Chapter Two

Fifty Beads of Christmas

 

“Mel, can you hear me? Wake up.”

Everything was still black but stars pricked at the corners of her eyes. Iron tang filled her nose and mouth. A roar clouded Damon’s voice, almost damping it out completely. Her head seemed to be the only body part she owned—a large, throbbing head. Slowly she opened her eyes and found a world turned red.

“Yes, she’s waking up now. I’m trying to, but it just keeps bleeding. Yes, I’ll ask her.”

The thought of turning her head or rolling onto her back seemed as likely as climbing Everest, so she remained on her side while her eyes looked in the direction of Damon’s voice. He held his phone and now that she was listening, she could make out some of the words coming through its speaker.

“Mel? Can you wiggle your toes?”

She weighed that request. It wasn’t as daunting as getting up, so she gave it a shot. “Cold.”

“She can wiggle them. She says she cold.”

“If she can hold the dressing, you can get her a blanket,” a matronly voice said through the phone.

“Okay. Mel? Can you put your hand here?”

He touched her hand and the contact seemed to bring it back to life. Even so, he had to put it to her forehead. Sticky wetness coated her fingers and Damon’s hand adhered to hers for a second as he rose. Blood. It was blood on his hands and now on hers.

Damon draped a blanket over her just as a siren wailed in the distance. It grew loud and shrill until it cut off completely.

“The ambulance just got here,” Damon told the woman on the phone.

The woman said something else, but Melody was all in her head again. Her hand still held the soaked cloth to her head, but she didn’t really feel her fingers, just her head.

Damon disappeared to answer the banging on the door, but he came right back flagged by two others.

Melody lay mute while the paramedics dropped to the floor beside her. One took her wrist and the other fit a collar around her neck, carefully avoiding the wadded cloth Damon had applied.

“What’s her name?” the one holding her wrist asked. She couldn’t see him standing behind her. The one in her view had pulled out a long strip of gauze and was wrapping it around her head, over the blood-soaked bandage.

“Melody,” Damon said.

“Melody? Can you answer me, Melody? How long was she out?”

The man in front of her was paler than Damon but had the same curly dark hair and shadowed jaw. She watched him while he focused on her head, his fingers moving with practiced care.

“Uh, a few minutes? Three?”

The paramedic bandaging her noticed her gaze. “Melody? Can you hear me?”

“Uh, uh, do.” If her head didn’t weigh a million pounds, she would shake it to clear it. “Yum,” she tried again. Well, he was yummy, but that wasn’t helpful.

“That’s good, Melody. Did you hold that bandage?” he asked, pointing to her head.

Confusion made her squint and that lit new sparks in her vision as pain erupted from her oversized head.

“Can you touch your head?” he asked.

“Is she going to be okay?” Damon asked.

The man behind her answered, but it was fuzzy as Melody focused on the man she could see. He pointed to her hand and then wiggled his fingers.

Although she’d been sure all she had was a head, she found her hand on the floor and wiggled her fingers at him. “Ready to move her?” he asked his partner.

“Stand back, please,” the man she couldn’t see told Damon.

Two hands slid under her and two others held the shoulder and hip she wasn’t lying on. The room spun as they shifted her onto her back.

“Does she have any clothes?” the man with dark curly hair snapped. His patience with her did not extend to Damon.

“Yeah, yeah, here.” Damon dropped her dress and bag on top of her feet.

Wheeled out on their gurney, Melody finally saw the man who had been at her back. He was large and black, white teeth gleaming in his bright smile that seemed to dance around. Every bump and bounce made it jump. Added to that, when her head jostled, stars filled the corners of her vision and her stomach twisted. She groaned, closed her eyes, and prayed it would stop soon.

“Another sex gone bad,” the black man said.

“Yeah, ever since Fifty every guy with a pair of handcuffs thinks he’s the new Grey.”

“Ugh. Don’t talk to me about that shit.”

Melody wanted to complain, to tell them that Fifty Shades of Grey was a fabulous book and that she wasn’t just some groupie, but once again, her words betrayed her. “Christmas.” Really?

“Yeah, Christian Grey,” the one with curly hair said. “I could whip him around the block. And unlike your boyfriend, I’d make sure your bonds held.”

She blinked several times, trying to resolve what she saw into one image instead of five. Maybe it was best to keep them closed.

His partner answered, “Damn, is that what happened? How’d you know?”

“The rope on the floor and the way he kept trying to not look at it. You didn’t notice?”

“Hell, no. I’m not into that kinky crap.”

“Bead.” And with that last failed attempt, Melody decided it would be better to keep her mouth shut along with her eyes.

“Yeah, Little Song, BDSM. He’s too vanilla for that. Can you imagine? Someone as chocolate as him being vanilla?”

“Fuck you, Curt.”

“Fuck yourself, Don.”

Being dumped into the back of the ambulance brought bile to Melody’s throat. Her head bounced off the gurney, making her whimper in pain.

