CHAPTER EIGHT

             THIS PART OF DETROIT WAS UNKNOWN TO HER, WAREHOUSES LEFT AND RIGHT AND VERY MUCH ABANDONED. It was dark, not all the streetlights worked and it cascaded her in an ominous glow as she drove. The address he had given her was to her right and she steered her jeep towards the warehouse after a twenty minute drive. The building was dark too, as if there was no one inside and it was silent.

The brunette parked the vehicle and turned off her lights, staring at the coiling doors with furrowed brows. Her hands had turned clammy and her stomach turned, wondering if she should have gone at all. But did she have a choice? 

The silence was interrupted when the coiling doors slid open and out came three armed men. Lucy sat up, alert as her hands tightened around her steering wheel. It brought her comfort that she was still inside her car as she swallowed away her nerves.

One she recognised, he had that little bird tattoo on his face. There were no guns pointed in her direction but she could see the weapons. Two were glancing around the area to see if she was followed and the one she had seen before opened the car door since she made no effort.

"Boss needs you."

Lucy gave a single nod and slid from her seat and he slammed the door shut behind her. They were taller and all glared at her as if she were some type of abomination. The brunette chewed the inside of her cheek and turned to grab something from the trunk when his hand shot out and took hold of her bicep.

"I'm going to need my medical bag if you want me to provide medical attention." stated Lucy as she raised a single brow.

He let out a huff when he let go off her arm and Lucy quickly grabbed the emergency bag she always carried in her trunk. "Give him your keys, can't have your car out here all night."

Lucy furrowed her brows and did as she was told, handing them over to the person on her right before she followed after him as he led her inside. The brunette glanced behind her to see them get into her car before it rolled forwards and into the building. 

"Where's the patient?" she asked, glancing around the dimly lit warehouse. "Didn't sound like much of an emergency when he called."

"He's dead." 

"Then why am I here?" 

He glanced over his shoulder at her somewhat annoyed as he led her up a flight of metal stairs. "There's others."

Others. Great. 

Lucy felt her pulse quicken once more as he stopped in front of double doors. There was murmuring coming from the inside and nothing could prepare her for what she saw once those doors opened. Two men were laid out on the ground, bleeding from their stomachs and two others was seated on old couches sporting other injuries.

"Ah, there she is."

Rio shot her a grin as he sat one of the tables with his golden plated gun resting in his hand. Her eyes momentarily fell towards he weapon before she glanced up at him. Then she glanced around the room once more and furrowed her brows.

"Oh, this?" said Rio, following her line of sight and chuckling to himself. "This ain't nothing new, darling."

"I'm not a doctor." she reminded him as she tried to access their injuries from where she still stood in the doorway. "And they look like they should be in the hospital."

"Nah, no hospitals. That's why I called you." he got off the table and sauntered towards her with a shake of his head. He slid his eyes up and down her frame before coming to a stop before her. He was close and she could smell his cologne and she had to crane her neck to meet his gaze. "Now if you fix them up then we're even, yeah?"

"And if I can't?" she breathed, wanting nothing more than to disappear.

He pursed his lips in order to hide a smirk. "You better get to work."

Lucy let out a huff and stepped around him to get to her patients. "You. What do you have?" 

"Popped shoulder." groaned one, eyes clenched shut in pain.

"Not important." she muttered as she went to the next.

Popped shoulder, knife to the shoulder, stabbed in the stomach and a slash to the stomach. Fuck. Lucy had never worked in the emergency room and injuries like this never presented themselves in the children's ward. 

She had to go solely on what she had learned in school. Sure, she had internships in the emergency room but she was only allowed to observe then. Even if she had looked up how to take care of stab and gunshot wounds after she had been told to expect a call, this was all new to her.

Stab wound to the stomach was her priority right now so she dropped to her knees besides the man and opened her medical bag.

"I'm Lucy," she said as she grimaced at the amount of blood on his clothes. "i'm going to take care of you. Can you tell me your name?"

"Ju - Juan." he gasped, face pale and clammy. 

"Okay, Juan." she smiled, and grabbed some sterile gauze from her bag. "I'm going to lift up your shirt and stop the bleeding. You'll be okay."

He did not protest and she hissed at the sight in front of her and pressed the gauze to his wound to wipe off blood. It had stopped bleeding but it looked horrendous. His arm shot towards her in reflex and he almost hit her in the face. Lucy apologised and looked up when a pair of ring covered hands held the man down. 

Rio offered her a single nod as she continued to work.

The wound had been deep and she didn't know if it had hit any organs. The skin around it was raw and red and he seemed to be developing a fever, sweat dripped down his forehead.

"I don't have the right materials to treat him." she confessed as she had finished cleaning the wound. "I need IV's, fluids, antibiotics and whatnot. He needs all of that. His wound shows signs of infection. The knife must have been dirty and I can't do much without it."

