Chapter 7: Kitchen Table

"On the table," I said.

Nobody moved.

They were looking at Conall.

"Do what she says," Conall said.

They swung the boy up onto the kitchen table, onto my signed contract.

I pushed my sleeves up.

"Scissors. Light. Somebody go out to the blue Honda and get the woman with the tire iron. Tell her it's a thigh."

One of the men went.

I cut the boy's jeans open from the waistband to the knee.

The hole was high on the outside of his thigh, small and neat, with no hole coming out the other side.

The blood was dark and steady.

The artery was intact.

I put my fist into the wound and leaned on it with my whole body.

The boy screamed.

"Good," I told him. "Screaming means you've got air. What's your name?"

"They call me the kid."

"What does your mother call you?"

"She calls me the kid too."

"Then hold still, kid."

My charge nurse came through the back door at a run, tire iron in one hand.

She saw the table and dropped the iron on the floor.

"Oh, you're kidding me," she said. "Two weeks postpartum."

"Wash your hands. I need you on pressure."

"Hospital," she said. "Now."

"No hospital," said the bigger of the two men.

He had a gun in his waistband and his hand on it.

I looked at the gun, and then at his face.

"You," I said. "Out of my room."

"Lady, this ain't your room."

"It's my room until this boy stops bleeding. Take that thing outside or take it off. There are no guns at my table."

He looked at Conall.

Conall took his own gun out from the back of his belt.

I hadn't known it was there.

He set it on the counter by the kettle, barrel to the wall, and stepped away from it.

"You heard the doctor," he said.

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