Chapter Text
bullet like a thorn
dripping blood past rose petals
finding my fault line
“That was your vow, Asha! Til death do us part! Now I guess you gotta die.”
“No—”
A bullet cuts through his side and he staggers back into the main room, a look of shocked disgust on his face. Cady stands and plants her feet as best she can, mind in a frenzy, still not believing she is the one doing these things and being forced to make these decisions, but the gun in her face demands action, for her own sake as well as Asha’s. One cartridge remains; she aims at center of mass, seeing how little a lesser wound did to dissuade him from his mission.
“This is all your fault bitch!”
In perfect time with Asha’s scream, her finger pulls back the trigger not a moment too soon but very nearly too late. The recoil pierces her shoulder like an ax but, wasn’t she holding the gun at her waist, forgetting everything she’d ever learned in her panic? A heavy thud makes its way to her ringing ears as JP hits the floor, blood quickly coloring his tank top from the center moving outward.
She turns toward Asha, who is still cowering, and her shoulder stings at the movement. A quick glance at it tells her more than she cares to know and somehow the knowing is followed immediately by the pain itself, never mind how it makes her stomach churn. The rifle slips through her fingers and clatters to the floor as she stumbles back, more from the shock than anything else. She brings a hand to her shoulder and sinks down against the cabinets as panic sets in. JP cut the phone line. Where is her cell phone?
Asha is moving on the edge of her tunneled vision, approaching, then freezing, then rushing into the other room. She lets out a raw scream, and shrieks his name, but everything is still coming in muffled.
Suddenly Asha is all she can see as she grabs Cady’s jacket and starts shaking her, her entreaties simultaneously loud and far away. “He’s dead! You killed him!”
Her head makes repeated contact with the cabinet behind her before she can raise an arm to try to stop the attack. “Asha. You have to call the police,” she pleads, heart beating faster than it should be.
Mention of the police instantly quells Asha’s assault more effectively than Cady’s weakened grip on her wrist. She looks away from Cady, hands still clutching her jacket. “I can’t do that.”
“I know the line’s been cut but you can go find my cell phone, there’s a chance—”
“No. I have to go.” She stands and walks back toward JP.
“Asha!” She bends down momentarily, then runs out the front door. And Cady is alone.
She brings her hand back to her shoulder and winces at the pressure. For the first time she notices a stream of liquid running down her back and knows she won’t be able to stop the bleeding on her own.
Standing sends a deeper thumping through her head and blurs her vision for a few seconds. By the time she makes it to her office she’s breathing hard and slightly nauseous. The search for her phone is made more difficult by a flurry of cases that day scattering papers all over her desk. Bloody fingers struggle to grasp it and she returns to the floor, grateful to find the Tribal Police number in her recent calls. But her phone just beeps at her, a repeating chorus of dismay as she keeps touching the number she needs to reach.
The only other sounds are the blood pounding through her head and her rapid breathing, growing shallower with every breath. Knowing immobility could well be deadly she raises herself to her knees but doesn’t make it farther than that. Instinct fights through ever increasing anxiety and she lays down flat on the floor, trying to slow her breathing and weakening pulse, her arm starting to cramp from trying to keep pressure on her shoulder. She holds out for a few more minutes before her vision fades to black.
The river’s running high after the storm that afternoon. Jacob follows it west on the highway that cuts through the Rez, the road forming a neat division between the dry, grassy ridge to his right, strung with power lines, and the Powder River to his left, the far side lined with short, shrubby greenery. A few clouds are around from the storm, cloaking the sky in burnt orange. It’s that awkward time of day when he can’t decide if he should wear sunglasses or turn on the headlights.
He passes by two bridges on his way to pay Cady a visit at the legal aide before turning on to the third. The shadows of the trusses fly over the car as he drives over the short bridge, the river boiling beneath him.
Jacob takes a hand off the steering wheel to turn up the radio slightly once he crosses over to the gravel road. Finally, a good fucking song. He switches hands on the wheel and starts tapping the rhythm out on the window side armrest.
In no time, he’s pulling up in front of the legal aide building. There’s another car outside as well. She’s with a client, he reasons as he allows himself to just sit for a few more moments while the rest of the song plays out. He lets himself enjoy it, the thought of just one meeting not likely to raise his blood pressure taking some of the tension from his shoulders.
The song ends and he pulls the key, dropping it in his pocket as he strolls toward the door. He pauses when he spots a broken window. Just what we need, he thinks. People putting their complaints into action. But… the broken glass is out here. Cady wouldn’t let it sit for long.
A few more steps and he sees the broken glass in the door, not outside. A chill runs down his spine and he pulls out the gun he now carries just about everywhere. Names race through his head as he steps cautiously toward the door. If one of them decided to pull in Cady as a pawn in their dangerous games, well, he’d see how they like it when he stops playing by the rules.
Opening the door the scene hits him all at once and he automatically starts prioritizing. With gun drawn he advances through the room, forcing himself to momentarily ignore the way his stomach lurches at the sight of Cady on the ground. He kicks the gun further away from the fallen white man on his way to check the kitchen.