They split up then and Curt climbed into the back with Melody while Don slid into the driver’s seat. When she was still for a few seconds, she dared to open her eyes again.

Curt didn’t look at her, fishing for things in the many boxes and bins secured to the walls. He produced a needle—or were there six?—and put it in her vein, and taped it in place. Her arm came to life and she flexed her fingers. At the same time her stomach lurched. Another needle appeared, but he didn’t have to stick that one in her, just into the tube he’d already inserted.

“Okay, Little Song. I’m going to lecture you while you try not to puke all over me. Please try not to puke all over me, okay?” He set a plastic lined paper bag in her IV-free hand.

“What’s her GCS score?” Don shouted from the front as he pulled away.

“Thirteen. How well did you know Romeo?” While he talked, he pulled a blanket over her, reminding her she was naked as he folded it down to just above her nipples. White sticky pads were pressed to her skin with wires trailing away out of her line of sight.

“Rome?” she asked. Hey, that was really close to what she’d wanted to say. Things began to look better too. As they started to move, she went from seeing two of everything to four, but now, there were only two and one of those was fading away. Unfortunately, her stomach decided it had had enough with the double vision and revolted. She tried to bring up the bag and roll onto her side, but the brace made it more difficult. She missed, vomit hitting the side of the gurney.

“Well, at least you missed me. Don’t worry about it,” he told her. “Happens all the time. That shot I gave you should help the tummy. So, yeah, I want to know about lover boy, Dom of the Dumb.”

“He-he’s not bad.” The words were coming more clearly, but it was still a struggle to say them.

“He’s not bad.” Curt snorted typing into a laptop computer. “Let’s get back to your body. Before handing the reins over to someone, you have to be damn sure he’s going to treat it properly. The best Doms have used all those implements on themselves. He should have had a proper rig. Dumbass.”

While his words swirled in her oversized head, she drank in his details. The curly dark hair and scruff already made their impression, but now she paid attention to his long slender fingers moving over the keyboard, his thick arms and legs. He was becoming clearer every breath, letting her enjoy his presence even more. His mellow voice commanded even when it wasn’t raised. He was a Dom? What would that be like?

“It’s obvious you’re new. He didn’t have to get fancy. Why not just tie you to the bed? So much safer. Especially if he’s a newb too.”

“He did.” Her tongue was fat and thick, but the words were intelligible.

“Oh, well, that’s good. Why did he move you?”

“F-f-fog.” Meh, that would have to be close enough.

“Ah.” Curt shook his head. “Still a dumbass. Here.” He pulled a sharpie out of a pocket and took her hand holding the still unused sick bag. “Call me if you have any questions. Or if you need someone to vet your next encounter. I know a lot of people in the scene here. I used to know all of them until Fifty brought everyone and their dog out of the woodwork. Fuck, I hate that James woman.”

Her head spun when she inhaled the pungent ink from a marker. Staring, she tried to read the number on her hand but couldn’t make sense of it. “No,” she argued.

“Yeah, yeah. You’re a fan. No offence, Little Song, but your taste sucks.”

“S-song?” she mumbled.

“Yeah, melody, a little song. You have to have other people who call you that.”

She shook her head but stopped after turning to each side once. The roof of the ambulance spun and she brought up the bag.

Curt helped her roll onto her side while she retched, very little coming up and all of it into the bag. When she stopped coughing, he let her slide onto her back.

“Hello?”

Melody frowned in confusion, was he saying hello to her?

“I have a 24 year-old female, Melody Carmichael. Head injury with an open lac.”

Lack? The rest of the words and numbers that followed didn’t make any sense. At least until he started recounting how she’d gotten hurt.

“Yeah, she was playing in the bedroom and someone can’t tie a fucking knot. She fell and clipped her head.”

Melody wanted to argue, to complain, but Curt went right back to medical jargon she couldn’t comprehend. Once he ended his call, he smoothed her hair on the side of her head that wasn’t one big bandage.

“Take it easy, Little Song. We’ll be there in a minute.”

Curt stayed by her side as they wheeled her through sliding doors and down hallways. Another rough ride, she bounced and her vision went blurry. She squeezed her eyes shut after seeing a woman in green scrubs carrying a clipboard join them. Not seeing helped, but her stomach continued to roil.

“This is the female who fell? Has her GCS changed?” she asked.

“Yeah, she’s talking clearly now. Fourteen.” Curt took the clipboard, scribbled on the page, and passed it back.

They stopped in a small room and another man joined them, wearing the same color scrubs as the woman with the clipboard. They counted down from three and Melody held her breath. On one they all lifted and she was moved to the hospital bed. Don and Curt began to wheel their gurney out.

“Wait,” Melody called. The woman remaining clipped a monitor onto her finger and a blood pressure cuff around her arm. She ignored them. “Curt.”

He stopped and turned back. “Curtis. Don’t worry, Little Song. They’ll take good care of you.”

Watching him go, she wondered if she’d ever see him again. Peering at his tight bum in his loose pants, she really hoped she would.