Chapter Fifty-Two
Ryan swallowed as he flushed the wound in John's leg out, watching as the bloodied flush, mixed with bits of dirt and gravel that had gotten inside of it. John hadn't moved an inch since they'd given him a small dose of Amytal to keep him from feeling pain and to drop his heartrate. He threaded a needle and pushed it through the flesh of John's leg, closing the wound off before he moved to unwrap the gauze tied around John's head. "How hard did he hit it?" He asked, looking across the room to where Bobby was standing.
"I'm not sure, I was still calling shit in on the radios." He watched as Ryan cut the hair away from the gash on his scalp, biting his lips at the sight of the bloodied mats that fell to the floor.
Claire brushed her fingers through what was left of John's hair, her breath hitching as she felt their unborn child move inside of her. "Please wake up." She whispered, lifting his hand to her stomach in hopes that their child would wake him. "We need you."
John coughed, his eyelids fluttering open to reveal his unfocused whiskey colored eyes. "Cl-aire…" He croaked, lips pulling into a lopsided smirk. "Sweets…"
Claire smiled as his fingers fanned over her stomach, pressing a kiss to his head as he began to sing to their child. "You're so doped up; you can't carry a tune." She chuckled, allowing Ryan close so that he could check on the stitching in John's leg.
Bobby helped John into the house, gently sitting him on the sofa and giving him a remote for the tv. "How's your head?" He asked, his eyes scanning over the chopped patch of hair and the thin stitches in his scalp.
John nodded and took a drink of the water on the coffee table. "I'm fine." He winched as Maya and Sid started screaming at each other and caused his headache to rocket to new heights. "Fuck!" He groaned, tucking his head between his knees. "Shut up!" He shouted, his heart clenching in fear as he realized what he'd just said.
"Sid! Give it back!" John laughed, running after his best friend through his home. "Come on! It's mine!" They'd been six, both little balls of fire just itching to burn off energy.
"Shut up!" Jacob ordered, chucking a beer bottle at his son's head.
John hit the deck, his hands over his head as the bottle shattered against the wall. He screamed as harsh hands gripped his hair, a sob escaping his throat as he was practically thrown into the wall. "No!" He cried, the sound of a belt clearing beltloops reaching his ears.
"I told you to shut up!" Jacob raised the belt, laying a series of lashes on John's small body in a matter of minutes.
Bobby stepped back as John's old pit bull, Chance, climbed onto the sofa to protect her master. The dog was more than ten-years-old now, and Bobby and Claire both knew that it was close to her time to go… but neither could bring themselves to point it out to John. That dog, was his lifeline; she had a way of stopping his PTSD attacks -though they were few and far between now- and was like an extention of John himself.
"Daddy?" Samantha stepped around the corner swallowing when she saw that her father was curled in a ball with Chance trying to calm him. She met Bobby's eyes as they watched her father's attack, before slowly leaving the room to get her mother.
