Page 2 of Iron Will

“Oh, shit, you okay?” a teenage girl wearing too much mascara gasps. She peers down at Paisley, her eyes wide.

Paisley starts to cry, but the crying hurts her head. She hurts so bad, and Mickey will be mad and call her stupid and useless. For a second, she thinks maybe she can just get up and it will be okay. But when she tries to move her arm and sit up, she cries out in pain again.

“I’m gonna go get my mom,” the teenager blurts. Her words reach Paisley through a thick fog, barely registering.

A few seconds later, a rotund woman with beady eyes, who must be the teenager’s mom, comes out. As soon as she sees Paisley’s arm, bent unnaturally and already turning colors, she gasps.

“Honey, is your mama around?”

Paisley starts to shake her head, but it hurts so bad that she leans over again and dry heaves. The woman bends down and sits on a step with difficulty, then puts a kind hand on Paisley’s back. Paisley is full-on crying now, trying to stop herself and wiping her nose on her forearm as she hiccups and sniffles.

“We’re gonna get you to the hospital, honey,” the beady-eyed woman says.

Everything someone says to her feels like it’s in another language. Before Paisley can process the woman’s words enough to answer, the manager trots around the corner, followed by the teenager. He takes one look at Paisley and the woman and splays out his hands. “I can’t leave the office!” he stammers.

The woman mutters a curse. “Worthless… Okay, honey. We’re gonna get you to the hospital. Do you think you can stand up for me?”

It’s the hardest thing Paisley has ever done, but she gets up, trying as hard as she can not to move her left side. It hurts so much that it’s hard to breathe, and that, more than anything, makes Paisley finally manage to stop crying.

“Please,” Paisley gasps, “My clothes…”

The woman looks up at the teenager and nods.

The teenager starts picking up the shirts and pants, stuffing them all into the non-ripped bag as well as she can. Paisley, head pounding, limping badly, allows herself to be led by the woman toward her car.

As she lays down in the back seat, trying as hard as she can not to be sick again, she says a silent prayer of thanks that no one ever thought to go get Mickey.

1

Rourke

My knock on the half-open hospital room door is met with a pissed-off grunt.

“Whaddya want?” a voice inside growls.

Turning to Mal, I grin. “Sounds like Bear’s ready for visitors.”

Mal smirks back. “Our little ray of sunshine.”

I push the door open to find Bear sitting up in bed, looking angry as a grizzly. He’s dressed in a hospital gown and has the blanket pulled up to his waist. His white hair is in disarray on top of his head, yanked out of its usual ponytail.

“Nice dress, darlin’,” Mal comments, nodding at the gown as he steps into the room. “The blue really brings out the color of your eyes.”

“You can fuck right off, you asshole,” Bear mutters through his beard. “I ain’t gonna be in this bed forever, and I’m still strong enough to kick your ass.”

I can’t help but burst out laughing. That just makes Bear angrier. “Sorry, brother,” I say between chuckles. “I gotta go with Mal on this one. You look funny as hell in that get-up.”

“Fuckin’ assholes wouldn’t let me keep my street clothes on,” he grouses. “Said the blood on my shirt wasn’t sterile, or some shit.”

“How ya feelin’, anyway?” Mal asks, leaning against the wall. “You lost a fuck of a lot of blood, brother.”

“Eh, I’m okay.” Bear brushes off the question with a frown. He shifts in the bed, wincing as he does. “They got me on some pain meds. Doc said it’s gonna hurt like hell later.”

“I don’t doubt it,” I agree. “But at least you got the satisfaction of knowing the other guy’s probably in a lot more goddamn pain than you are.”

It’s true. The dumb fuck who made the mistake of putting his hands on Bear at the Viking Bar isn’t likely to forget today anytime soon. The beatdown he got as a result is gonna leave some permanent damage to that guy’s face. Not to mention, he’s gonna be walking with a limp for a long, long time. Hell, if that limp-dick hadn’t managed to pull a knife on Bear toward the end and stab him in the gut, they would have had to carry his ass out on a stretcher.

Bear shakes his head in disgust at the memory. “A fuckin’ bar fight takes me down,” he mutters. “I’m gettin’ too old for this shit.”