Page 23 of DOG Part 2
9
Kim
Iconcentratedall mental energy on chopping the carrots, making them as thin as possible. Classical music drifted into the kitchen from the living room, and the good smells of garlic and spices wafted up from where Adele was stirring a saucepan on the stove. For a moment, the pleasantness of the scene flooded over me and washed away everything else. Life was good, if even for only one or two split seconds.
“Do you like to cook?” Adele asked.
I laughed. “I haven’t really given myself the chance to see if I can or not. School keeps me pretty busy.”
“That’s right, you’re going to be a nurse.”
“Right,” I replied softly, thinking about all the classes I had already missed. Once all this drama was done with, supposing I was still alive, what would my school administrators think when I showed back up and just re-entered the program?
If I was lucky, I’d be back home this week and no one would have to suspect anything other than a bad cold.
If I was unlucky...
I chopped the carrots faster. School was so close to being done with. One way or another, I would graduate. Motorcycle gang war or not. There just wasn’t any other option.
At the sound of a car pulling up I glanced over the kitchen island and out into the yard. The sun was just about to set and there was a group of kids playing hockey on the other side of the cul-de-sac. The vehicle I’d heard was nowhere in sight, and I went back to the cutting board, thinking I had imagined it.
The heavy knock on the front door said otherwise. I froze, watching through the doorway as Kane’s dad went to look through the peep hole. For a moment he stood there, as if considering, and then he moved swiftly, unlocking the door and flinging it open.
Into the foyer came Skate and Tom, carrying a pale Kane between them. My knife fell to the floor as Kane’s head rolled to the side. His eyelids were flickering and he was so pale he was nearly white.
Adele let out a muffled scream before moving forward. “What happened?”
“He’s been shot,” Skate said. “In the stomach and arm.”
“Take him to the hospital,” David commanded with a stern tone.
“We can’t do that,” Tom answered. “That’s asking for trouble. You know Kane doesn’t want to deal with the police.”
They all looked at each other, their eyes frantic and their jaws clenched. Meanwhile, I stood planted in one spot, my feet glued to the linoleum.Hospital, hospital.The word spun around in my head. Kane was as good as an outlaw. He couldn’t go to the hospital. He’d be caught by the police and sent to jail.
There was only one thing to do.
“Clear the table and put him on it,” I said, my voice surprisingly high and clear.
Everyone looked at me in surprise.
“Now,” I barked. “Or else he might die.”
Kane’s parents hurried forward to sweep the settings and the tablecloth off and I turned on the kitchen sink, already mentally running through the list of things we would need.
“Adele, we need a clean sheet to put on there. We need tweezers, the sharpest knife you have, and a thread and needle. David, boil some water.”
I scrubbed my arms all the way up to the elbows with soap as I threw out instructions, focusing on each task at hand. I was anything but a confident doctor in scrubs. I was a nursing student in a tank top that was shaking in her red Converse. Yet I wasn’t going to show it. I had already stepped out to take charge of the situation, and I was going to follow through.
David hurried to boil water while Skate and Tom stood there. Kane made a groaning noise as his eyes opened once more then fell closed again.
Adele returned with a white sheet to spread across the table.
“Do you have anything we can use to numb the skin?” I asked, praying the bullets hadn’t found their ways to any organs.
“I, I don’t know,” she stuttered as Tom and Skate laid Kane down on the table behind her. “Like what?”
“Baby teething gel?”
