Surge (72 page)

Olivia lowers the gun and switches the lock off. Raising her arms and setting her stance again, I see her take a breath, release it as she pulls the trigger, and flinch at the sound at the last second. And the apple lives to see another day.

“That was good,” I say and she shoots me a look that screams,
‘are you for real?’
 “It was, you only tensed right at the last second, you didn’t even close your eyes.” Tilting her head slightly, she smiles as she remembers. “We’ll try this time with the safety.”

Olivia nods as she turns the safety back on and hands it to me. Pulling the silencer out of my pocket, I quickly attach it to the gun. Once it’s ready, I hand it back to her to try again. Turning back to the table, Olivia shakes out her shoulders, before resetting her stance. It’s perfect once again. When she releases her deep breath, there isn’t so much as a bent elbow when the recoil pushes her back a small step, but I’m not paying much attention there. It’s completely devoted to the red and white styrofoam that burst into the air, so I miss the flying ball of black leather that hurls itself at my chest.

Olivia’s arms wind around my neck and her legs wrap around my waist in her excitement. I’m startled by her exuberance and have to grip her tighter so we don’t topple over. Managing to stay upright, I pull back to see her shining eyes and the huge grin plastered on her face. She even has a tiny dimple near the corner of her mouth that I’ve never seen before. I really want to kiss her, but I hold back so I don’t ruin the moment.

No luck there, since she hops down and does an adorable victory dance. Encapsulating shaking hips, raised arms and spinning, I can’t help but laugh. Olivia pauses to look at me for a second, before grabbing my hand, raising my arm slightly and twirling herself under it like a ballerina. She continues dancing, until she has to clutch her knees and heave out breaths.

“Looks like your showboating earned you bed rest.” Her head snaps up, making her slap a hand on her wound, which only further causes her pain. Ripping her hand away, I scowl at her. “Quit hitting yourself, it’s only making it worse.” She glares at me through her pain. “Yeah, yeah I know. It’s my fault that you looked up to begin with.” She nods a little and winces. “Come on, missy, upstairs to bed.”

Saluting me, Olivia heads up first. I stop to grab the gun she thankfully set down before her excitement took over, and see that she even made sure that the safety was in place. I can’t help the grin that takes over my face, and a little bit of pride that warms me, because I had a hand in her success. Sure, Travis and Cory laid the groundwork, but I figured out a way to make her hit the target. Now, I just have to get her to do it without the use of a silencer.

