Shattered (Alchemy Series Book #3) (16 page)

Chip and Dark were
talking, but they kept glancing at us, looking concerned. If I hadn’t felt so miserable, I would've laughed. They didn't realize I could kick Crash's ass, even injured. I waved them over using my good side, my left hand feeling slightly numb and cold.

Dark walked over, followed by Chip.
Crash was right. There was nothing Dark was going to be able to do with those gigantic paws of his. Chip was the winner. I just hoped he could stop shaking for a couple of minutes.

"What's wrong?" Chip
asked quietly as he came closer, Dark not able to speak.

"I've got a problem. There's a bullet in my
shoulder and I need you to take it out," I said to Chip, and pointed to the hole in my shirt.

"Here? We're going to do it here?"
Chip asked.

"Yes.
"

His face went from concern to horror.

"What about infection?" he asked.

"I'm not worried about
that. I've got to get this out."

"But you know we're running low on
peni-"

"I'm not worried about it," I said flaring my eyes. Crash did not
need to know every little nitty-gritty detail of our current survival state and the sad fact that we were low on medications.

C
rash had gone out on a limb by telling me about the bullets but I didn't trust anyone that worked for the senator. Hell, sometimes I barely trusted Cormac and I'd lived with him. The last thing I wanted was for the senator to know how dire our situation was. That we were rationing food while they were driving around in fully equipped Hummers.

"Keep your men over there," I said to Crash and move
d further into the shadow of the truck, Chip and Dark following me.

I
pulled off my shirt, not caring who saw me in a sports bra. Blood was everywhere, and I hoped it looked worse than it was. Then I looked at Chip, his face a grayish shade.

"Come on, Chip
. You can't chicken out on me. I need you to do this."

Dark let out a small growl, wordlessly asking me if he should shift back.

"No." I didn't have to explain that I didn't trust any of these men. He didn't either. We needed Dark in his most formidable shape. "Chip can do this," I said.

"What do I do?" Chip
asked. He had his arms folded in front of him and I was hoping it wasn't to disguise his shaking. "Do we have something to dig it out with?"

I looked around to make sure no one was approaching.
Crash was standing by himself several feet away from the truck but with a clear view of us and ready to block anyone that came over.

"I want you to stick your finger in the
wound and feel for the bullet. You've got to get it out." When he started to wobble, I knew I was in bad shape. "Chip, I need you to get this thing out or my wound isn't going to close." I didn't tell him I wasn't sure if it would close even after the bullet was out. He looked unsure enough without that information.

He unfolded his arms
and moved his hands closer but then pulled back. He took a breath, shook his hands a couple of times.

"Close your eyes if you have to. It's mostly feel anyway," I told him.

He nodded vigorously, moved his hand into position and shut his eyes before he stuck his fingers into my wound. I couldn't tell if he was making progress or making it worse. It's hard to tell expressions on a wolf but I could've sworn Dark was grimacing.

The minute I saw Crash shake his head
, I knew he'd lost his patience with Chip muddling through this on his own. He walked over to us and stood there, waiting.

I looked at Chip
's shaking hands again and relented. "Wipe the blood off your hand with my shirt and go stand over there. If anyone asks what you're doing, tell them I needed a couple of minutes of privacy."

"With the
m?" Chip asked, knowing how ridiculous it would look.

"Just do it."

"Okay," he said and looked relieved to not have to dig into me again.

Crash
stepped closer to me and looked at my shoulder, visibly grimacing. "This is going to hurt like hell."

"It can't be worse than what Chip just did
. Just do it."

"Yes, it can. He was afraid to go deep enough."

"What are you doing?" I asked when he positioned his left hand under my right arm.

"Bracing you so th
at you don't fall when I stick my hand into your torso."

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath
, waiting to see what the new round of pain would be like. I didn't expect it to be pleasant and when the pain came, it more than met my expectations.

I don't know how, but I managed to not cry out
, even though I succumbed to tears.

"Just another minute," he said, seeing my duress. "
I can feel it, I just have to get a grip on it."

I didn't nod or speak.

"Get your hands off her," Cormac growled, and not quietly.

And the gig was up. Any of Crash's men that hadn't been suspicious
before would be now as they all came rushing over to see what the commotion was. None of them seemed to like what they saw.

"I'm
knuckle deep and touching a bullet that I need to get out. If I leave it, she's going to bleed to death," Crash explained as he neither retreated, nor proceeded, but remained completely still. The non-action didn't stop the pain caused by his fingers still being lodged in sinew.

Cormac was now on top of us and breathing down Crash's neck as he stared down at my bloodied shoulder.

"Finish," I said. "Just get it out."

No one spoke as I felt Crash's finger dig a bit deeper.

Cormac's hand grabbed my good one. I knew it was his, even with my eyes closed. Maybe more so with my eyes closed. I could feel him trying to absorb some of my pain, another cool trick he could do that I couldn't.

"I almost forgot about that," I whispered, knowing he'd realize what I meant.

"You can't be jealous. You're the bug whisperer."

I
looked over at him and found myself smiling at his joke, in spite of the pain that was still ripping through me. His eyes softened back.

