautiful.”


“I look like I haven’t bathed in days,” I said, as I looked down at the filth I wore and he chuckled.


“Still beautiful,” Gage grinned, as I gave him a half-hearted smile, then I watched him get out of the truck and blend into the chaos.


I heard Mateo’s voice as I walked up to the tent. I knew I would walk in on a conversation that I probably shouldn’t have heard but I didn’t care.


I was surprised at the temperature difference as I walked inside the tent from outside. It was a small space inside but that little wood burning stove really heated up the place. However, despite of how warm it was inside, the conversation sounded about as cold as the air outside.


Kane glanced over at me, his jaw set tight as he glared at me with his piercing blue eyes.


“I needed it days ago, Mateo.” Kane’s glare shifted from me to Mateo as I walked inside.


“I was here, where were you?”


“Preoccupied, I guess if I need a job done, I have to do it myself,” Kane paused for a moment as he glanced back at me then returned his stoic, steely glare back at Mateo. “I’ll get in touch if I need you.”


“You need me, Kane.”


“Not at the expense of involving my sister.”


“I hooked you up bro and this is the thanks I get?”


“You’re not my bro, you’re a contact.”


“Don’t push me Kane, if you want to keep the contact,” Mateo’s voice turned harsher than I expected and chills prickled at the back of my neck as my hair stood on end. His black eyes narrowed as he squared his shoulders. Mateo turned his glare to me, and then back to Kane. “You have bigger problems than me… And you know it.”


Mateo stormed out of the tent and I followed as Kane yelled after me. I ran to catch up as he neared the emptied out diesel.  “Mateo, wait!”


“You better watch it girl!” Mateo growled, as he turned towards me with a fierce threatening tone. “This isn’t my fight! I don’t need this shit!”


“Mateo, he only said that because I was there. Kane is just trying to protect me and I’m not making it easy for him. You have to understand.”


“I don’t have to understand anything, bi…” Mateo stopped himself suddenly. His eyes wild with rage as his chest heaved under his breaths.


“You are wrong, Mateo.”


“Wrong about what?”


“This is your fight too. You are an enemy to Morrison, like we are. If the rest of us don’t come together, he will ruin all of us. We have to be on the same side, you, with us. You need to be, we need you.”


“Morrison may be my enemy, but that doesn't make us friends! This is business and that's it! I have something you need and you have something I need. I'm not even sure I should be helping you. You fight on the side of government and that government could care less about me and my family!”


“That government barely exists! If you hate how things were so much, then now is the time to get involved and change it. Give your people a voice!”


“We will never have a voice! We are trash to people like you!”


“Where's the trust, Mateo?” I asked with sinister sarcasm laced through my tone as I threw his own words he used on me back in his face.


“Say I join you, what happens after, Jade? After Morrison is stopped, that is if we are even here to see the day.”


“Do you like how things are now? We have to learn to live together, to trust each other. There has to be law, there has to be order and it has to start somewhere, why not let it start with you. You can make a difference.”


“I am no one you can trust... You should be carrying that gun with you everywhere you go. Your first instincts were right.”


“I believe you…  But, I am willing to look past who you used to be, Mateo. I want to see what you are made of now. I can see you’re a leader. Just lead them in the right direction. You are too strong to cower under Morrison and I know you cannot possibly agree with his reasons for fighting.”


“Jade!” I whirled around to see Kane as he struggled to stay upright. Slowly, he moved toward Mateo and me as he clutched at his gut. The dressing had a shadowing of blood underneath and I worried he was bleeding internally. I turned back to Mateo to see him take a leap back into the cab of the semi.


“Think about it... Go home and think about it,” I begged, as I forced him to hold my gaze. His intimidating glare was enough to melt me into the frozen ground but I held onto his slivered stare as the rumble of the diesel motor started with a jolt. Mateo shifted his glare to Kane as he grabbed my arm. They locked stares and held firm as something unspoken passed between them, then the gears ground into place and he lurched forward.


Kane didn’t waste any time directing his fury towards me as he pulled me to the tent.  His face looked flushed. I wondered if it was due to his anger or if he had a fever.