<~~~<~~~
~~~>~~~
>

I spend the next two days teaching Olivia how to shoot with the silencer. We always start with her shooting one round without it, which she misses, then with the silencer to make her hit the apple; thankfully there’s a whole basket full of the foam fruit. I think that seeing her ability to obliterate the target is building her confidence, because she’s been fighting the flinch more and more with each try.

Besides teaching her how to shoot, Olivia’s occupied her time doing a variety of things. These included playing countless hands of cards with the group. She’s kicked Carlos, Oscar, Mike, Akio, Sarah, Danny, John’s and my own ass at poker, tied with Whitney and lost a few times to Cory. Tommy’s been keeping to himself, but he lets Olivia in. She spends at least two hours a day with him and won’t let anyone else in there when she visits, claiming that it makes him uncomfortable. I can see that, but then that means I have to detach myself from her hip for two hours.

And I have been firmly attached to it. We play Rummy upstairs when she’s resting, I bring Morris to her for a cuddle when she forces me to eat, which is pretty much the only time I leave her. We wash one another’s hair each night and then I brush it out which puts her to sleep. Meaning that I’ve been sleeping in the big bed with her every night, much to Cory’s chagrin.

Cory comes in to hang out with her for hours, but I don’t leave for their visits. Hell no, I warned him that he’d be seeing my ugly mug for a long time to come, and I think he’s finally starting to believe me. Now we only exchange a few verbal barbs here and there, and sometimes Olivia has to separate us to different corners. On the bed that is, because like I’ve said, I’ve been attached to her hip so I wouldn’t demote myself to the corner in the room.

My burns have scabbed over for the most part, so they don’t hurt as much. I look at lot more like Freddy Krueger, but as long as I have Olivia to doctor me, I’m alright. And she does. Each day, at least twice a day, we change and inspect the other’s wounds with Akio supervising at least one of them. Then we have our checkups with the Doc, where he listens to both ou
rs
and Cory’s lungs to make sure that we’re healing. He said mine sound clear, Cory’s are on the mend, and Olivia’s pneumothorax is still there, but sounds minor and will go away so long as she takes it easy. That appeases me slightly, but I won’t be completely satisfied until that’s cleared away.

And that brings us to today. Today is the big day where Olivia finally gets her tube removed. Akio said that if he had the proper equipment, he would have recommended she have it in for at least another week, but we don’t. So, it’s mandatory we take it out today so that she can eat and drink before she keels over from starvation or dehydration. Olivia seems excited about having it removed, but I’m freaking petrified.

I mean, what if she’s not ready and we take out the tube, only to have her start choking and we can’t get it back into her in time? Or, what if we damage her trachea on the way out? Or, she can’t swallow properly and really does wither away to a skeleton? Or...

I’m pulled out of my mental freak out by a jab from a tiny elbow landing in my rib. Rubbing away the sting, I look down at my little pixie sitting beside me. We’re in the middle of a game of poker with the twins, and I guess it’s my turn to set my hand down. Seeing as how I’ve been trapped in my head for a little while, my cards absolutely suck. Not daring to show such a miserable hand, I fold and place my measly high card of an 8 down face first in the pile of discards.

The twins raise identical eyebrows since I’ve never folded a hand before, but then they shrug and set their own hands down. Carlos a straight, Oscar a flush and Olivia trumping all with her full house. She reaches into the middle and collects her new pile of knives for winnings. The twins push each other and swear in Spanish, I don’t understand it all, but Olivia does and starts silently laughing as she observes them.

What will it be like to hear that again? Or her husky voice talking and singing? I’m crossing my fingers that she can still do both because I know that she’ll be crushed if she can’t. I know this because even though she can’t sing right now, that hasn’t stopped her from dancing to her CDs or mouthing the words. Music is part of who Olivia is and if she can’t sing, then she’s lost a vital piece of herself.

Olivia looks over at me and some of the mirth disappears as she mouths,
‘What’s wrong?’
She’s been mouthing words at the others for days, but she does both motions and mouthing the words only when she’s talking to me. I don’t think that she’s even realizing that she’s doing it, but I do. And it makes me feel kind of special that I didn’t need for her to mouth the words in order to understand what she was saying. I’ve even been doing a few hand signals of my own instead of verbalizing my answers.

Like now, I sign out that I’m a little worried about her tube. There’s no point in lying, she can sniff mine out like a bloodhound, just like I can tell when she is or if she’s holding out on me. Olivia’s face softens as she signs back that,
‘Everything will be fine. She’s done this before and it all turned out well in the end.’
