Miss Nobody Ch. 22

(Please read TW/CW in bio.)

Chapter 22

HOLES

Late Evening Day 8

Jonny sat me on his bed and turned on the shower.

I thought of nothing as I rubbed the bullet hole in my chest. Why wasn't it bleeding or painful? Only a few moments passed until Jonny was in front of me. He was naked but I was numb. His lips moved but I didn't understand what he was saying.

He led me into the bathroom and stripped off my sweater gently. "I'm going to lift your dress over your head and put you in the shower." He said but he sounded so far away.

I think I nodded.

He gently lifted off my dress and tossed it onto his black tactical wear. The dress was covered in blood. I hadn't realized there was so much. I looked at my hands in front of me. They were covered in sticky redness.

"It's not mine," my voice sounded distant and coldly calm. I stared at the glimmering red. The bathroom light seemed so bright in contrast to the dark blood. "I killed a Police Officer," I whispered. I should be panicking.

He undid my bra and slipped it off my arms. The vial fell to the bathmat.

The bullet hole gushed blood. I gasped as pain shot through my body. I grabbed Jonny's arms, on the edge of losing consciousness.

Jonny held me to him. "He fucking shot you?"

"It hurts." I gasped.

"We have to get the bullet out of you."

"Hand me that glass thing."

Jonny handed me the glass vial. "I'm going to fucking kill him. Slowly."

"It burns," as I said it the pain faded and the blood slowed.

Jonny led me to his bed and laid me down. "I'll call the Doc." He picked up his phone.

"No." I put my free hand over his phone. "No more doctors."

"You have a fucking bullet in you."

"Please? Maybe in the morning. I just want to sleep." I couldn't handle someone touching me at that moment and I was obviously not thinking straight.

He shook his head but put his phone away. He dug in his side table and pulled out a small, round, metal tin. "Mi Abuelita made this. It's a poultice from a recipe handed down from our Aztec ancestors."

I nodded and looked over at the fire as he gently rubbed the poultice over my chest. At some point, he had turned the fireplace on, and the lights off. It left the cabin feeling safe and warm.

"It's not going to do shit but maybe it'll keep it clean."

"Who was that man with you?" I asked him, the pain lessening.

"My brother, Diego." He smoothed the cream over my chest and an immediate coolness overtook the heat.

"That was nice of him to help." I'm not sure what I was saying, I just needed the distraction.

"He shows up just when he's needed. He's been doing that since we were kids."

"Do you have any other siblings?"

"Four brothers and two sisters. Countless cousins, nephews." He was done with the green medicine. "What about you?"

I hesitated, the numbers not meaning anything to me. "I don't...I don't know. I can't remember." I shivered. "Are you going to tell the Sheriff? I don't think Jess knows what she's doing." I said quickly. My thoughts all over the place.

He slid into the bed next to me, careful of his movements.

"What's going to happen to them?" my voice was low, exhaustion setting in.

He draped a black handkerchief over my chest and covered me with soft black blankets. "The Deputy's been taken care of." He made the sign of the cross over his chest and reached for his necklace. He pulled it out from under me instead and kissed it. "Cherry is getting checked out by Doc." He shrugged. "Jess." He sighed heavily. "She needs a different kind of help. Diego is going to work with her, see if he can help her." Jonny brushed my hair back from my face gently, barely touching me. "He knows more about that stuff than I do."

I closed my eyes and focused on the heat from his body against mine. "They are going to wonder about the Deputy." Tears fell down my face. Another dead body.

"It's taken care of." He noticed the doubt cross my face. He moved in a little closer, careful not to jostle me. "It was self-defense. You protected yourself and those girls. You're a hero."

"My body count is adding up." I saw the faraway look in his eyes. The knot in my stomach tightened and I felt overwhelmed.

"You still have a lot of catching up to do." He winked and grinned.

I was almost asleep and clearly delirious or I would not have brought this up. "Sheriff bet money that my fake baby was yours."

