Rome's Chance (Reapers MC #6.6)(12)

It was Rome.

Relief flooded me. He’d taken off his MC colors, and his flannel shirt had somehow disappeared, but I didn’t see any bruises or blood. Peaches listened to him carefully, then turned and looked to the bar, catching my eye.

“There’s a first aid kit under the counter in front of you,” she yelled. “Can you bring it over?”

Thankful for a chance to do something useful, I ducked down, trying to find it.

“There,” Tinker said, pointing to a bright orange box that’d been pushed toward the back of a shelf. Grabbing it, I stepped out from the bar and headed for Rome.

“Here you go,” I said, handing it over. He reached for it, his face absolutely focused as he opened the kit and pulled out a roll of bandages. The poor man on the floor was blinking up at the lights, looking confused. With a start, I realized that I recognized him from the fight—it was the guy who’d gotten hit with the chair.

I’d literally watched his head bouncing off the floor.

There were a couple of flannel shirts balled up and braced on either side of his head. One was Rome’s, I realized. I wondered why he’d done it, and then some detached part of my brain remembered a first aid class I’d taken once upon a time. There’d been something about stabilizing people until you knew for sure whether they had a spinal injury.

Scary.

The poor man’s face was covered in blood, with more spattered across the floor. His shirt had been torn at one shoulder, and there seemed to be blood everywhere.

“Hang in there,” Rome said, his voice steady as he grabbed a handful of gauze and started wrapping the guy’s hand. Someone had used paper napkins to try and stop the bleeding. Now they were bright red with blood. The cut must’ve been bad, because more was already seeping through.

This guy is really lucky they’re here tonight, I realized.

“Fuck…” the man moaned, trying to look around. Rome’s friend kept his head still, a hand on either side to stabilize it. He must have medical training, too.

“Best to play it safe for now,” he said. “I don’t think you’ve got a neck injury, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful. Ambulance should be here soon.”

“Don’t want an ambulance,” the guy muttered, his eyes dazed. “Competition’s not over yet. Just give me my hat and…”

His voice trailed off, and his eyes closed.

“Oh fuck,” Peaches said, startling me. I’d forgotten she was standing next to me. “Is he dying?”

Rome glanced up at us, and to my relief, he didn’t seem overly concerned. “No, I think he’s mostly drunk. Pulse is strong and he’s breathing. He’s probably fine except for the hand, maybe a concussion, but they’ll make sure at the ER.”

“Heads up,” his friend said suddenly. “We got blood underneath. It’s seeping through his pants.”

“Okay,” Rome replied, all business as he turned back to his patient. “Peaches, would you clear everyone out of the area?”

I took that as my cue, stepping back as I tried figure out what to do with myself. My heart was still pounding too fast, and the air in the bar felt stifling. I could feel myself sway. Crap. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, I could feel the alcohol again.

My stomach roiled. For an instant I thought I might barf.

Fresh air would help.

Rome seemed to have things under control in here, and it wasn’t like there was anything I could do to help anyway. Go outside and pull yourself together. It didn’t take long to cross the room. There was still a crowd hanging around the patio door, but I managed to slip through the bodies and work my way outside into the cool night air.

Oh, that was better.

A lot better.

The space was a bare-bones concrete slab, surrounded by the fence I’d seen when we’d first arrived. There were about twenty metal tables, and strings of white lights gave everything a cheerful glow. The patio was mostly empty, although I saw a young couple off to one side. Everyone else must’ve either gone inside to watch the spectacle or they’d left.

I walked over to one of the corners, forcing myself to lean back against the wooden boards and calm down. I couldn’t quite believe how fast everything had gone weird and wrong. Rome had been right about one thing—the Starkwood Saloon was fun. They had good music and I’d enjoyed the dancing.

Wasn’t such a fan of the fighting, though.

That’d been scary. Really scary. The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. Not so much that there’d been a fight, but that Rome had taken me to a place so rough that the waitresses needed baseball bats to keep the peace.

Oh, and the shotgun.

That whole shooting thing wasn’t so spiffy, either.

The fight hadn’t had anything to do with Rome, of course. And Tinker insisted that it’d come as a surprise… Specifically, she’d been surprised that it’d gotten so big. Not that there’d been a fight in the first place. I couldn’t decide if that made it better or worse. Better that there weren’t always big fights, for sure. But even small fights shouldn’t really be the norm, right?

Then there was the fact that the Reapers never left each other behind when a fight started. Did that mean they had some kind of fight-related policy, or was it just so common that Tinker knew the drill? Either way, violence didn’t seem to bother them.