I nod and she squeezes my hand for reassurance.

“You two are freaky as shit,” Oscar repeats my exact words for them. Olivia and I turn our attention to the twins and shoot them scowls. Carlos points at us.

“You even do the same facial expressions,” he adds. “I thought we were the twins here, but it looks like we’ve been replaced.”

“No one’s replacing you,” I say and wave a hand at the Super Twins. “We need Things One and Two around here to keep life interesting. Like Oscar will say something and you finish it, or you both say it at the same time like those creepy as twins from
The Shining
.” They shoot us identical glares, making Olivia and I laugh.

“What have we here?” John inquires as he plops down. He’s been gradually coming back to himself over the past few days. I’ve talked to him a few times when Olivia visited Tommy, and though he still feels guilty, I feel confident that he’ll be back to old self in no time. Maybe with just a little more caution thrown in.

“Did my little card shark sweep the board again?” Olivia nods at John’s question and points to her quarry. “Good, teach these cheating fucks how it’s done.”

“We don’t cheat,” Carlos counters.

“Yeah,” Oscar concurs. “You just suck.” John flips them off.

“I’ve never sucked at anything in my entire life,” John boasts.

“Then that’s your problem,” Oscar says. “You’re too cocky for your own good.”

“And the one’s up highest have the longest to fall,” Carlos finishes.

“Thank you, peer counselors one and two,” he replies and they flip him off. “But I like how I am just fine.”

“I don’t know how you’ve put up with him for so long,” Oscar mutters to me.

“I think that a good ass whooping might straighten him out,” Carlos suggests.

“Nah, I already tried that,” I say. “It only swells his head more.”

“Puh-lease,” John interrupts with a wave at us. “Jared’s never kicked my ass once. I had to save his pansy ass because he was too chicken shit to defend himself.” John ups his pitch to a whine. “’s
top it. Leave me alone.’
"

“Actually, numb nuts, I didn’t even talk at all,” I correct him. “That was the problem to begin with. Herby being the asshole he is, asked me a question about what was for lunch that day and when I didn’t answer him, he decided to get physical. The impatient, fat ass.”

“Who the hell is Herby?” Carlos inquires.

“I think that he’s a kid they went to school with,” Oscar answers. John and I nod to say he’s right. “And Jared’s would-be bully.”

“An obese giant of a bully,” I revise. “The kid was pushing three tons and we were only four. I think he got kept back about five times already.”

“So I kicked his ass and wound up with this sullen bastard for a best friend,” John adds.

“And I’ve unfortunately been plagued with having this douchebag dogging my steps for twenty years,” I finish. John flips me off, but there’s no heat to it. A majority of men don’t get all warm and fuzzy with each other, we’re in that category, so this is our equivalent for it.

“Are you ready, Olivia?” Akio asks and five heads swivel to the doorway. Olivia nods hers rapidly before bouncing up onto her feet. “Come along then, Cory and Whitney have prepared us up a spot in the kitchen.”

Olivia grabs my hand and tugs me to my feet. Once I’m standing, she damn near rips my arm right out of the socket when she sprints after Akio down the hallway. She’s obviously ecstatic while I’m dragging my ass as much as I possibly can with her towing me long after her because, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m freaking petrified.

When she realizes my hesitance, Olivia turns and jumps up to place a quick kiss on my cheek. Sufficiently startled because she’s never placed her lips on me before, it takes me a minute to see her signing out reassurances. Mentally shaking cobwebs away, I sign back that ‘
this better work or I’m snuffing the doctor with his pillow tonight.’
Olivia flashes me a smile, and says,
‘that won’t be necessary, but thanks for the offer.’
It wasn’t an offer, it’s a guarantee, but I don’t tell her that.

Finally reaching the kitchen, I see that they’ve set up a pseudo operating table on the kitchen island. There are clean sheets spread over the granite slab with a single thin pillow placed up at other end where the lighting comes in better. On a stool is a tray with an array of instruments like scalpels, medical scissors, tweezers, sewing utensils, gauze, tape, rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide. Seeing that there’s more tubing placed on the tray as we approach fills me with equal measures of relief and apprehension. If Akio was completely comfortable with his decision of taking out the trach tube early, that would not be within arm’s reach.

“Just hop up here and we can get started,” Akio instructs her.

His doctor voice doesn’t betray a single emotion, not unease or confidence. Absolutely nothing. It’s completely flat and makes me want to go over and shake the answers out of him, demanding that he convince me that Olivia is going to be fine. Assure me that I’m not signing her death warrant by hand delivering my pint sized Tomb Raider to his incompetent hands. My hands are literally shaking as I watch Cory grasp her tiny waist and set her gently on the prepared counter.