Chapter 5

There’s no time to get my gloves.

The absurd thought had no place in this moment. Brushing it aside, Jared lifted Wren in his arms. Noah’s little bird, who weighed about as much as one. He placed the boy on the tables they’d pushed together as an impromptu field hospital. Removed cracked glasses and tossed them aside, not caring where they landed. He’d buy the boy another set of frames if it came to that.

Drawing his penlight from his pocket, he coaxed one of Wren’s lids open with his thumb. “Follow my finger.”

Ever obedient, Wren tried and winced when the light hit brown eyes glazed with pain. He saw...something, but pinprick pupils were unresponsive.

“How many fingers am I holding up, boy?”

“Can’t see…” Wren jerked his head to the side and convulsed, vomiting onto the floor.

“Okay. It’s okay. I’ve got you.” Holding Wren’s head, he said the soothing words as his mind skipped over the options for his diagnosis, his thoughts too scattered for his liking.

Think, damn you. This isn’t a difficult diagnosis.

Caressing smooth skin, he closed his eyes and ran down his mental checklist. Could be a concussion, but the blow to the boy’s head had been sharp enough, hard enough, that a subdural hematoma wasn’t out of the question. Taking him to the hospital would usually be a last resort, but he didn’t have the equipment here to treat him safely. The risk to Wren was too great for him to shoot from the hip. The boy needed an MRI stat.

One order...if you’d only thought to issue one order… ‘Stay down.’

He shook his head. No time for hindsight. There were no second chances on the field. The ambulance had gone and he was in the unique position of being alone in The Asylum for the first time since...Noah’s arrest. That night had been like hell opening up to consume them all. He saw the thug’s open eyes, glassy, neck at an obscene angle. When Noah met his gaze, something was missing. It might have been a battlefield of sorts, but the instinct that had driven him to kill had been one-hundred percent merc. That Jared had been the one to call the cops still haunted him. A shallow grave would have served them all better.

Wren’s soft moan brought his attention back around. He had limited options for getting him to the ER Gathering the boy to him—so small in his arms, lighter than he should be—he rounded the bar. Ran his hand over the mostly empty hooks where several sets of keys usually hung. Ezran was at Tracey’s. Jamie and Noah were out having coffee, Lawson had driven with Matt and Garet. Reed was with Curtis in the ambulance, but his motorcycle wouldn’t help. His fingers stilled over his own keys, for a vehicle he almost never drove except to play.

“Looks like we’re going for a ride, boy.” Palming the keyring, he shifted Wren, who cried out, head lolling.

Outside in the parking lot, door swung open, he positioned Wren on the front bench seat. Shut the passenger door, then moved to the driver’s side. The boy slumped as Jared sat, buckling himself in. He swore softly, needing to secure Wren somehow as he drove, his options limited.

“Come here.” Soft brown locks draped over his thigh as he settled the boy’s head in his lap, the gash where he could see it.

His hand shook as he keyed the ignition. Years of handling the fighters in The Asylum’s ring and dungeon had mostly inured him to injury, but for those he considered his chosen family, crossing the lines sometimes invited his demons out to play. Clenching the key harder, he willed his mind to treat Wren as just another patient when he was anything but.

The blood had coagulated. Good. Most scalp wounds bled profusely, so that wasn’t concerning. He brushed his fingers over the egg-shaped lump just above Wren’s right eye. If swelling pressed against the ocular nerve, that might account for the lack of clear vision the patient complained of. The occipital lobe was at the rear of the brain, so a direct blow wasn’t responsible for any sight issues. Maybe just a very bad concussion…

Which is nothing to horse around with, McCleod, you damned fool.

Putting the vehicle into gear, he ignored the cavernous space behind him in the rear. Focused instead on making sure he didn’t drive them off the road on his way to the hospital, caught out by some unforeseen trigger. Even touching the boy’s skin was a dangerous game, but one he found himself unable to back away from as the only comfort he could offer.

Heated air blew out of the circa 1975 vent, telling him the air conditioning had definitely gone. The drive to the emergency room should have been rote, except that he rarely made it himself. Long hours, hard work, and a brain that liked to play games with him when he was tired, meant he indulged in a car service. Always. Traffic was light, and he stopped carefully at every intersection. A few cars waved him through, letting him go first. Always an advantage when he drove this...vehicle. At the hospital parking lot he nearly turned to the left, the visitor’s lot.

Wren moaned, tears leaking from his eyes. “Hurts, sir.”

He jerked the wheel hard to the right. Gunned the engine, pulling the vehicle up to the ambulance bay. Yanking off his seatbelt, he rounded the side of the car as one of the ER nurses ran out.

“Hey, you can’t park— Oh. Doctor McCleod.” The man’s brow furrowed, like he mentally checked the calendar.

Nope. Not Halloween, asshole.

“Get me a gurney.” Jared snapped the order, bent inside the passenger-side door, then slid Wren across the seat as best he could.

When the nurse returned with an orderly, Jared backed away, letting the experts do their jobs. He could move the patient if required, but didn’t have as much practice, and he wanted Wren to be lifted as gently as possible. He trotted alongside the rolling gurney on his way into the ER Not a place he spent much time. Chaos broadsided him in the waiting room. A few men with gang tattoos screamed at each other while a young woman huddled on the floor, one of Anniston Falls’ finest attempting to hold them apart. An older woman banged her walker on the floor, shrieking for attention.

