Page 9 of Ripple Effect, Vol. 4

I shrug, shaking my head. “Randy, I stabbed in the stomach. But Rook, I don’t know why Rook would want to kill me. He bought me, so he says.”

He pauses his pacing to cross his arms. “Rook is Enzo Bertrand. His brother’s who hired me. Dorian Bertrand.”

The familiarity of the name skitters across my bones and I shiver. “I know. He told me.”

“I need to know if there was anything you’ve seen or heard out of the ordinary, Dylan.”

“Out of the ordinary? My whole fucking life is out of the ordinary.”

“Anything unusual for your life. Anything that you might’ve seen or remembered hearing?”

“Um. Yeah. There was one strange thing. When I was high. Out of it. I woke up and heard some screaming. So I followed the sound into the woods. Rook had a kid tied to a tree.” Certainly what I saw was no worse than watching a man’s stomach get cut open, but I’d talked to the kid. Laughed with him. “He was young. Younger than me. And …”

“And what?”

“And Rook shot him. Right in the head. I passed out right after.” Pressing a thumb into my palm brings back the memory of Rook placing the bullet in my hand. “I thought it was a dream, but I woke up holding the bullet casing.”

“He say a name?”

I shake my head. “I never asked. I know, I should’ve but I didn’t. Not like I’d remember, anyway. I was so drugged out that night.”

At the end of the bed, he grips the footboard and leans forward. “Who is Randy to you?”

“My aunt Chanel’s boyfriend. I’d never met her before any of this.” A tickle in my stomach signals a warning before a wave of nausea turns my insides cold. I leap out of the bed and dash into the bathroom. Trembles vibrate my muscles, and I rush to the toilet in time to cough up bile, nothing but clear fluids that shoot from my mouth and burn my throat. I’m weak and shaky, sitting on my knees with my head slung over the toilet. A thin fog still blankets my head as I flush the sour smell away, perhaps the wooziness of hunger and residual effects of the drugs I’d been given.

I push to my feet, stumbling back a step with vertigo, rinse my mouth in the sink, and brush my teeth. Two bruises on my cheek and a black eye make me want to crawl into myself and die. Tears blur my reflection as the memory of them punching me in the face surfaces.

The crinkle of paper draws me out of the visuals toward Ripley, standing at the bathroom door where he tosses me a cereal bar.

“Eat something.”

Tearing the package open, I devour the food, not caring that my jaw aches or that I’m still standing in the bathroom where I’ve just thrown up. My stomach is so grateful for the sustenance that the gurgles within calm down and the trembles lessen. I push off the sink, swiping a hand across my face. “Thank you.”

“Don’t get too comfortable. I need you to help me with something.” He peels back his shirt to reveal a large square of white gauze low on his back, below his shoulder.

“What happened?” I slide toward him, noticing the splotch of blood in the center of the gauze.

“Cocksuckers tried to shoot me. I put ice on it, took the swelling down quite a bit. It’s not bleeding out. The bullet is shallow, but I can’t reach it where it is on my back. I need you to dig it out.”

“What? Wait.” I swallow past the knot in my throat, threatening another round of bile. “Is that … is that a good idea? What if, you know I read that you shouldn’t try to remove a bullet. It could, you know, like, cork a vessel or something.”

“This isn’t my first time, babe. I know when they’re too deep to pull out.”

“But. What if I nick something and you bleed to death?”

A slight smile lifts the corner of his mouth. “I trust you.”

I stare down at his wound, and my God, of all the times to owe someone a favor, this sucks the worst.

Dropping my gaze from his, I muster a small bit of courage. “Thank you for coming for me, Ripley.”

He doesn’t say anything in response, but I’ve come to accept this about him. Like me, he’s stubborn. Doesn’t take compliments well and definitely doesn’t like being mistaken for a hero, but this isn’t easy for me, and I hate that he ignores me.

Instead, he busies himself with gathering alcohol, tweezers, saline wash, gauze, and tape. Digging into his pocket, he removes a lighter and sets it down beside the other supplies. “I’ve washed the wound twice. I just need you to remove the bullet and pack it.”

“Ripley, I can’t. You want me to shove stuff into a hole in your body?”

“Yeah. Unless you feel like stitching it up.”