“I don’t know what you were thinking, Jade, coming out here like that,” Kane paused, just long enough to allow himself to rest back down on the bedroll. “And now I find out you’ve met with my contact! Why? Why would you do that?”


“To help!”


“I don’t want you to help me!”


“Are you embarrassed by me, is that why?”


“What! No… Jade. Why would you think that?”


“You don’t want me out here. I don’t know, maybe it’s easier for you to not have to answer questions about what happened to me. I made things hard for you, created problems, gave Morrison an edge over you.”


“No, Jade, it’s nothing like that. I can’t bring you with me because it’s dangerous and I need to be here.”


“Kane, I don’t know how to do anything else. You and Trey never told me that I couldn’t go before, and now you don’t want me around anymore.”


“If things weren’t so messed up right now, I would still be back at home. Or Gage would, one of us. But we can’t afford to be gone and the only way I was able to feel good about leaving was Raύl, Olivia and Deanna promised me, they would watch out for you.”


“Kane, I’m not a kid.”


“It has nothing to do with that! Jade, do I need to remind you… Trey is dead!”


“I know…”


“How is it that you can still trust a complete stranger like Mateo after everything you’ve been through? Do you have any idea who Mateo is?”


“Your weapons contact in Vegas.”


“Besides that? Do you know who he is? Who he was?”


“No, who?”


“He’s a hard core gang member, one of the three leaders over the whole Las Vegas area. He’s been in prison for murder. The only reason Mateo isn’t in there still is the prison was over-run after the virus. He's probably an America’s Most Wanted regular and proud of it…”


“Kane!” I scolded partly at his rudeness and partly for establishing such a dangerous contact, but he ignored me.


“I had no choice, it was getting too risky to smuggle guns through Colorado from Richards, my other contact, the one you were supposed to go live with. There was too much of Morrison territory between us, Prescott wasn't coming through for us for supplies, he still isn’t, I had to find another way so I found Mateo.”


“Kane, I’m sorry.”


“So, you can’t just come with me, with us. I know you want to be in the middle of it all but, Jade, look around… This isn’t spending a day at the lake, or going hunting, or…”


“Kane, I know what’s around me, I see it… But I cannot just sit around and do nothing… I feel isolated, useless… I can’t see why I you’re so mad that I came and helped,” I said, as I stepped closer then sat at the side of his bedroll. Kane’s eyes looked heavy and glazed as he glanced at me, tired maybe.


“There is plenty for you to do at home.”


“And I’m doing it. But Deanna was here, there were other girls here. They actually needed my help Kane, and I felt useful.”


“Morrison doesn’t have every single one of his men on guard, looking for them like he does you. This is a sign-up as you are army, there is no way I can do a background check on every man who volunteers, it’s impossible. I can guarantee you Morrison has men here on the inside. We do, why wouldn’t he?”


“Okay, Kane… I’m sorry.” I needed to let this go. As frustrating as this was, he was right about that. He didn’t say anything more as his eyes drifted closed. I studied Kane closer. The lighting was terrible in the tent as evening crept up on us but even with a dim lantern, I could see that along with his flushed face and his heavy eyes, beads of sweat had formed on his forehead. I reached out and touched his arm and I gasped. I felt him tremble as his muscles twitched under his skin as the feverish heat from his arm seared into my fingertips.  “Kane, are you feeling okay? You don’t look so good.”


“I’m fine,” Kane said, as he looked past me. The canvas tent flap whistled against itself as it opened and I turned to see Gage, only to watch the color drain from his face as he looked at Kane. The worry in his eyes seemed to take up permanent residence as his glance shifted from Kane to me and I knew my intuitions were correct.


“Casey and Joel are in the first aid tent being seen… they're okay, just minor injuries. We’re going to sleep for a while then go back out.”


I turned back to Kane.


“No… Kane, you're not fine, you have a fever.”


He needed antibiotics and I feared for the worst since I didn’t have any. I opened the pack that I filled from home, pulled out my mom’s book and started to read.