Tension walked up the back of his neck and he gritted his teeth, pushing through the double doors to the back. “Patient, Wren Gibson, twenty-five. Blood type O-neg. Suffered two pints of blood loss, dizziness led to a fall. Vomiting, pupils unresponsive.”

“That’s rather specific.” Doctor Inari stepped up to him as they entered a bay. “What was the blood loss from, Dr. McCleod?”

“Donation.”

Bending over the patient, he looked up. “Two pints?”

Jared nodded once. Sharp. “Donated to Curtis Smith.”

“Hm.” Lips thinning, Inari glanced to the monitors that the nurse had connected.

Blood pressure 131 over 82. OSAT 98.

“Mr. Gibson, can you look at me?” Inari bent over Wren, who opened his eyes and squinted. “Very good. Can you tell me what day it is?”

“A…” Lines marred skin caked with dried blood and tears. Wren licked his lips. “Bad one?”

The answer didn’t worry Jared as much as it might have if he didn’t know how easy it was to lose track of time at The Asylum. At the end of the gurney, he covered Wren’s foot with his hand and squeezed gently. “Think, boy. What events were going on tonight?”

Soft brown eyes focused on him, a small smile lifting petal-pink lips. “Hi.”

He inhaled, sharp. The boy was definitely confused if he was casting that look in his direction.

Doctor Inari’s “Glasgow thirteen” soothed his worries as the other man moved on to issuing orders for an MRI and IV fluids. At least they agreed on that much.

Hooking the electronic clipboard to the end of Wren’s gurney, Inari smiled. “You’re going to be here a little while. We’ll make you as comfortable as we can.”

A different nurse came forward with some scissors before he could stop her, snipping the string from Wren’s neck.

So many things can happen in a moment.

He’d let his guard down, assumed the boy was safe, and it was as if the floor opened up in slow motion and a demon rose from fiery depths to swallow the light from Wren’s eyes.

Hands flying to his throat, he let out a hoarse cry and grabbed for the string. “No. Give it back! It’s mine. Noah didn’t say I could take it off and it’s not yours. You have to give it back.”

Jared grabbed the string from her hand as he made it to Wren’s side in...too many seconds. He knew the woman had seen drug overdoses, beaten prostitutes, gunshot victims, grieving and hysterical families. She wouldn’t be fazed by a man she’d upset by destroying something she likely considered a stray piece of a garment that had been left behind after his fall.

The nurse widened her eyes, stammering. “I— I didn’t realize.”

He didn’t have the time or the inclination to reassure her. Bending over Wren he held up the string. “I will fix it, but you will be quiet now.”

Mouth snapping shut, Wren blinked up at him, tears making beautiful liquid pools of his eyes. Another time, another place, he could have drowned there happily. Holding out the string, he tied the slip knot he knew Noah had used. Wren watched him, riveted. He had seen the boy guarding the string with the flat of his hand to his throat since the first day he’d arrived at The Asylum. It didn’t take a genius to understand it was a collar, or who had given it to him and why.

“They won’t let you have this around your neck.” He tapped one fine-boned wrist. “Let’s put it here.”

Curtains open, the eyes of the ER staff lasering in on him, but he didn’t care. The boy needed him, and he’d be damned if he’d let him end up in the psych ward after all this.

Holding up his forearm, Wren’s uncertain gaze lowered to watch him loop the string and pull the end to tighten it. “Are you sure it’s the same?”

Memories of long evenings by a fire with Noah and Rhodey, with nothing to do but learn to tie intricate patterns with twine, practicing them again and again against Noah’s skin, came back to him. He managed a decorative twist that rested prettily against the lacework of blue veins visible under rosy skin. Fingertips lingering, he allowed himself the all-too-brief luxury of touch before pulling away.

“I promise, Noah will recognize the design and understand.” He gentled his words with a smile. “You will go with the nurse and get your tests done. Do not chatter, but answer any questions that are asked of you honestly and with brevity. Do well, and you will please me very much.”

Wren nodded. “Yes, sir.”

His “good boy” drew a snicker from the orderly.

Lifting his gaze, he let it linger on the man’s name tag before meeting his eyes with a cold stare. “Childers, is it? I’ll have to remember that the next time I’m treating a burn victim.”

The man’s expression widened and Jared let a cold smile reach his eyes. Yes, the orderly knew exactly what he’d be in for in a hot O.R. doing cleanup duty as charred flesh hit the pans. You could never get that stink out of your scrubs or nose. It lasted for days.

He snapped his fingers when Childers attempted to leave with Wren, and the man turned. “Stay away from him.”

The orderly cast a look at Dr. Inari, then crawled back to whatever hole he’d come from. Staring after Wren’s gurney as it disappeared down the hall, he forced himself not to follow and pulled out his phone before remembering it wasn’t allowed in the ER He’d have to step outside to send the group text that would let the members know the club would be closed tonight.

“Who did the transfusion?” The ER doctor’s question brought his head around.

He paused at the edge of the curtain. “I did.”

Inari’s lips thinned. “That’s all I needed to know.”