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Chapter 17
"So you don't know where this man or this woman is that caused all this?" The police officer asked in disbelief.
"No, sir, I don't know where either of them are." Brian felt weak, defeated. Everything was over, all of it. The alien was gone and so was Cameron. He couldn't even find her body to bury her.
"Well if you do recall where either of them are, call me." The officer put a card in Brian's hand, but he didn't remember accepting it or putting it into his pocket.
Nick put his arm around Brian's shoulders, walking him away from the mob of cops. "I'm sorry Brain. I know she meant a lot to you."
Brian nodded solemnly. He couldn't believe she was gone, just like that. He didn't even get to say good-bye. Brian crunched a piece of paper under his foot by accident and he didn't know why, but he bent over and picked it up.
Brian,
You're probably mad as sin at me for that stunt, but if you'd like the chance
to yell at me about it, come to the Motel 6 around the corner. Room 3. Oh yeah,
bring a first aid kit. Heavy duty.
Cameron
A smile spread across Brian's face and he patted Nick's arm. "Come with me." He took off, running down the hall way to get away from the police.
"Where are we going?" Nick asked as they walked into the first aid room.
"She's alive." He said as he shut the door behind Nick. "Where's the first aid kit?" He handed Nick the note and began to look through cabinets and drawers. Things were everywhere so Brian grabbed a terry cloth bag and started going back and forth, grabbing everything he thought they'd need.
"I thought..." Nick paused, not wanting to be vulgar. "I thought she killed herself."
"I figured if she didn't, then he did." Brian looked at the contents in his bag before zipping it shut. He walked to the window on the opposite side of the room and opened it. Looking down he judge the drop. It wasn't too high, a story up and there was a box of junk there as well. He dropped it outside and shut the window. "I'm gonna go to the hotel. Get the guys and get into the bus and go. I'll be in Florida as soon as she's all right."
"Are you bringing her with you?"
"I don't know. I'll bring her if she wants to go."
"We'll get a decoy of you and be out of here in ten minutes."
"Thanks."
Nick and Brian left to find the others and fill them in.
Cameron
It hurt so bad I couldn't even find an antonym to describe it. I took off my shirt and tried to look at my right shoulder through the mirror, that only seemed to help in making shoots of pain rush through my shoulder. I took the closest thing near me and threw it outside the bathroom. It was a soap dish.
"Ahh!" I took a deep breath and looked at my left arm. The cut wasn't so bad, thankfully I had a tee-shirt on so I didn't have to peel caked on blood off. I heard a knock at the door and picked up my knife off the bathroom sink. "Who is it?"
"Brian, open up."
I walked over to the door an d opened it enough to pull Brian inside.
"Whoa, nice." He chuckled until I turned away to close the door. He got a load of my bullet wound then. "Cameron." He touched my waist, the thud of a bag hitting the floor and thing his thumb was very near the wound. "How are you even standing up straight?"
"I have a high tolerance of pain." I shrugged and then was glad I was looking away when I winced, I turned and looked into the bag.
"Here, let me." He took my hand and picked up the bag, leading me over to the bed. It was an odd feeling letting Brian do this, but I still did it. He walked around the bed, looking at my shoulder. "Tell me the bullet's not still in there."
"Afraid so."
He groaned and then sighed. "How am I supposed to get that out?"
"Did you put tweezers in there?"
"You've got to be kidding me?" He looked through the bag and pulled a pair out.
"I'd do it my self, but I can't reach." She could feel the blood running down her back and she hoped he'd make a decision soon. "Just sick it in and I'll tell you when you hit it."
He started swearing under his breath and praying to God at the same time. With one hand on my right shoulder, just above the wound, I didn't feel anything until I felt cold steel just barely enter my skin. I sucked in a breath and Brian stopped.
"I have a pain number." He said.
I shook my head. "It'll take to long."
"You're braver than I am." I closed my eyes as I felt the cold push further in my skin and Brian started to move it around in a circle to find it. "You're bleeding even more now."
"I know." I swallowed. "Just keep...there." I tried to steady my breathing, knowing I would alarm Brian if he thought I was hurting too much. "Clamp around it right there."
"Isn't that your bone?"
"No, that's metal, I'm not metal. Do it!" I bowed my head when he pulled at the object. "Stop." I took three deep breaths. "Regroup it now. Go. All the way now."
He pulled it out and said he thought he'd be sick.
"Toss it in the sink." I said. I turned, pain washing like white fire over my whole right side, and looked for a clean gauze. He came back quickly and bandaged my shoulder up.
"You are one tough chick." He said. "I'd have been gone after the shot went in."
"It's not the first time I've been shot and then I didn't have anyone to help me get it out." A thought struck me as I thought of the only one who'd ever been with me through anything. "Where's my dog?" I watched as Brian moved around beside me to clean and bandage my arm.
"He's on his way to my house. Or Nick's, whichever they decide on the way."
"You have to stick my back, you know."
He groaned again as he placed a final piece of tape on my arm.
"Are you gonna be sick? You look pale."
