Page 25 of Her Avenging Angel

Chapter Eighteen

Taylynn tried to keepher arm still, but the buzzing noise of the saw that slowly cut the cast off her arm grated on her nerves. She hated the noise, but Freud had shown her it wouldn’t cut her. Still, the sound seemed to drill into her skull and made her want to get up and run away.

“Are you excited?” Jersey asked, drawing her attention to him.

“Excited about what?” she asked, frowning at the VP.

“Getting your cast off. It’s been in your way, and you’ve been complaining about it since a few days after he put it on.” Jersey nodded toward where Freud continued to cut along the side of the fiberglass shell that had kept the bones of her arm in place while they’d healed.

Taylynn turned and looked at where Freud was more than halfway done slowly guiding the saw along the length of the cast. They were right. As much as she’d appreciated what they had done for her, she’d complained. She had been careful what she had complained about, and in the beginning the cast had been a safe target.

The front door opened, admitting Raven. A couple of other men followed him in, but she didn’t pay any attention to them. The club president was the only one that mattered to her. Her stomach fluttered in a way she’d never expected to feel again. She fought the urge to grin at him and dropped her gaze back down to her good hand where it rested in her lap.

“What’s going on?” Raven asked as he glanced around the room.

“Taking off the girl’s cast,” Jersey said, tilting his head toward where Freud was almost finished cutting the fiberglass shell.

“What? Why didn’t you tell me?” Raven hurried to her side. He hovered next to her making her stomach flip and her body heat.

“I didn’t think it was that big of deal.” Her face heated and she wondered why it was this man, the one who’d seen her at her worst and had rescued her from it, that made her body reawaken? How could he ever see her as anything but the bloody broken thing he’d found on the side of the road?

“Of course it’s a big deal. It’s a milestone.” He stepped up behind her and set his hands on her shoulders. Taylynn tilted her head and let her cheek fall against his hand where it sat on her shoulder. She was careful about who she let touch her. Fortunately, the Angels were as careful of her as she was around everyone else.

They didn’t push her and did their best to keep from doing things that would set her off, especially after the incident a few weeks ago where she’d lost her shit all over Dax. Raven was one of the few she didn’t mind touching her, nearly any time. But she didn’t like anyone catching her unaware, surprising her in any way. He was careful of that. They all were.

Taylynn hadn’t been there long, a little less than two months, but so much about her life had changed in that short amount of time that it seemed that her time with the Demons was another lifetime. The time before? That seemed even farther away. Almost as if that life had belonged to another person.

She watched as Freud finished making the cut through the fiberglass, then as he set the saw aside and picked up an odd tool that kind of looked like a pair of pliers, but there was something weird on the jaws, instead of the small surface she was used to or even long slender jaws, there were wide flat plates or what looked like plates attached to them. She watched as he used them on the cut edges of the cast. She felt her eyes go wide when she noticed they didn’t work like normal pliers either. Instead of them closing when he squeezed the handles, they spread apart. After working the strange pliers along the entire cut on the cast Freud set them aside and picked up a wicked looking pair of scissors. They had blunt tips but looked strong enough to cut through metal if they had to. After using the weird scissors to cut through the padding layer, Freud pulled the edges of the cast apart and slid it off her hand, freeing her arm for the first time in weeks.

Taylynn stared down at her arm. It looked odd, skinny and flaky.

“What’s wrong with it?” she asked, frowning down at where her arm still lay on the table where the medic had her put it so it would stay stable while he worked.

“Nothing. I mean it.” He met her gaze and smiled. “Your arm has been in the cast for weeks, it hasn’t had a chance to shed dead skin cells, and you haven’t used the muscles much. Go take a shower, moisturize when you’re done. And start using it again and the muscle tone will return. You’re good.” He patted her hand in a reassuring gesture that Taylynn appreciated, even if she wasn’t feeling as reassured as he might hope for.

“Thank you,” she said. “For everything.”

She looked down at her arm again then tilted her head back to look up at Raven. She wasn’t sure how to react. This had been the last remnant of her nearly dying, at least the last one that would go away. She’d have the scar on her upper arm where Freud had to stitch her up for the rest of her life, even though he’d removed the stitches weeks ago. Now it was a shiny pink scar. Eventually it would fade, but it would always be there. She’d have to live with that.

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