Page 120 of Precious Hazard

“But, the doctor said—”

“Fucking do it!”

She swallows, nods, and rushes off for another extraction kit. I start pumping my fist to make the blood flow faster. Still, the process feels painstakingly slow.

Once the tech has the second needle in me, and another bag is slowly filling, I sit there—desperate—watching the don’s mother as she tries to save my wife. Minutes feel like hours until the first bag is full and the tech rushes it over to the operating room. She returns to check my progress and eventually takes the second filled bag away.

“Let’s get you finished here,” she says when she pops back in.

“No. Take two more. And then another round. Whatever blood my wife needs, you take from me. Do it.”

“Mr. DeVille. You’ve already donated twice as much as medically allowed. And that’s ignoring the fact that you are wounded. I can’t possibly—”

“I’m going to take that needle,” I rasp, “and dig it into your fucking eye! Do as I tell you!” I kick the stool the tech sat on while she worked on me, and it flies across the observation room, hitting the nearby wall. “Draw my blood! Right now!”

“Get your shit together, Arturo!” Ilaria snaps from the operating room, her voice carried by the two-way intercom speaker. “I won’t have both of you die on my watch.”

“If my wife dies, Ilaria, I can assure you: no one present will leave that OR alive. You have my word on that.” I give the tech a pointed look. “And that includes you.”

“Hook the idiot up,” Ilaria yells. “You can drain him dry for all I care. Damn lunatic.”

By the time the second set of blood bags is full, the tech is semi-hysterical. She’s frantic over the drop in my blood pressure, and my elevated heart rate. I do feel lightheaded, and my breathing is shallow, but I’ll fight all the demons in hell not to pass out. The stupid woman doesn’t understand that I’d give the very last drop of my blood for a chance that Tara might live.

My vision is getting blurry. Sweat soaks my skin. I hear Ilaria holler to get a Ringer’s lactate solution IV in me. As more people buzz around me, more tubes get connected to my arms, my eyes lock on the OR monitors, and I listen for even the teeniest change in the beat of Tara’s heart.

Each time a machine triggers an alarm, a cold shiver runs down my spine, and my lifespan gets shortened by anotherten years. Still, I keep watching, trying to catch glimpses of my wife.

Tara, come back to me.

“Arturo.” Ilaria’s voice pulls me out of my daze.

It’s a struggle to even move my head enough to meet her eyes through the glass. “Yes?”

“There was damage to major blood vessels, and she sustained a shattered rib. The bullet also nicked her right lung. In the end, she needed three and a half units of blood…”

I’m suddenly not able to take a full breath.

Swallow.

Wait for the prognosis.

“If her recovery progresses as planned, your wife will need to endure many decades of your annoying behavior. Unfortunately, I can’t prescribe her anything for that.”

Chapter 26

I tilt my head, taking a closer look at the man slumped in the chair next to my hospital bed. His hand lies possessively over my sheet-covered thigh while his head, facing toward me, rests on the narrow space beside my hip. He’s asleep, breathing evenly. But, something tells me this slumber is far from tranquil.

Dark under-eye circles mar his face, which looks gaunt and a bit yellowish under the layers of soot and smears of dried blood. His usually perfectly swept-back hair is a tangled mass of strands sticking out every which way, and some are caked together by what I suspect could also be dried blood. His clothes are in an even worse state. The once-pristine white shirt is now tattered and torn, covered in all kinds of stains (dirt, blood, sweat), and reeking of smoke. The only clean thing on him is the white bandages wrapped around his shoulder and elbows.

How long has he been here? How long have I? My last clear memory is tracing my fingers over his face. The rest is a bit of a shambles. The attack. The fire. The sound of his voice. Yes, in the car… He was yelling, urging someone to get us to the hospital. And then—

His voice echoes through my mind so clearly. First, his commands, then his pleas for me not to leave him. I remember his words. Him telling me that he couldn’t live without me. Something I’ve yearned to hear for a long, long time. But… Buthe didn’t say the words I wanted to hear the most. He didn’t say that he loves me.

Here’s the thing about words. Saying them hardly ever requires a great deal of effort. People have been known to say whatever pops into their minds, whether it is the truth or not. A lot of times, words are used to manipulate a situation in someone’s favor. In my life, a few men have told me that they loved me just to get me into their beds. They lied, and I knew it, but pretended they were being honest. I wanted that illusion. Living in a fantasy can be a beautiful thing sometimes.

Telling someone that you love them is so easy. Meaning it and showing it, that’s the hard part.

This man risked his life for me.

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