Page 28 of Cannon

Pulling up outside the emergency department, there’s a gurney, two nurses and a doctor waiting for us. They take Mateo and disappear inside, Hellion and I following. When they go through a set of doors one of the nurses stops us in our tracks and tells us that’s as far as we go. I’m about to push past when Hellion drags me back and looks me in the eye. “We’ve done what we can, Fury. Now we let the experts do what they can for him.”

Five minutes later I’m still pacing up and down outside those damn doors when Jamie rushes in. “Where is he?” She shouts at me, and when I point at the doors, she’s through them in a flash. Ten minutes later, I’m still pacing only now I have a cup of some godawful brown liquid in my hand. I think it is supposed to be coffee, but I wouldn’t put money on it.

Jamie pops through the doors, and I drop the cup as she launches herself at me. It’s only when she throws her arms around my neck and I hear her sobs that I realize she isn’t attacking me.

When she gets her breath back, she steps away from me and in a voice cracking with emotion, states, “They could have killed him, Fury. He could still die. What the fuck happened?”

I try to explain it as best I can, but her anger is beyond anything I have ever seen from her, and she keeps cursing at every turn. When I think she’s finished and calming down, she turns to Hellion, who jumps to his feet. “You stay here, watch over him, and call me with any update. Anything, you hear me? No matter how small or insignificant, you call me.” Hellion nods and retakes his seat.

Pointing at me, she gives me the most fearsome look I think I have ever seen from anyone in my life. “You, come with me. I want answers, and I want them now.”

“Where?”

“I’m going to show you how a doctor interrogates a suspect. I know all the ways to inflict pain, and I intend to use them to get answers.”

“I think you’ll find that’s torture, not interrogation.”

“You want to split hairs with me over my vocabulary, right now? You can always become a fourth suspect.”

“No. I’m not splitting hairs, I was just mistaken.” After being dragged from the hospital, I wish I’d driven back to the clubhouse instead of Jamie. If I’d eaten anything today, it would have reappeared several times during the journey.

Sitting in Whack’s office, we’re all waiting for Jamie. She’s finished her interrogation, and we only have two suspects left now. One succumbed to what would appear to have been a heart attack, but was undoubtedly due to whatever she injected him with.

She walks in, sits on my lap and throws her arms around my neck. We can all hear the small sobs that she makes as she unwinds from her actions.

“I swore an oath to save lives, and by doing what I’ve done, I broke my oath.”

“No, Jamie. I don’t believe you did,” Whack says in a surprisingly tender voice. “I think you probably saved a lot of lives by doing what you did. No one need ever know what happened today, and you have nothing to reproach yourself for. The other two will have joined their partner in crime by now and will be on their way to the crem for their final journey. I almost hope they’re not dead when the brothers light the furnace. What they did to Mateo was for no reason other than their own gratification. They weren’t sending a message as they tried to claim. Fury had made it perfectly clear that we wouldn’t stand for their bullshit. Now, though, we have another problem to solve. They were Stephan Haroldson’s men. They knew that the bar was our property, and they knew about Cannon’s pickup truck being in his collection. I think it’s time I had a face to face with young Stephan.”

“You do that, I’m going back to the hospital. I need to be there when Mateo wakes up. He was good to me when I needed protection, and the least I can do is show him I’m there for him when he comes around. Fury, you can drop me off, and then I need you to do something for me. You get your ass back here, you help plan whatever revenge it is that is going to happen, and more than that. You are going to be the one who gets payback for Mateo.” Jamie looks at Pres and she leaves no doubt that she means what she says. He gives her the smallest chin lift, and she nods in return.

*~* Jamie *~*

Sitting by Mateo’s bedside, holding one of his hands, I look across the bed and see the tears running down Spirit's cheeks. They run freely and copiously as she stares at her man. I can’t imagine what she’s feeling as she sits there. What if that were Fury?

“The doctor said he thought the brothers stopped the attack in the nick of time. He seems to think that there won’t be any permanent damage and that because there’s no bleed on the brain, it will just be waiting for the swelling to go down.” I give her a very thin and watery smile, as the doctor wasn’t quite as positive as I made it sound. He hopes that he’ll be okay, but as with any brain injury, there are no guarantees.

“You’re a poor liar, Doc. You forget Wolf was a prepper and taught me more than most parents teach their kids. I’m not as uneducated as you might think when it comes to head trauma.” Caught in my own white lie, I have no comeback, so just sit quietly.

Thinking back to my arrival at the hospital after the interrogation, I was surprised to see Spirit sitting at Mateo’s bedside. I hadn’t given it a thought to contact her, and she must have seen my surprise and then my guilt all over my face.

“Hellion called me. I came immediately. I understand you had other things on your mind. Are those other things dealt with?”

“Yes, they’re dealt with. I’m sorry, Spirit. I should’ve been the one to make that call.”

“Are those other things dealt with permanently?” She has an intense look on her face as though she thinks I might lie.

“Permanently. Decisively. Never to bother Mateo again.”

“Good, and it doesn’t matter who made the call, just that the call was made. I’m grateful to Hellion for his thoughtfulness.” She has stopped crying, but the look she has now is the look I probably had when I went into the interrogation. “I will need some information. Can you help with that, or should I seek it elsewhere?”

“I will help as much as I can. What do you need to know?” The next hours were spent discussing many things, but they all revolved around getting revenge for what had been done to Mateo. If I didn’t have the answers, I could at least point her in the right direction.

When there is a light tap on the door, we both look up to see who it is. Hellion slips into the room with a thermos and some sandwiches. He leaves them with us and as he is about to slip back out, Spirit asks, “Where did these come from?”

Hellion grins at her. “I know some people,” and with that he’s gone. When I slip out later to go to the restroom, Hellion is standing outside the door. When he tips his head to me, I tell him he should get someone to take over from him so he can get some rest.

“I can’t do that, Doc. I was told by a very scary lady to stay right here and watch over Mateo. That is exactly what I intend to do.”