I could feel Crash's fingers
delving into muscle and it took everything I had to not move away, although that would be difficult in my current position, with the Hummer at my back.

"One more minute and I'll have it," Crash said. "I just have to get a grip on it.
It's slippery with the blood."

"Stop worrying about the damage and get
it out," I said through my teeth. Whatever additional trauma to the tissue he caused would heal quickly, but this was torture.

He looked at me, gauging my seriousness. "Okay, this is gonna suck."

"It's been a pleasure, so far."

For a few seconds, i
t felt like he shoved his entire fist into my shoulder but then the bullet was out. He held it up, showing it had remained intact and not shattered when it hit and lodged near the bone.

"I'll take that," Cormac said to Crash as
he stepped directly between the two of us.

Crash didn't move, still holding the bullet firmly in his hand.

I looked around at Crash's disgruntled looking men, who were now eyeing Crash with suspicion. He couldn't hand over the bullet in front of his guys.

"It's just a bullet," Crash said and looked at me.

He'd done me a favor and was looking for payback. I squeezed Cormac's hand trying to give him a silent clue. We didn't need this specific one anyway. They probably had boxes of ammo sitting in the back of these trucks. The only thing this would do is out Crash's blurry motives, ones that might end up being to our benefit.

"That was in her and did a hell of a lot of damage
," Cormac said, not dropping the issue. 

"We'll burn it," Crash offered as a compromise.

"Fine."

I looked around at the group and realized every
one seemed to accept that compromise pretty well.

Dark
pulled together a few tumbleweeds that would make a quick fire and burn out quickly. Crash threw the bullet onto it.

"If you don't mind?" Cormac asked, looking at Crash's blood soaked hand.

"Pete? Get me the whiskey out of the truck."

A minute later
, my blood was removed from Crash's hand and the bullet charred. We could finally get back to the matter at hand.

"What did you find?" I asked.

Cormac dug into his zipped pocket and dug out his funny phone. He was in stone-faced mode again but Katie blanched. It told me how bad it was before either of them uttered a word, maybe telling me more than I wanted to know.

"Yours has a camera?" I asked. I'd been carrying around this lousy phone that looked like it came from the eighties. I knew I should've been happy that Cormac had rigged up a cell service
, but it was hard not to be aghast that there had been a funny phone upgrade and no one had bothered to tell me. When had fs, funnyphone with good shit, hit the market?

"We'll discuss phones later
, Jo," Cormac replied in a serious manner, but I saw the underlying laughter and mockery. His expression was screaming
ha ha ha, I've got a better phone
.

Cormac held
up his phone, showing a grainy picture of the buildings. "They're in a large generator plant, not far from here."

I knew I shouldn't say anything. I tried to stop myself, knowing it wasn't the time or the place
, but the words slipped out anyway. "Is that like…two megapixels?"

Cormac looked up at me, glaring slightly.

Yeah, that's right, buddy, I said it. Your camera phone isn't all that.

"Did you see any of them? Oslo or the others?
" Crash asked, bringing the conversation back to subject.

"No
, but there's a lot of people there," Katie said. "And other things."

Cormac handed me his phone and I flipped through the images while we all crowded around the small screen.

It looked like there were guards on walkways on top of the buildings. The place was lit, but it was a generator plant. Who knew how large of a coal stash they had. It was a good site to pick, with the large body of water behind it.

And then I saw
the rippers. That wouldn't be out of the ordinary except that something seemed off. They weren't scattered along the area but clumped together.

"Why
are they gathered like that?" I asked, looking at the pictures. They appeared to be in a frenzied swarm.

Everyone
looked up, wondering the same thing as me. Even in the dark, I could see Katie had turned white.

"They were feeding," Cormac said.

"Did you see who they caught? Was it one of their people or ours?"

"They didn't catch anything, they were fed."

"What are those men doi
ng with you? Who are they?" Buzz asked.

"Not here," I said. I looked
behind me at the casino lobby where Cormac was telling Kever where to put Crash and his men. I motioned to the stairwell, which was becoming my place.

I should have known something was up as
I saw the door to the stairs open and let out a group of people. When had everyone started taking the stairs?

When I entered the stairwell, it was like Grand
Central Station, people coming and going every second or so. I had to press myself against the wall to let an especially large group get by. "What the hell?"

"The elevators on this side of the casino are gone," Buzz explained.

"They broke?"

"Uh
, no, not broke. Just gone."

"Gone where? Talk
, Buzz!" I said, losing more and more patience as I saw my stairwell becoming completely overrun.

"Last night
, at approximately two a.m. they disappeared."

I looked at him, almost not believing what he was saying. He threw his hands into the air and shrugged.

"What's there now?"

"Stone. It was pretty ugly
. A couple of people were in them when they disappeared and they got wedged in between the stone walls. It was a disaster to get them out."

"Are the Fae behind it? We need to figure out who's screwing around. This is not the time for practical jokes."

"They are denying any involvement."

Tired of being bumped by the people passing by, I entered the flow of traffic heading upward with Buzz. It looked like I'd have to get used to sharing my stairwell. Even though there were other elevators in the casino, no one would want to use them
, now.