Chapter 42

Hurt

Intro Song: Hurt, Johnny Cash

Author's note: This chapter is pretty intense & if you are squeamish, I just want you to be forewarned. My nursing background compels me to be accurate – and the story compels me to tell it like it is not how I'd LIKE it to be…

For those of you who have been following along with the music, the end song of this chapter is, I think, so indicative of what Mick & Beth are going through. It's also beautiful. I played it a lot while writing/editing…

He hurt.

His whole world was pain. Swirling…rushing…devouring…pain. Pain so intense he could taste it, see it, almost reach out and touch it. Red and angry, it coated his nerve endings, swallowed his vision, filled his brain, until there was nothing else. It drove him wild, urging him to strike out, exhorting him to rend and tear, to kill, as it was killing him. Dimly, he could sense blood rushing down his throat, but it wasn't enough, not nearly enough, to satisfy the insatiable appetite of pain this intense. He needed more...

Sensing a human coming close brought him near the surface, the red tide whispering to him, demanding that he attack… drink… destroy...

He opened his eyes to see only the hated crimson, the color of his enemy, the hue of the blood he abhorred having to depend on to live. This isn't living... Whom had he said that to? Someone important. Someone who loved him. Someone who would understand and know he was still alive, trying to cry out for help. Someone who wouldn't let him drown here, in so much pain...alone...

Beth!

He couldn't see through the undulating cloud of agony, but he knew that scent, that touch. He felt her grasp his hand and he held on, clutching her as if his life depended on it. It does. Beth…help me… Desperately, he fought to clear his throat, to empty his mouth of the suffocating red, both real and imagined, that was threatening to choke him. He wanted to talk to her, tell her...tell her what? I love you. I need you. Don't leave me.

He could feel his body convulsing in his effort to battle to the surface so he could communicate with her. He had almost made it when a huge red wave of pain swept in, washing him back, away from the surface, away from Beth, drowning him...

He couldn't help it. He screamed.

"What are you doing, Guillermo?!" Beth almost screamed herself at the sound of agony that burst from the man lying helplessly on the table. She shifted to look down across his body, then darted her eyes away with a sudden intake of breath - not quickly enough, however, to block out the sight of Guillermo Gasol, his gloved hands buried in Mick's abdomen, sleeves stained to the elbows with the injured man's blood. I'll never get that out of my head... "Can't you put him to sleep?!"

The coroner's assistant looked up, his face stricken. "I can't, Beth. I wish to hell I could! Human anesthesia doesn't work on vamps, our bodies overcome it too fast. I don't want to hurt him - I'm trying to help him. But this damn silver...it's everywhere, man. The bullets were hollow points - silver hollow points - and they exploded on impact. Looks like they were full of silver powder too. He's just riddled with it!" Sweat beaded on Guillermo's forehead and he contorted his body to wipe his face with his shoulder, keeping his hands in place. "I thought I could help him, you know, get it out, but…" he bit his lip and trailed away, feeling helpless.

"What about staking him?" Beth was desperately casting about for something...anything...that would release Mick from this torture.

"It'd keep him still, but it wouldn't help with the pain. Staking only makes vamps immobile. He'd still feel every fucking thing. I don't want to risk any more trauma to him." Guillermo's face was a reflection of Beth's despair.

"What can we do?" she moaned, tears running down her face to drip, unnoticed, from her chin onto Mick's blood-soaked shirt. "What can we do?"

Josef stepped forward from the shadows where he had been hovering as he watched Guillermo work on his friend. He had sensed Mick's vampire survival instincts kicking in when Beth burst through the door, fresh from a white-knuckled flight from L.A. in his new helicopter. Kostan had tensed to intervene - but it wasn't necessary. Despite his desperate condition, Mick had reined himself in, clearly realizing it was Beth. His control had astonished Josef.

"Keep talking to him, Beth. Tell him what we're doing. Tell him he has to hang on until Spector gets here. He's been calmer ever since you got in here. He'll hear you. He– he'll do what you say." His voice betrayed his anguish.

Beth looked at the elder vampire, fear written all over her face. "He isn't going to die, Josef...is he?"

"No," he answered flatly, almost defiantly. In Josef Kostan's world, the idea of losing his best friend was neither contemplated, nor tolerated. Especially not like this.

