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Instinctively Jane stepped back in the direction of V, and just as she did, she felt him come up behind her. Although he didn’t touch her, she knew he was close. And prepared to defend her.

The black-haired one shook his head at the wounded guy. “Phury…for fuck’s sake, we need to get you to Havers’s.”

Phury? What the hell kind of name was that?

“No,” was the weak response.

“Why the hell not?”

“Bella’s there. She sees me like this…going to freak…She’s already bleeding.”

“Ah…shit.”

“And we have someone here,” the guy wheezed. His one eye moved over to Jane. “Right?”

As they all looked in her direction, the black-haired one was clearly cranked out. So it was a surprise when he said, “Will you treat our brother?”

The request was nonthreatening and respectful. Evidently he’d been upset primarily that his buddy was down for the count and not getting treated.

She cleared her throat. “Yeah, I will. But what do I have to work with? I’m going to want to knock him out—”

“Don’t worry about that,” Phury said.

She shot him a level stare. “You want me to put your face back together without general anesthesia?”

“Yes.”

Maybe they had a different pain tolerance—

“Are you insane?” Red Sox muttered.

Okay, maybe not.

But enough with the talk. Assuming this boy with the Rocky Balboa puss healed as fast as her patient did, she had to get operating now, before the bones knit together wrong and she had to rebreak them.

Looking around the room, she saw glass-fronted cabinets full of supplies and hoped like hell she could put together a surgical kit from what was around. “I don’t suppose any of you have medical experience?”

V spoke up, right at her ear, almost as close as her clothes. “Yeah, I can assist. I’m trained as a paramedic.”

She eyed him over her shoulder, a lick of heat going through her.

Get back in the game, Whitcomb. “Good. You got any kind of local anesthesia?”

“Lidocaine.”

“How about some sedatives? And maybe a little morphine. If he flinches at the wrong time, I could blind him.”

“Yeah.” As V started for the rows of stainless-steel cabinets, she noticed he was wobbly. That walk down the tunnel had been a long one, and even though he seemed healed on the surface, he was still just days out of open-heart surgery.

She grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “You’re going to sit down.” She glanced over at Red Sox. “Get him a chair. Now.” When the patient cracked his mouth to argue, she blew him off by heading across the room. “Not interested in it. I need you on the ball while I operate, and this could take a while. You’re better, but you’re not as strong as you think you are, so sit your ass down and tell me where to get what I need.”

There was a heartbeat of silence, then someone barked a laugh while her patient cursed in the background. The kinglike one started to grin at her.

Red Sox rolled a chair over from the whirlpool bath and shoved it right into the backs of V’s legs. “Park it, big guy. On your doctor’s orders.”

When the patient sat down, she said, “Now, here’s what I’m going to want.”

She listed the standard scalpel, forceps, and suction supplies, then asked for surgical wire and thread, Betadine, buffered solution to rinse, gauze padding, latex gloves….

She was amazed at how quickly it came together, but then, she and her patient were on the same wavelength. He directed her around the room succinctly, anticipated what she might want, and didn’t waste words. The perfect nurse, as it were.

She let out a huge sigh of relief that they had a surgical drill. “And I don’t suppose you have a magnifying headset?”

“Cabinet by the crash cart,” V said. “Lower drawer. Left side. You want me to scrub in?”

“Yup.” She went over and found the set. “We have X-ray capability?”

“No.”

“Shit.” She put her hands on her hips. “Whatever. I’ll go in blind.”

As she put the headset on, V got up and went to work on his hands and forearms over the sink in the far corner. When he was done she took his place, then they gloved up.

She came back to Phury, meeting him in his good eye. “This is probably going to hurt even with