Chapter 11

With great effort, Suzi lifted Ygritte and rushed into her apartment, calling out for Aiden. The only response was Ygritte’s whimpering. The dog had been shot behind the ribs, just in front of her hind leg. Blood smeared on her face and mouth indicated she had tried to nurse and clean the wound herself. Suzi laid Ygritte on the couch and tightly wrapped a towel around her stomach.

“What the fuck happened here?” she muttered.

In her room, she found that Aiden had moved her bed and pulled up the rug. He had only managed to clean half of the blood from her mirror incident. The bucket of bloody water was still on the floor, now ice cold. She reached for her phone on the nightstand, but it was missing.

She glanced at her ring, which was glowing red. Aiden was in trouble, but this also meant her ring was connected to her phone and that her phone was nearby.

“Alexa – call my phone,” she commanded.

“Calling,” the robotic voice responded.

She heard a muffled vibration from under her bedsheets where her purse had been dumped. She quickly found her phone and denied the incoming call. Grabbing her wallet and car keys, she picked up Ygritte and dashed out the door.

Not wanting to wait for the elevator or put Ygritte down to shut the gate, she opted for the stairs. After one flight, the 50-pound dog became heavier, and pain radiated from her side with each step down.

“Uggh. We chose poorly,” the Spike persona stated.

Suzi decided to change her approach. Her luck couldn’t get any worse. She told herself that her next decision would be the right one, and the cosmos would listen to her, or she would kick its sorry ass. She stopped at the 2nd-floor landing, kicked the door open, and prayed Ricky was in his studio.

“Ricky! RICKY?” she yelled.

She could hear ‘Love is Love’ by Boy George’s Culture Club blaring through the overhead speakers, so she knew he was there.

A bald head appeared from a doorway, initially looking the wrong way, then turned to look at her as she stumbled down the hall, struggling to hold onto her wounded soulmate. Her hospital-issued sweatshirt was covered with blood – some of hers, seeping from her ribs, but most from Ygritte. The collar of the sweatshirt was wet from a mixture of tears and sweat.

“SUZI?” Ricky exclaimed, stepping fully into the hallway. “What the hell?”

He was wearing jeans without shoes and a grey T-shirt with bits of different colors of paint splattered across the front. He was holding a small can of paint, no larger than eight ounces, and a brush.

“Help! Please!” she pleaded, her voice strained.

He dropped the paint and the brush and ran the 20 feet down the hall. He took the dog from Suzi’s arms and lifted her up.

“What happened?”

“Can I tell you on the way? Can you carry her to my car, please?” Suzi asked, fighting back a total collapse of exhaustion and pain.

Without waiting for a response, she ran as fast as she could down the stairs and out the main doors. She thought she was moving fast, but looking over her shoulder, Ricky easily kept pace with her at barely a fast walk.

She unlocked her car and opened the passenger door.

“Get in,” Ricky instructed. “I’ll drive.”

She jumped into the passenger seat, and he laid the large dog in her lap. Ygritte was panting heavily and limp, her eyes closed.

“No!” Suzi cried, her tear stream renewing an open flow.

Ricky pulled the keys from Suzi’s hand and rounded the car. He got in with his phone in his hand, speaker phone on, ringing. He started the car and backed out. Suzi heard screeching tires and horns behind them.

“RIIIICK!” a voice answered. “How’s it hanging, bro?”

“Tom – I need a favor,” Ricky said as he sped down the road. “I’m bringing you a K9 10-33 with a GSW. I need you to look at her ASAP.”

“Shit. Yeah man, no problem. When can you get here?”

“En route now. ETA 4 minutes.”

“Do you know the age and weight of the dog?”

“She’s nine and about 50 or 55 pounds,” Suzi answered while sobbing.

“I’m also going to be drawing attention from local law,” Ricky added.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“10-4. We’ll be ready. I’ll alert the PD. See you in a few.”

The phone disconnected.

Ricky obeyed exactly zero traffic laws, speeding, zigzagging through traffic, running through stop signs, and taking turns at almost full speed. Suzi saw them pass a cop and thought for sure they were done. He flashed his lights on, then off, and did not pursue. It had been decades since she had been in a car with Ricky, but he drove like a professional. She began to question what she really knew about him. She was also now worried for her own life and her dog’s.

A mile later, she saw multiple other police cars with lines of vehicles pulled over, clearing the path for Ricky and waiving him on.

“What the fuck!” the excitable Spike exclaimed. “This is awesome!”

It took them three minutes to get to the south end of town - a trip that should have taken about four times as long. A few large houses were in a relatively undeveloped area, with a few small businesses scattered around. It looked like a quaint part of town.

He pulled into an empty parking lot next to a sporting goods store. As they circled around the back, a door opened, and a large man and tall woman in scrubs exited, pushing a gurney. Ricky turned the car so the passenger side was closer to the people. They opened the door, took Ygritte, placed her on the bed, and ran her inside.

Suzi put her hands on her face and cried into the blood.

Ricky rubbed her shoulder. “Hey. She’s in good hands, Suz.”

She shot Ricky with an angry, confused look. “What the hell, Ricky! What the fuck is this?”

“Tom is a good friend, and I called in a favor, but I’m sure I’ll hear about it later.”

“K9? 10-33? GSW? You’re an artist!”