Beth scanned his face, searching for a sign that Josef had a trick up his sleeve – some aspect of vamp physiology that she had yet to learn, a quirk that would heal Mick's horrendous injuries and allow him to get up off the table, savor a glass of scotch, play his guitar, laugh with her. She saw none of that...just a look of determination that said he would not let Mick die.

Her attention was pulled back to the vampire on the table as he cried out again, thrashing and fighting the makeshift bindings that were holding him in place. Mick's eyes were open, but unseeing, yet Beth was somehow certain that he knew she was there. She bent back down to him, holding fast to his hand as she spoke to him soothingly, reaching her free hand up to stroke his forehead and run her fingers through his hair, gently massaging his scalp. He even has blood in his hair. Oddly, it was that thought, rather than the sight of his ripped-open abdomen, that nauseated her. She determinedly pushed down the bile that rose in the back of her throat and focused on him.

"You're going to be okay, Mick, just hang on. Guillermo is getting the silver out. And, Dr...Spe– Spector is coming to take care of you." She stumbled over the unfamiliar name, glancing up at Josef to be sure she had it right.

Kostan, who had slumped back against the wall, nodded to her encouragingly. He passed a hand over his face, as if he could wipe away the sight of his friend, moaning in pain, abdomen cut open, intestines spilling across the table, and blood...blood was mind flashed back to Mick's arrival. Guillermo had called ahead from the 'copter to tell him to get a room ready so that they could work on the injured vampire. Kostan was barking orders before the call was even completed, throwing men bodily out of his way as he scrambled to convert the immaculate, stainless steel kitchen to an operating theater in short order.

Gasol had warned him that it was bad...really bad, Josef... but nothing had prepared him for the sight of Mick being carried in, covered in blood and moaning in pain, his hands pressing against a thick bandage Guillermo had applied to his abdomen.

When they laid him down on the table, Mick had cried out again, every movement agony for him. He lost consciousness, his hands slipping off the bandage, allowing the gauze pack to pull away. The loops and whorls of his intestines had followed, sliding out of the gaping wound.

Josef was aghast. "Fuck, Guillermo!" he'd shouted, feeling as if he, himself, had been hit in the gut. "What did they do to him? He isn't healing at all!"

Gasol had looked at him with something close to panic in his dark eyes. "It looks like it was hollow point bullets - silver ones, from what I can tell. They pretty much blew him apart with an assault rifle and filled him full of fucking silver at the same time, just for good measure. I think he must have too much of it in him to be able to heal. Whoever did this had to know he's a vamp!" The coroner's assistant had looked down at the temporarily quiet man with despair. "I hope he stays unconscious. The ride here in the chopper was hell for him - and there isn't much I can do, Josef. Not unless you have some bright ideas." He had raised his head to meet Kostan's stare hopefully.

Josef had instantly snatched up his phone to dial Victoria Silver's number, holding his breath as the call went through. His cowardice in refusing to contact her after they had fled New York might come back to bite him – and by extension, Mick - in the proverbial ass. He could only hope she would answer, if for no other reason than to, at least, curse him for his abandonment.

A cultured voice at the other end said coldly, "Why, hello Josef. What a surprise. To what do I owe this honor?"

"Victoria, something has happened to Mick..." She has to help. He had been surprised at how quickly she had agreed to come to their aid, marshaling her resources to track down Spector and putting him on an ultra-fast private jet to get him to them quickly. But not quickly enough... Josef flinched at the sound of Mick crying out again in pain as he regained consciousness and began thrashing around. The sound brought him jarringly back to the nightmare of the present. Damn it!

The P.I. seemed to black out once more as Guillermo fished out another large fragment of silver, dropping it into a small stainless steel bowl, already half full of similar scraps.

Josef looked at his gold Rolex for at least the tenth time since Guillermo had talked with the New York physician, frowning at the shining face. Time was passing slowly - much too slowly. I can't take any more of this... He pushed himself away from the wall.

"Guillermo, I'm gonna go check on Ryder, see if he and Logan are getting those supplies Spector needs. And I need to be sure the staff is out of the way. Beth...just-" He swallowed hard. "Just keep doing what you're doing."

Beth swiveled around, flipping her hair out of her face with an impatient toss of her head, her hands still occupied with the injured vampire on the table. "Josef, wait!"

