Page 10 of Blood Revealed

Duke stares, as bewildered as the rest of us that this person who doesn’t know Dawna or Duke jumped in to help a dying woman. The room smells like death. There is so much more to this girl than I originally thought.

“Go. Talk with the brothers,” Dawna manages to say to Duke.

“If you trust me,” Hannah says, “I’ll stay with her.”

Duke looks to me because I brought her here. I nod. Don’t know why, but I know that Hannah is good people and can handle this while we talk to the prez about the shit we found on the road.

Including the trucker.

Fuck. That ain’t gonna be fun.

3.

Hannah

Seven years ago…

“Thank you for that,” Dawna says in her wheezy whisper. I hate hearing anyone sound like that, but the coughing has eased all the way.

“You don’t have to talk,” I say, continuing to stroke my hand down her back.

She blinks and nods, collecting herself. We keep that up for a few minutes before she’s ready to talk again. “I’m dying,” she says.

“I know,” I answer. It’s abrupt and probably should’ve been said with some tact. Like I should’ve told her there’s always hope or some shit to brighten her spirits. I can’t help but think she’s beyond spirit lifting. I’ve seen my fair share of the dying. Most of them men wasting away from cirrhosis of the liver or lung cancer, but I’ve had to nurse them as best I could being young because I had to earn my keep.

Dad and all his wisdom never felt like kids should get a free ride, as he called it. I called it being a kid and thus needing my needs met. Semantics, I guess.

Surprisingly, she laughs at my abruptness.

“Thank you for that, too.”

“For what?” I ask.

“For not coddling me or trying to blow smoke up my ass about how there might be something—” She begins coughing again. I help best I can again and wait for her to finish. Finally, she wipes the tears that have formed in her eyes and gives it to me straight. “My husband is having a hard time accepting that this is the end. We’ve been together since I was seventeen.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too. He’s lost so much already. I don’t know how he’s going to go on, you know?”

“I’m sorry for you, too.” I have a hard time looking her in the eyes because dying people don’t like pity. And it’s not pity, really. I don’t know this woman, but she looks like she had a lot of life in her at one point, and clearly, she has the love and respect of at least the men in this house. But my guess, it’s farther reaching than that.

“Me?” she asks. “Nah, sweetheart, I’ll be gone. I won’t be missing anything. Besides, I’m tired. So tired. I love Duke and I love my life, but I’ve been fighting this for most of it and I’m ready to finally rest.”

“I get that.”

“Do you?” she asks, as if that’s a foreign concept for her. “You’re the only one around here who does, then. I can’t talk to any of them about it because they get so upset. Especially Duke. He took me on knowing I’d die sooner than him, knowing we’d never have kids or any of the things married couples look forward to in life. He’s been the best husband a woman could ask for. But he doesn’t get it.”

Most people don’t. Death is such a sticky subject and she’s right; she’ll be gone. Her husband and the men here will be the ones dealing with the after effects of her passing. Still, she has to have things on her mind, things to wrap up her time on this Earth and she doesn’t need to hold guilt for hurting the man she loves by unburdening herself. Who would’ve thought? The one time my childhood upbringing comes in handy. “I don’t know how much time you have left, but you can talk to me about anything okay? As long as I’m here, I’ll be here for you.”

“Where you going?” she asks.

“Well, Blood brought me here, but I don’t know where I’ll go from here. I’ve got no money and no one good waiting for me.”

“You’ll stay here, at the club,” she says. It’s firm. She means it.

“Do you think your husband will go for it?” I ask, carefully keeping the excitement from my voice. I don’t want to give myself away.

“He’ll do anything I ask of him. Don’t worry.”

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