The rifle. The rose amidst the thorns. If she hadn’t had it—
Satisfied that there are no remaining threats or victims, he wastes no time rushing to Cady in her office. The asshole on the floor looks pretty far gone at a glance, and if he wasn’t he certainly wouldn’t want the help Jacob would not hesitate to give.
He kneels by her side and some of the blood drains from his face. She’s far too pale and there’s too much blood surrounding her but none of that matters unless… he leans over, then closer still, until her lips touch his ear. Yes, she’s still breathing.
He rips off his suit jacket and starts folding it around her shoulder, wrapping under her arm, as tight as he can manage hastily. Repositioning himself behind her head he drags her into his lap, pinning her injured shoulder between the heel of his hand and his thigh.
That accomplished, he takes out his phone, pessimistic about his chances, seeing hers bloody on the floor. He tries anyway, even tries the sheriff’s department, willing the universe to play some absurd, sadistic joke in letting that be the call that goes through.
Nothing.
Seconds tick by as he assembles plan B. If the compression is working then he really shouldn’t move her for at least a few more minutes to give her body a chance to seal up some of the damages. He checks the pulse on her other wrist. Her skin is so cold. A faint, rapid pulse against his fingertips reassures him of what he cannot tell just by looking at her.
He allows himself exactly ten seconds to stare at her pale face, the ends of her messed up hair stained a darker shade of red with already drying blood. He knew something like this could happen, at least he tells himself he’d known. The reality of it is another matter entirely.
Her eyelids flutter and her wrist weakly struggles against his fingers.
“Cady?”
Eyes open and recognition registers in them. “Jacob.” Her voice is a whisper. He lets her wrist slip through his grasp and she reaches back, her hand ending up resting on the back of his neck. “Jacob,” she calls, more frantically now and shifts as if to get up but his hand on her shoulder holds her in place. Her eyes clench shut at the inadvertent reminder of her injury.
“You’re okay Cady,” he says for her sake as well as his own. The emotion in his voice surprises him and he swallows it back before speaking again. “You need to stay still.”
A distant siren breaks the silence and he lets out a sigh of relief. Maybe Cady had better luck with her phone call. He doesn’t dare move her now, not with actual help on the way, Mathias at least. His absurdly oversized SUV doesn’t seem quite so ridiculous now, if the extra space can make Cady’s journey just a fragment more comfortable.
Interminable seconds tick by before Mathias sprints in, pausing only a moment to stare at the man on the ground.
“What the hell took you so long?” Jacob yells at him.
“I’m sorry, I don’t remember taking your call,” he replies as he rushes over, getting in position to help carry the barely conscious Cady.
Jacob’s mumbled reply about shitty cell service is lost in their coordinated efforts. They carry Cady to the SUV together and navigate her into a position where Jacob can keep the pressure on her shoulder. Mathias drives cautiously over the gravel but guns it once they get to the highway.
Cady’s eyes drift shut and flutter open with the jerks of the vehicle.
“Cady, look at me.”
He meets her blue eyes and for the first time recognizes the woman beneath his hands rather than the injury. The woman he’s been glancing at, almost to an unprofessional degree, the woman he’s been not-quite-flirting with, but certainly more genuinely friendly around than most of his employees, hell, most anybody he interacts with. Now is really not the time for heavy introspection though.
“It’s very important that you stay awake. Just look at me, and listen.” He speaks monotonously, telling her about his day, and her slowing breathing tells him it’s working. He talks about the drive over from the casino down to the song that was playing when he—
He flashes back to sitting in the car, just waiting while she lay bleeding out on the floor. If she doesn't make it out of this it will become the soundtrack of his nightmares.
At one point he glances up and catches Mathias watching him in the rearview mirror. His brows are knitted in skepticism and his eyes shift back to the road when Jacob returns the most menacing glare he can muster.
He drops his voice and continues on, describing the sky over the river, like fire, flooding even the dull, murky water with radiant reflections. He whispers about the delightful haze, the dew that hung in the typically-dry air, infusing every breath with a rare perfume, the kind of intoxicating that must be savored for the entirety of its brief existence.
They jerk to a stop and he looks up, confused. Mathias’ door opens and the car is filled with chatter and the white light that pours out of the hospital. His door flies open next and directions are shouted as he dances with the nurses to get Cady onto the waiting stretcher.
And then she’s gone and he’s left standing, noticing bloody hands and cuffs before looking up to find Mathias watching him, leaning against the car with crossed arms.
“Want me to take you home? She won’t be fit to interview for a while. You can clean up and come in tomorrow to make a statement.”
He says it casually, almost like it’s deliberate, a challenge. “I’ll wait,” Jacob replies and the slight judgmental lift of Mathias’ eyebrows does not escape him. “I’ll be inside,” he tells him, knowing Mathias will have to park the car before he can follow and interrogate him further. As much as he didn’t think about it while everything was happening, he really is quite anxious to wash Cady’s blood off his hands.