Kostan froze in his tracks. "What is it?!"

"You are not leaving this room until you fill me in on what's going on! Who is this Spector?"

"Look, I don't have time to play your favorite game of twenty foolish fucking questions!" He winced at the sound of his own voice, his tone harsh, his words needlessly cruel.

"And, I'm not asking any 'foolish fucking questions'!" Beth snapped, unfazed by his attitude. "I need to know what's happening. I deserve to know. Tell me!" Infuriated, she glared back at Josef, holding her ground until he dropped his gaze.

Guillermo withdrew his bloody hands, draping a clean towel over the unconscious man's still-gaping abdomen. Scowling from Mick's best friend to his irate girlfriend and back again as he hurried over to the counter, he grabbed another bag of blood, unintentionally smearing its surface with Mick's blood as he thrust it at Beth. "Get this down him, I don't care how."

With a hostile glare at Josef, Guillermo stomped over to the sink, stripping his latex gloves off as he went. Muttering to himself, he stuck his arms under the faucet to rinse off the blood. The last thing Mick needed right now was a quarrel between Beth and Josef. Turning back around, he threw down the hand towel he was using, which now resembled nothing so much as a bloody Rorschach blot.

He growled at them, "I'm gonna give Mick a rest and I'll go check with Logan and Ryder on the supplies. You two settle your little disagreement by the time I get back." Before either could respond, he was gone.

Josef was, for once, at a loss for words, his mouth hanging open as he watched the door close slowly behind the normally calm, good-natured Latino. He jumped when Beth spoke again.

"Well, Josef?! Who is Spector?"

Kostan sighed. She did deserve to know. He had just been so desperate to get out of this room, away from the pain he was helpless to protect his friend from...

"Okay, okay. Beth, you're right - and, I shouldn't have said what I did. I'm sorry. I just- I'm having a hard time with all this." He nodded at the unconscious man, then hurried on before she had the chance to register the fact that she had just received an apology of sorts from Josef Kostan. "Spector is a New York City doctor, a human physician, who specializes in working with the vampire community there. He saved Victoria Silver when she was injected with a silver compound."

He paused as he thought back to the events of that day, and then corrected himself. 'Well, he and Mick saved her, that is." There was silence for a long moment until Beth prodded him.

"And...?" She continued stroking Mick's hair as she stared at Kostan, finding the rhythm of her caresses soothing, at least to her. It was impossible for her to tell if Mick was aware of her touch at this point.

"And...when we first got him here – before you arrived – Guillermo realized Mick was too badly hurt for him to take care of him, so I called Victoria. Mick told you about her, right? Head of the vamp community in New York. She has arranged to have the doctor flown out here as quickly as possible to operate on Mick. He should be here in..."

He stopped to consult his watch again. Is the goddamn thing broken?! "Another three hours or so." He tried to keep his voice steady, but his worry betrayed him.

"Three hours," Beth whispered, her hand pausing in its sweep through Mick's hair. "Can he save him, Josef?" She looked at the vampire leader, her eyes dark with pain and fear. "Can he?"

"I hope so, Beth. Because we can't." With that, Josef was gone and she was left alone with the unconscious man.

Beth kept up her massage of Mick's head, looking for some sign…any sign…that he knew she was there. "I'm here with you," she whispered, leaning in close. "I'm not leaving you. I love you. Please don't leave me." Her voice broke on the last word. She couldn't help it, she had to kiss him, her lips moving gently over his, then stopping there to rest. He tasted of salt and blood and...Mick.

Pulling away, Beth suddenly found herself looking into his open eyes, the irises, normally the color of the ocean, now thickly streaked with silver as it seeped throughout his body. She could see the streaks widening even as she watched, a frightening sign of the advancing poison in his system. Does he know I'm here? "Mick, can you see me?" Her hand came to rest on his cheek, rubbing his beard stubble tenderly. She jumped when he answered her.

"Course…I can..." His voice was weak from his ordeal, hoarse from shouting, and there were long pauses as he struggled to find the breath and strength to talk. "My Beth...always...see you." Incongruously, he tried to smile, wincing as his weight shifted slightly on the hard surface.

His words, and the effort it took for him to speak them, brought her to tears again. "Yes," she whispered haltingly, "you do." She swiped at her face and brought his hand up to her lips. "Think you could drink some blood for me?"

