Unlikely Meetings

Chapter 13 - ULTIMATUM

Max sat on his porch next to Ian with one of the town's nurses looking over his wounds. The newly minted friends watched as the paramedics finished up their work from checking over Ian and the other people Max had patched up in the early hours of the morning. Several people had already been moved to intensive care to handle the extreme injuries they had suffered. Shotgun wounds, burns and early onset signs of PTSD were some of the few injuries Max noticed. "You need to rest, besides from the lacerations and clear signs of severe sprains, you definitely have a concussion like your friend here." Ian chuckled as he held a chunk of snow to his head before hissing from the pain of his cracked ribs.

"Not my first and won't be my last. You guys just about done?" Max tossed a thumb over his shoulder toward his home. "I would like to start putting my life back together."

The nurse rolled her eyes as she looked down at the human in her care. The mouse he had met previously just rolled her eyes at both his resilience and stubbornness. "You clearly won't listen to me so go right ahead." She began to pack up the medical supplies before shaking her head. "Only one casualty, out of everything that has to be the strangest thing out of today. Even with the cops not showing."

"You can thank the Gray family for that, I don't think this will be the last time they try something stupid. I'll have to nip this in the bud sooner rather than later." Max rolled his sore shoulders and massaged his burning thighs. "Sorry again about the early morning call. I would have waited, but some of these guys were in pretty rough shape."

The nurse waved her hand in the air to brush aside his apology. "They were the ones stupid enough to try this in the first place for a dumb ego driven asshole. I'm just happy you didn't let any of them bleed out in your yard." The nurse looked up as she put the final packages of gause and disinfectant away. "Good work with the tourniquets by the way, not a lot of people remember to put the time on them."

"Spend enough time training on something and it becomes second nature, I'm more upset that there even had to be a death. Even more so that I'm not the one bearing that burden." Max's jaw clenched as his head fell toward the snow, Ians hand coming to rest on his shoulder to try and comfort him. "No offense Ian, but out of all of us I would have preferred if it was you that had to if not me."

Ian simply nodded, letting the trio stay in the uncomfortable silence before the nurse turned on her heels and left. "For what it's worth man, I'm sorry it wasn't me either."

Eli had suffered the least amount of injuries and was currently resting from last night's events. She had woken up screaming Max's name a few times after the paramedics first arrived and took the now unrecognizable body from his home. He comforted her, but he was afraid that the nightmares would never truly go away, her suddenly having to pull the trigger twice in one night. The fact she took someone's life. That will stick with her for the rest of her days.

She woke up with a start as the front door closed harshly, nearly bumping her head on the low hanging ceiling above the lofted bed. "M-max?" Her voice was hoarse and raspy as she pushed air past her sore vocal chords. The pillow beneath her stained with fresh tears from her most recent nightmare. "Is that you?"

His head popped up above the edge of the raised platform before he climbed up next to her. All the while speaking in a hushed tone. "Yeah it's me, I'm here." As he gripped her hand tightly in his, she lunged at him, wrapping her arms tightly around his form. "Woah I'm not going anywhere! I'm right here." Her breaths were shaky as she kept her face buried in the crook of his shoulder, speaking to the nightmare she just woke from. "Same nightmare huh?" She nodded, afraid her voice would betray her and draw out tears she was holding back.

"I'm not going anywhere." They simply spent a few moments together as she calmed down in his arms. Her breathing steadied as she took in his warmth, his steady breath helping her heart slow to more of a natural level before she pulled back.