"Mick," Rio called, and the man with the little bird tattoo underneath his eye came to his side. "Tell him what you need, ma. He'll get it."

Lucy glanced up at him and began to rapid fire all the materials and equipment she needed from the top of her head. Mick was gone a second later and she placed her finger on Juan's pulse. It was steady which pleased her. "Are you going to rob a hospital to get the stuff?"

"Don't worry about it." said Rio as he watched her every move. "Focus on fixing my men. That's why you're here. To do a job."

The brunette clenched her jaw at his answer before she reached into her bag and grabbed her suture kit. "Fine, then you better help me hold him down for this. I'm going to suture the wound and I don't have any narcotics on me so he's gonna start swinging."

Rio's eyes narrowed and she thought it was because of the way she was ordering him around, but she did not care. Lucy was too focused on Juan and she did not want him to die at her hands. He did as he was told wordlessly and began to tighten his grip on Juan's arms as she pulled on a pair of sterile gloves, discarding of the ones she was wearing. 

"Is - is it gonna scar?" breathed Juan, half out of it.

"Yes," said Lucy honestly. "i'll be as neat as I can be."

Juan grunted and closed his eyes tightly when the needle first came into contact with his skin. He tried to scoot away but Rio had a firm grip on him and after the sixth suture Juan was able to keep still himself. She had kept her word, she worked as precisely as she could and if she were honest she thought it looked quite good.

"Stay with him." she looked up at the man with the eagle tattoo who already had his eyes on her. "Keep your finger on his pulse, if it changes rythm or weakens call me."

Lucy didn't wait for an answer as she got back to her feet, taking her bag with her as she went towards the other injured man. The other guy with the slash on his abdomen was already sitting upright.

"Hi, doc." he grinned up at her, hand on his stomach as she stopped before him. "What a mess, huh?"

"Are you still bleeding?"

"No," he shrugged. "just a surface wound."

Lucy nodded her head as she glanced towards the knife still protruding from one of their shoulders. He seemed to be doing perfectly fine as he texted someone on his phone. Her brows furrowed. There were three major arteries located in the shoulder and he could bleed out if she pulled out the knife. She might be able to do skin sutures, but there was no way in hell she could suture an artery. 

"Don't look so concerned." he said, having met her eyes for a moment. "Just pull it out and put a band aid on it."

"And have you bleed out?"

His lips quirked up into a smile and he slid his phone into his pocket. Lucy kept her face neutral as she walked towards him and rested her bag on the table beside him before pulling on a fresh pair of gloves. "Take off your shirt."

"Hmm," he hummed and winched when he lifted his arm. 

The brunette began to cut his shirt off instead as she stood behind him. There were eyes on the side of her face and she resisted glancing toward him on the other side of the room. "How long is the blade?"

"Four inches or something." he grumbled when she pressed on the skin surrounding the blade. He had a little bit more meat on his bones and she hoped that that would work to his advantage. "Is it all the way in?"

The brunette hummed to confirm his question as she traced his skin where the main arteries should be. "Do you have any pain in your chest when you breath?"

"No," he said and let out a his when she grabbed onto the hilt of the knife. "didn't even feel it when it happened."

"I'm going to give you a choice," she said, quitely so the man on the other side of the room wouldn't hear. "I am not a doctor. I don't know if i'll be able to save you if this blade knicked a major artery. Either I do this, with the risk of you bleeding out or you go to a hospital and have them take care of this."

"No hospitals." he said without hesitation and looked at her over his shoulder. "I'm Eddie, by the way. Would be nice to be on a first name basis in case you kill me."

She offered him a smile in return. "I'm Lucy."

With a pounding heart and a massive headache she pulled out the blade in one swift motion, immediately pressing clean gauze on the wound. Eddie hissed loudly, hunching forwards from the sudden pain. Lucy was too nervous to take off the gauze to see the damage, half expecting blood to spurt in her face as she did so.

"Well?" he grunted. 

Lucy took a deep breath and slid the gauze down, leaning back in case it began to rain blood. Her eyes widened slightly when she noticed that it was indeed bleeding, but not as bad as she thought it would be and she knew that nothing major was hit as far as she could see.

"I think you're very, very lucky."

Eddie sighed in relief and reached towards his good shoulder to squeeze the hand she was resting there while keeping pressure on the wound. "And you say you aren't a doctor? Could have fooled me."

There was a loud curse from the other end of the room and she snapped her head towards Rio and Juan.

"He's not breathing!"

i'm not going to lie, i've written this chapter four times in the last few days and i still don't like it. but this is as good as it's going to get for now i'm afraid. i'm trying to make this as much of a slow burn as i can so we'll see how it goes.