"I just can't believe all this has happened to you. I thought you were dead."
I sighed and found my self reaching out for his hand. "I'm sorry about that, but if you had thought I survived,he would have too and he would have stayed."
"Cameron."
I looked over at him and he smiled a bit. "You're crazy." He laughed. "You looked like something out of a Charlie's Angel movie and that's just what I saw of it, who knows what they think of you."
"They who?"
"Kevin, Howie and AJ especially, they watched basically the whole thing. Nick was with me."
"How much does he know?"
Brian stood and walked around to pull the already saturated bandage off my skin. "You're going to have to tell me how to sew this. I've had stitches, but I was under when I got them."
"Brian, how much does he know?"
"Nick knows everything I know and the other guys know the abbreviated version of that." He looked through the bag and pulled out two types of string. "They had all this hospital crap in the first aid room. What do I use?"
"All that crap is going to save my arm. That one."
"What do I do now?"
I took the string and the sewing scissors form him. I pulled a length portion out, cut it and then knotted one end. "Do you know how to sew anything?"
"Sorry."
"OK, then stick it in the skin where there's no wound, but really close to the wound, understand?"
"I think so. This is gonna hurt."
"Not as bad as the bullet going through or coming out." I still flinched when the needle when in and I felt the strange sensation of the plastic string being pulled through my skin. "OK, now go to one side of the wound and then under the other side. Pull it as tight as you can without ripping the skin."
"OK." His voice was a whisper as he did so.
"Now start over, the exact same way, no differences. Keep it really close to the other one." I felt little pricks of pain, but it was nothing like before.
After about ten minutes he said he was done.
"Not quite, now do everything you did, only the opposite way. So it make little X's."
He worked quietly, not saying anything and then asked what he was supposed to do when he was back where he started. "Now make a tiny knot at the end and cut it off." I waited until he did. "Now the icky part, disinfection."
He took out a bottle of disinfectant and held a rag against my skin under the wound. He poured a little on my skin and I hissed and sat up straight. "That stings."
"That's what hurt?" He laughed. "You are strange with your pain."
"What can I say?"
I felt Brian's cool breath blowing on my stinging shoulder and I closed my eyes, bowing my head. It felt good, but it wasn't just the act that got to me, it was the thoughts that linger on with it.
"Um, thanks." I said when he stopped and bandaged my arm up.
"No problem." He started tossing everything into his bag and then he handed me a bottle. "Take these. You may be tough as nails, but this'll help."
"Thanks." I walked into the bathroom and took four with a hand full of water. I grabbed a clean button tee shirt that I had brought with me, one of the guys I assumed, but I really hadn't cared. I knew if anything I would need something to bind my wounds if Brian hadn't come. I put it on, removing the bloodstained bra that I had on underneath. I filled the sink with hot soapy water tossed my bra and bloody shirt in. If anything it would get most of the blood out.
I walked out and Brian stared laughing.
"Screw you." I said, knowing the shirt was two times too big.
"I brought you some clothes." He said, holding up my traveling bag.
"I didn't see you bring that in." I said as I walked over to him.
"You were too busy looking for cops."
"Thanks." I said.
"You know you've said that a lot tonight. If you weren't in such a weakened state I'd take advantage of your kindness."
I rolled my eyes, smiling to myself.
"Is that a smile?" He said with a grin, his finger pulling my chin to face him. "It is, where's a camera when you need it?"
I turned away and looked through my bag. I looked up and spotted my knife so I walked over, grabbed it, and tossed it back in when I walked back.
"Cameron."
"Yeah." I said without looking up.
"You know with all this commotion I didn't get to ask why you baled out of my room today. I was only gone a minute."
"That's longer than two seconds." I said.
Brian
"Well we're both here now." I said.
"And? Aren't you leaving to get to your next show?"
"I can leave tomorrow."
I could almost hear her saying 'great' in her head. "I see, there's only one bed here." She said, standing and looking at me.
"We can order a roll away."
"Not really, I told him I was here by myself. I think he likes me." She rolled her eyes.
"I can see why. Bloodied up girl who no doubt acted like she ran out of Midol and three pack a day-er who hadn't had a cigarette in two weeks."
Cameron tried to stop a laugh but she still did a little. It was almost a giggle, but I wouldn't dare label it that even in my mind. She might be wounded, but she could probably still kick my butt. "Probably."
I walked closer to her. "So what does that mean then?"
"You get the floor?" She said but her words didn't hold much conviction.
"I don't think so." I leaned closer, my hand on her waist so she couldn't move back. She didn't seem like she was going to anyway.
"OK." She met me the rest of the way. Her mouth was just as soft as I had remembered it.
She responded to my every move and when I brushed my tongue across her lips she brought her left hand up and her fingers tangled into my hair as her mouth opened. Her tongue mingled with mine without restraint as there normally had been and she moved closer to me.
"You're
on bottom." She murmured and I chuckled at her blunt statement. "My
shoulder hurts and I've never been the submissive type." She kissed me
then and I didn't care who was where, as long as she was with me.
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