Page 49 of The Crowing of Hell
Sallie-Anne sat behind me on the edge of the bath and gently pushed me down, so I was lying. “Kendara, I’m going to start to clean your hair, but I think we’ll need to condition it several times before I run a brush through.”
“Whatever, ladies. I’ve got no dignity or shame left.Just do what you gotta do,” I whispered and closed my eyes.
Clio spoke quietly on the phone to Thalia while gentle hands shampooed, rinsed, conditioned my hair and repeated. Once done, Sallie-Anne began tugging a comb through to remove the last of the debris. Gently, they repeated their actions and then sat me up and handed me a towel to cover my bits before emptying the bath.
Clio refilled it with lavender foam and Epsom salts and began to gently wash the sticky mud off my body. From somewhere close, Rooster was yelling so loud I thought they’d hear him in the state over. Clearly, Banshee had arrived because he was also bellowing.
“I love my boy, I really do. But I hope to hell Shee rips him a new one. Playing with fucking dynamite! What next?” Sallie-Anne exclaimed.
“Well, this has got to beat anything the Hellions have done at Rage,” Clio muttered as she gently washed my legs. Even those were scratched to pieces.
“Could you imagine Eddie…? No, don’t go there,” Sallie-Anne said with a shudder that matched mine. Even I knew of Eddie’s exploits against her brothers and cousins.
Salle-Anne emptied the water again and re-filled the bath a third time. I relaxed back, and my body shook with aches and pains.
“Thalia has a beautician heading out to us,” Clio announced after roughly fifteen minutes.
“Woman needs to be a miracle worker,” I muttered.
“Clio, Doc Gibbons is twenty minutes out. Ladies, we gotta get Kendara out,” Rooster called through the closed door.
“Ten more mins?” I begged. I didn’t want to leave and face the chaos outside. Especially looking like this.
“Okay, baby,” Rooster agreed. “Babe, I’ve made your favourite coffee, and it’s on my bedside table with some painkillers.”
“Thank you,” I replied and relaxed back into the bath.
The hot water and Epsom salts had done wonders, but I still moved like I had a stick up my ass. My entire body screamed to stop moving as I tried to climb out. After a minute of enduring my whimpers, Rooster stormed the bathroom and picked me up gently in a thick towel. He set me down on the bed carefully, let Sallie-Anne and Clio dry me off, and tugged one of his tees over my head.
Rooster then slid his arms under me and laid me down. It was seriously the most amazing mattress I had ever laid in. Contented, I sighed and closed my eyes in happiness. Sadly, my desire to stay here forever would be denied.
Doc Gibbons, a lovely man I’d met at Rage several times, arrived and checked me head to toe. He said I would be fine but would have a mass of bruising, and he prescribed some cream for the multitude of scratches. Doc Gibbons told Rooster to keep me in bed for a few days and looked for signs of an increasing concussion. Doc also told Roostersymptoms to watch out for, that meant Rooster should call 911 immediately.
Once Doc left, the three of them made me comfortable and left me in peace. More than slightly scared, I closed my eyes and wondered what shitstorm would hit next.
Rooster
Christ, Kenny’s poor face. She’d be black and blue by the morning. Kenny’s eyes were already swelling, and her face was a bright, shiny red. It had terrified him. Doc Gibbons confirmed the blast had burned her, but not to the extreme she needed hospitalisation. However, Doc said Kenny was going to suffer a very uncomfortable sunburn-like pain for the next few days until she began to heal. He’d left her a script for strong medication, antiseptic creams and a sunburn cream.
Rooster was torn between kicking the boy’s asses and hugging them to death. When Kit had called him screaming that they’d blown Kendara up, Rooster’s heart had sunk. Rooster had seen flashes of his boys growing from babies to present day and knew he could have lost one. Banshee had been even more rabid. Shee understood what it was like to lose a child, having lost Troy for four years. Both fathers had been scared shitless when they arrived.
There was no doubt the kids had learnt a lesson,but Rooster’s heart was still pounding. He had been lucky not to get a ticket as he’d raced home, and when he’d seen his boys alive and unhurt, relief had swept through him. However, it soon dissipated when he saw Kenny moving like the walking wounded.
Reassured Kenny was safely tucked in bed, Rooster paced back and forth in the living room as Shee slumped on a sofa with a cold beer.
“Can you believe those little shits?” Shee complained.
“Fuck, yeah,” Rooster said. “The Hellions would have done that. Clearly, the Terrors have been around them for too long.”
“Good point there. Well, they won’t be mixing much for the foreseeable future. Did you decide on a punishment?” Shee questioned.
Rooster chuckled darkly.
“Did you hear Sallie-Anne’s?”
“About mosaics?” Shee asked.
“You know Sallie-Anne has those four large tubs of mosaic pieces that she uses in her crafts for school? The boys have gotta sort them out by colour and clean them before putting them into new containers,” Rooster said.