He chuckled. "He's a smart man."

***

I dream of a room with walls made of fire. A distant drum beat competes with the noise from the flames. I collapse on my back to the compacted earth floor in pain, the bullet hole on my chest bubbling and oozing.

A man wearing a turquoise loin cloth, elaborately adorned with gold and jade, chants and dances around me in circles. The huge turquoise feathers shake like terrifying snakes with his movements.

The shadows wait for me, hanging back in the corners.

The man sweats and blows a conch shell over me, keeping the darkness from devouring me.

***

The excruciating pain in my chest woke me up. A man was standing over me, large silver tweezers digging into my bullet hole.

"Fuck." I grit my teeth.

Jonny appeared next to me. "We have to get this bullet out of you."

"Where's that glass vial?" I gasped, my hands were empty.

He pulled it out of his pocket and placed it in my hand.

The pain lessened enough for me to think clearly. "No numbing?"

The man digging around in my chest muttered, "no time." He held up a blood covered, perfectly intact, copper bullet and dropped it into an empty drinking glass next to the bed. "You're lucky that didn't hit your heart." He disappeared from view and Jonny got closer.

Yes, so lucky.

The bottle he held looked like clear nail polish, he wiped the blood away gently and brushed the stickiness over the small wound on my chest. "Liquid stitches." He placed a white cotton pad over it and taped it down.

I nodded. The small glass vial relieved the pain and a warmth spread throughout my body. "I need a shower." As much as I tried to ignore the dried blood all over my arms and hands and sleep, I couldn't.

Jonny left and the shower turned on. He came back and helped me sit up. He threw his robe around my shoulders and led me to the bathroom, helping me step into the shower. He stripped off his black sweatpants and climbed in behind me. He guided me underneath the warm water. His hands were gentle as he worked the soap over my blood-soaked arms, rinsing them thoroughly. He used a washcloth and scrubbed under my short fingernails, scraping the dried blood that had settled as an unnerving nail polish.

"He tried to kill me." The copper-tipped bullet sat bloody, in a drinking glass next to the bed.

"I've had to deal with a lot of bullet wounds. I've never seen one like yours. Maybe you are lucky?" He lathered my scalp with the shampoo.

I held up the small glass vial. "I don't think it's luck." Why was Jonny dealing with a lot of bullet wounds? Why was he dressed in black tactical gear with his brother and those other men? Customer Service wasn't the only thing Jonny did. My heart pounded in my chest.

"Then what?" He tilted my head back to rinse the suds from my hair.

"Magic," I whispered, it was the only explanation I could give him. There's no way I could explain the man in the top hat, a vial of something not quite liquid and not solid, that turned pain to pleasure. "It takes the pain away."

"You sound like my brother." He spread the conditioner throughout my long hair. Wet, it nearly touched my butt and Jonny's hands lingered in that area as he bathed me. It wasn't that long ago Jonny washed my hair. I wasn't covered in blood then. How quickly things changed.

"I don't think it's Magic, maybe some herbs or plants or something. They do make aspirin from tree bark."

"After everything, you still don't believe?" Everything that's happened to you, not him. He hasn't been around.

"Everything?" He rinsed the conditioner from my hair. "Chef's death was a heart attack. Your gunshot...strange things happen here all the time." He shrugged it off.

"Your sleep-walking? You did have a traumatic brain injury so-"

"And Jess?"

"Jess is...dramatic. She likes the attention. It was her idea to put the cameras all over the Lodge."

I nodded, wanting nothing more than to close my eyes and sleep for days. He had a practical answer for everything and in my tired state it was easy to go along with his explanations.

Jonny turned off the shower and wrapped my hair in a towel. "We should get some sleep."

I nodded and let him dry me and lead me to his bed. He laid next to me pulling me in close to him and covering us with the soft, clean blankets.

My sleep was dreamless, peaceful, and I had some much-needed rest.