The corners of his mouth twitched weakly. "If…you're buyin'..."

Beth held the tube to his lips, squeezing the bag with desperate strength to force the life-giving fluid down his throat more quickly. "Drink as much as you can, Mick." Her face was mere inches from his own, her eyes locked on his.

He coughed as the thick liquid slid down his throat, crying out again from the pain that reflex caused. He mumbled, "Don't let me...drown...Beth," as he closed his eyes and seemed about to slip back into unconsciousness again.

"Mick! Stay with me!" Beth rubbed his head, the only part of him she could think of to touch that might not cause him more pain. "Mick! I need for you to drink all of this, come on. Please, Mick!" she begged. Her voice, her touch, seemed to pull him back from whatever dark place he was drifting toward, and he summoned the strength to resume gulping the viscous fluid. When the bag was empty, he opened his eyes again and she somehow knew he could still see her.

"Beth...should have...listened...trap...sorry...put you...through this." The words were pushed out in a long, whispered stream from his cracked, blood-tinged lips, as if he had to get them out in order to rest.

This was almost too much for the beleaguered young woman.

"Don't you dare. Don't you dare apologize to me! If you want to make it up to me, you fight! You live, Mick! Dr. Spector is coming and he will take care of you. Stay with me! Do you hear me?!" She was nose-to-nose with him now; her voice was fierce but her tone was desperate. She would have shaken him had she not known it would cause him unbearable agony.

The vampire didn't answer. His eyes closed again, his forehead creasing against the pain of his injuries. Beth felt as if the opportunity to reach him, to save him, was slipping through her fingers.

"Mick!" She began to cry again.

Guillermo, who had been walking back down the hall toward the kitchen, heard her and almost flew back into the room. "What happened?!"

Beth sobbed, clasping Mick's hand. "I don't think..." She caught herself. No! You will not say that, not ever! "I don't think he got enough blood. I was only able to get him to drink one bag." She sniffed, giving Guillermo a watery smile as she struggled to regain control of herself.

"Better than nothing, Beth." He studied her closely, trying to gauge her tolerance for what was to come as he worked on a fresh pair of surgical gloves. "Look, I talked to this New York doctor again. Josef is coordinating things with Logan, Ryder and Simone to get Spector what he needs to operate on Mick when he gets here. He's still almost three hours away though, so he told me we need to keep working. Get as much of the silver out as we can before it poisons him more."

"No, Guillermo!" She wasn't sure she could continue to hold vigil as Mick was tortured, even if it was in an effort to save his life. And Mick... "I don't think he can take much more."

"You think I want to do this?! We don't have any choice! The silver is killing him, man, we have to get it out." He grabbed her by the shoulders. "We have to try, Beth. Don't you want to at least try?"

Beth was silent for a moment, her face growing even paler, if that was possible. She hugged Mick's hand tighter against her and nodded to his friend. "Yes, of course I do."

"Do you understand what I'm saying? This is gonna hurt him - a lot. Can you handle it?" His dark eyes bored into hers as he released her. His heart went out to her. "Look, if you can't stay, I get it. I understand. Mick would too," he added.

She swallowed hard. "If he doesn't get a choice, Guillermo, then neither do I. Where's Josef?"

"Well...he couldn't face it. Guess he's not as strong as you are." The vampire smiled at her sadly. "For what it's worth, I think you're one brave lady – and Mick's a lucky guy."

Beth smiled back at him through the tears that slipped down her face, resting her hand on Mick's thick hair. "Thank you, but I don't feel very brave right now." She sighed shakily. "Whenever you're ready."

Never, Guillermo thought to himself as he picked up the scalpel. "Okay, Beth. Keep talking to him."

The cries echoed down the hall, reaching Josef as he stood in his study. He turned toward the sound, unconsciously curling his hands into tight fists as he listened, but made no effort to go back to the room where his friend lay trapped in his own personal hell. There was nothing he could do there to help.

Unaware that his fingernails were cutting into his palms, he stood motionless as droplets of blood began to splatter the floor, his eyes transforming to the ice-blue of a vampire, fangs touching his lip as he snarled. Too much. This is too much. Whoever did this is going to pay...

End song: Breathe for Me, UNSECRET, Lonas