“I’ve not always been an artist, Suzi. The important thing now is Ygritte getting the care she needs.”

A thought occurred to Suzi. “Do you have security cameras at the studio?”

“I do, but not on the 3rd floor anymore. I wanted to give you your privacy.”

“But you can see who comes and goes from the building, right?”

“Yes. Yes, I can.” He picked up his phone and opened an app. “I can search here, but only one camera feed at a time. I can view them all from my home or the studio.”

“It would have been last night or early this morning. Look for Aiden to enter and anyone after him.”

“Aiden?”

Despite Suzi being in contact with Ricky, he and Aiden had only ever met once when Suzi and Aiden had taken the kids to Chicago on vacation.

“Are you guys back together?”

“When you tell me your secrets, I’ll tell you mine, ‘officer’ Ricky,” Suzi said sarcastically.

“Fair enough.” He turned his attention back to his phone.

“He drives that black truck that was in front of the building.”

Ricky held the ‘rewind’ button on the video command toolbar.

A sudden knock on the passenger window startled Suzi, causing her to jump. A middle-aged and attractive woman with shoulder-length brown hair and large brown eyes hidden behind stylish red-rimmed glasses waved through the glass. Suzi pressed the button to lower the window.

“Hi, Becca,” Ricky greeted her with a warm smile.

“Hey, Rick,” she responded, returning his smile. She turned her attention to Suzi. “Is she your dog?”

Suzi nodded in affirmation.

“Why don’t you come in and freshen up? We’ll find you a change of clothes. Tom will be attending to her for a while,” Becca suggested.

Suzi glanced at Ricky.

“Go ahead,” he reassured her. “I’ll park the car and check the security footage. You’ll be okay. I’ll join you shortly.”

Feeling as if she was going into shock, Suzi allowed Becca to guide her into the building while Ricky maneuvered the car into the first parking spot at the rear of the store. Once inside, Suzi noticed a room to her left, obscured by thick plastic sheeting. She couldn’t see anything through the plastic, but the beeping of a monitor, the soft murmur of commands, and the clinking of metal on metal suggested a medical procedure was underway.

Becca led her to the right, revealing what appeared to be the storeroom of a sporting goods store.

“There’s a bathroom over there,” Becca pointed towards a hallway marked with universal restroom signs.

Suzi half expected to see crude signs reading ‘Chicks’ and ‘Dicks’.

“There’s no shower, but you can wash up as much as you need,” Becca continued, handing Suzi a stack of towels of various sizes, a cold soda, and a candy bar. “The sugar will help with the shock. Once you’re done, feel free to pick out any clothes you like from the store. It’s on the house.” Becca winked.

“Thank you,” Suzi managed to say through her tears.

Becca nodded, turned, and walked away, leaving Suzi alone in a storeroom filled with boxes of unknown contents, buckets of baseballs, and racks of baseball bats and hockey sticks. Overwhelmed, emotional, and exhausted, Suzi sat down on a nearby bucket of baseballs, a little shorter than a standard chair, with the towels on her lap.

The next thing she knew, she was on the floor with Ricky supporting her head and Becca applying a cold, bloody towel to her head. Her head throbbed with pain. Becca was saying something, but it didn’t make sense. She heard the hiss of an opening soda bottle and felt it being held to her mouth.

She took a sip. The cold, fizzy, sweet liquid felt good in her mouth but stung a bit as it went down her throat. She took another sip, and the bottle was pulled away. Ricky propped her up a bit more.

“Are you okay?” Becca asked her.

Suzi closed her eyes and nodded. She felt weak.

“Squeeze my hand,” Becca instructed, placing her hand in Suzi’s.

Suzi squeezed.

“Good. Drink a bit more.” She brought the bottle back to Suzi’s mouth.

Suzi drank and they gave her a small chocolate bar. She was starting to feel better.

“She’s hemorrhaging,” Ricky’s voice announced as someone lifted her shirt.

She felt someone pulling down the bloody gauze.

“Yeah. She’s reopened a recent surgical wound. Tommy can fix her up. Let’s get her in there.”

She was jostled, then felt Ricky’s arms under her legs and around her back as she was lifted off the floor. A few seconds later, she heard the rustle of plastic, and the smell of the room changed.

“What’s going on here?” a man’s voice questioned.

“Previous serious injury, reopened,” Becca explained.

“Set her down there and get her prepped. I’m almost done here,” the man instructed.

She felt Ricky set her on a gurney, which was surprisingly more comfortable than the floor. Suzi tried to open her eyes, but her body wouldn’t cooperate. She felt a cold device on her stomach and heard fabric shearing. The blood in the sweatshirt had coagulated and become extremely sticky, causing discomfort as they separated her from the cotton material. They then cut up her right sleeve.

Shortly after, someone was attaching a tourniquet to her right arm and searching for a viable vein while her left sleeve was being cut open. The gauze was then cut from around her chest, and her right arm was rubbed with a cold, wet cloth. Suzi assumed it was alcohol or iodine. Maybe both.

She could feel the sharp stick of the IV, which she typically hated, but now seemed almost like home given the number of IVs she’d had in the last week. She could feel the cold fluid entering her arm as someone was cleaning around the stitches on her right side.

“Administering ‘Twilight’ and O2,” she heard someone say.

She felt a gas mask put on her face and quickly fell asleep.