Light the Fire (Jackson's Hollow #1)

Chapter 52

Cleaning out the claw marks and putting in the stitches took a long time. Ryker had pointedly not looked at Jo's shoulder while Brett worked, keeping his focus on Jo instead. He knew that if he thought too long about what had happened, it would become increasingly difficult to not march over to the exam room and hurl Blake out the window. He deserved it. But he wasn't going to leave Jo.

"Still awake?" he asked her, tapping on her hand.

She opened one eye and nodded. "Nope. Your eyes are greener now. Nice."

"They're usually green when I'm not a wolf," he said. He brushed his fingers through her hair, tucking it back. It kept falling in her face whenever she moved her head, and Brett fussed whenever she moved too much.

"No, they're not, they're a lot of colors," she mumbled back. She closed her eyes and wriggled her fingers at him. "Like...so many. This many."

"Do you have mood ring eyes, Ryker?" Brett asked quietly, amusement tugging up the corner of his mouth.

"Shut up," Ryker said, rolling his eyes.

"No," Jo grumbled back at him, her eyes opening again. She frowned and pointed a finger at him. Or in his general direction. "Don't tell me to shut up. You shut up."

"No, babe, I wasn't talking to you..." Ryker said. Okay, this version of Jo was adorable and worrisome at the same time. He looked up at Brett. "Is this a normal reaction?"

"I gave her strong painkillers, so yeah," Brett said, "I didn't want her to feel any of this."

"You're so nice," Jo said, smiling as she craned her neck to look at Brett.

"Nuh-uh, sweetheart, we don't want to look at the stitches, remember?" Ryker reminded her, gently pressing his palm against her cheek to bring her head back down.

"Right," Jo said, giving him the cutest frown as she rested her head again.

"Just about done," Brett said. "Then you can take her home." He glanced over at Ryker. "Since I know you'll be glued to her side, just watch for any signs of infection, although I doubt there will be any."

"Signs of infection?" Ryker asked with alarm. He'd never worried about that before either.

Brett rolled his eyes. "If you see pink streaks spreading out from the stitches, call for me, okay?"

"Does that happen often?"

"Never happened with any of my human patients, how's that?"

Ryker wanted to ask how many human patients exactly Brett had given stitches, but he decided it was better not to know. He was just going to tell himself it was a lot. And then when he got home, he was going to google all the pictures of infected stitches he could find so he'd know what to watch for.

Just in case.

"You worry too much," Jo said with a quiet chuckle.

"And you need a doctor too much," Ryker retorted.

"Not for a human," Jo shot back.

"Your humanity is questionable."

"Hey! No more than yours!"

Brett snorted at their back and forth--and even though he didn't know the full story of what Jo could do, his eyes slid over to her with a curious light. Which reminded Ryker--he needed to check in on Lexi and see what she'd seen during the fight. Explanations might need to happen sooner rather than later.

Lexi. He hoped she was waiting somewhere not in Blake's room. AJ and Lincoln had better have listened to him.

Yeah? Everything ok? How's Jo? Can I come in? I--