Page 78 of Ryder
He rubbed a hand over his face again, and I noticed that it shook slightly.
“Jesus, there was so much fucking blood.” He’d sagged in his seat, his breath rushing out of him.
“I’ve never been so afraid,” his voice was so quiet, I almost didn’t hear that.
“I’m sorry. It was wrong to do that to you.”
A frown joined the exhaustion on his face.
“You didn’t do it tome. You did it to you.”
Semantics. I shrugged, still feeling thoroughly worn out and lethargic.
“You lost a lot of blood, Tori. You’re on a slow transfusion thing.” He pointed to one of the tubes, carrying dark liquid, apparently blood, into me.
“Wow. Biker infirmaries are well stocked.”
He snorted. “We were just lucky you’re a normal blood type, babe. Plenty of us around here.”
“You donated blood? For me?”
He shrugged, not looking at me. “A few of us did. You know, those who don’t take drugs like they’re going out of fucking style.”
“Thank you.”
He shrugged again, still avoiding my eyes. I put my hand back where he could reach it, and his eyes fixed on it for a moment, before he reached out and wrapped his hands around it again.
“How are you feeling?”
I swallowed hard. “Thirsty. Weak.Kind of dumb.”
He laughed a little shakily.
“Are you in any pain?”
I nodded, and he cleared his throat.
“Doc?”
“Yeah, I heard you, I’m coming,” a gruff voice said, from that bed in the corner. He’d been listening?
“I’ll add some morphine to your IV, young lady. Ryder, can you grab some water for her?”
He nodded and moved away across the room, as Doc injected something into my IV.
“Your wrists were badly cut, but there was less damage than we thought. It’ll heal. You’re being transfused, but I know Ryder explained that part already. He found you in time. I trust you’re not going to try this again any time soon?” His voice was firm. He was probably very used to people doing exactly as he told them.
“Uh… yeah, I don’t want to go through this again.”
He glanced across the room at Ryder, who was filling a cup with water.
“He was in pieces. You might want to consider the harm it’d do to others, if you do something stupid.”
I followed his gaze, watching Ryder returning with a plastic cup, his pace slowing as he caught us watching him.
“What? I didn’t spill any.” The guilty look on his face made me want to smile again. How was he doing that to me? He groaned. “Fine. I’ll go mop it up. Jeez.” He passed the water to the doc, and walked back across the room.
“I swear, keeping this place tidy is a nightmare, surrounded by these dipshits,” Doc muttered, as he moved to my side, and angled the plastic cup for me to sip from.
