Ignited (29 page)

“What did I say about ten minutes, Kris?” he scolded from the back seat.

I ignored that question by asking one of my own. “What’s happening?” I had to put my hands on the dashboard to steady myself as Callie tore out of there.

“We blew up the compound,” Alec answered.

With the way Callie was driving, I couldn’t catch my balance enough to turn around to see his face. I hoped he was joking. Something told me he wasn’t. “While you were still in there?”

“That wasn’t exactly the plan,” he admitted. “We got held up on the way out.”

Callie reached the main road and sped away from the collapsing farm. After a few moments on level, non-vibrating ground, she slowed the car to a normal speed.

That was when I heard the grunting from the back seat.

Nathan. And he was hurt.

I looked over my shoulder as Alec held up a knife, dripping with blood, to inspect it.

“It’s not diamond coated,” he said matter-of-factly. 

Nathan had been stabbed?
I twisted in my seat to see him better. He was slumped across the back seat, his head resting against the side behind Callie. Blood soaked the front of his shirt.

“What about the other one?” Alec asked Nathan like there was no emergency at all. 

“I think it was the same knife,” Nathan groaned.

Other one?
  “How many times have you been stabbed?” I exclaimed.

Three sets of eyes turned to me. I seemed to be the only one hysterical.

“Twice.” Nathan grimaced as Alec poked around his thigh.

“Sorry,” Alec said absentmindedly. “I’m trying to dig the bullet out.”

Bullet?
“You were shot!”

“Do you know if it was coated?” Alec asked. The realization of what that would mean was audible in his voice.

“I think I would know by now if it were.”

“He’s losing a lot of blood,” Callie observed in the rear view mirror. She wrinkled her nose, but didn’t seem particularly concerned. She didn’t know Nathan. He was no one special to her.

Not like he was to me. “He needs a hospital,” I said. Why didn’t anyone else see that? I turned to Alec expectantly. “Where’s the closest hospital?”

His eyes were grim when they met mine.   

“Alec, he needs a hospital,” I repeated, trying to be forceful, but my voice quavered.

“We can’t, Kris.” This time, it was Nathan being ridiculous.

“What?” I screeched, well beyond hysterical now. 

“We couldn’t explain this to the humans,” Alec explained. “And walking into a hospital looking like this after a top secret underground compound got blown up is just plain stupid.”

I gaped at him. I didn’t give a damn what anyone thought or how suspicious anything looked. All that mattered was Nathan surviving.

“Kris, calm down,” Nathan said.

He was shot and stabbed—twice—and he was telling me to calm down? “Nathan, you—”

“I’ll heal as long as I don’t bleed to death.” 

I didn’t understand how he could say those words with such composure. I was freaking out. I surveyed the amount of blood oozing from the hole in his leg. His shirt was covered in so much blood I couldn’t tell anymore where it was coming from. I was sure by now that the blood on Alec was all Nathan’s.

“Yeah, well, it looks to me like you’re close to bleeding to death.” I couldn’t believe we were having this discussion. 

Nathan didn’t argue with me again. He groaned as Alec’s retrieval intensified.

“Almost got it,” Alec said, gritting his teeth. With a sigh, he withdrew his hand from inside Nathan’s thigh, with a shiny bullet between his thumb and index finger. He studied it. “Not coated.”

To the two in the back seat, that was good news. It meant Nathan would not die a slow and agonizing diamond-induced death. To me, it didn’t matter because he could still die, if he bled to death before his body could heal. With the way the blood poured from the hole in his thigh, it seemed a likely possibility.  

My hard-nosed and resilient, but apparently
not
bullet-proof, hero was in trouble.

Shoving Alec to the side, I climbed into the back seat and wedged myself between the two. Nathan’s legs were spread out across most of the seat, and I hoisted them across my lap.

I turned to Alec. “Give me your shirt.”

He slipped it over his head, surprisingly without a flirty proposition, and I wrapped it around Nathan’s thigh wound. Ignoring the language coming out of Nathan’s mouth, I surveyed the blood-drenched shirt he was wearing.

The source of the bleeding was not obvious until I lifted his shirt, revealing a deep six inch gash along his right lower rib cage. A steady stream of dark red blood poured from it. I clamped my hands down on the gash in an attempt to slow the blood loss. It merely oozed between my fingers and over my hands, with no signs of stopping.

“We have to do something,” I pleaded with Alec.

“I have a bag of clothes on the floor back there Kris,” Callie offered from the front seat. “Use whatever you need.”

That wasn’t what I had meant, but I took her up on her offer and pressed a yellow flower cami against the gash. It did a better job than my hands, but was still saturated in seconds.

Turning to Alec again, I said, “He needs a hospital.”

“Kris.” Nathan’s voice spun me around to him. His eyes were drooping, but held mine as he shook his head no.

“Even if...” I couldn’t say the words. I wouldn’t say them.

I looked back and forth between Nathan and Alec. The answer was in both of their eyes.

Yes. Even if that meant he died.

Alec had a place twenty minutes away. While he climbed into the front seat to direct Callie, I was left me to tend to Nathan alone. I found the other stab wound in the upper left chest, scarily close to his heart, and wrapped a shirt around his shoulder to cover it. We stopped at a pharmacy along the way and Callie ran inside for first aid supplies. Minutes later, Alec led us into his neighborhood.

It was in the not-so-nice part of town. Narrow houses lined the street side by side, with no yards, bars on the windows, and steps that looked like death traps leading to the front doors. The sun had set along the way and, as the darkness crept in, the creatures of the night assembled on the sidewalks in clusters, waiting for trouble, or a car to hijack. Oddly, no one looked twice at the flashy Mustang that passed.

I got the impression Alec had asserted his authority in the neighborhood a long time ago, and no one was going to mess with us. Nor did anyone bat an eye at the three of us hauling a severely injured body into the house. 

Surprisingly, considering the filthy outside appearance, the inside of Alec’s place was immaculate, with crisp sterling silver kitchen appliances, a big screen TV, and a large plush living room set. It was surprisingly grown up and modern for a teenager. I was starting to think there was a lot about Alec I didn’t know.

We wrestled Nathan through the kitchen and living room and into Alec’s bed at the back of the house. The three of us worked quickly at getting him out of his blood-soaked clothes, down to his boxers. Callie and I took to wrapping the bandages around his chest and abdomen and covered the two gashes under nearly an inch of dressing. Alec wrapped the gunshot wound in his thigh. When we finished, we lay him back in the bed and pulled the satin sheets up.

Aside from rushing him to the nearest hospital, which was apparently out of the question, there was nothing more to do.

“He needs rest to heal,” Alec murmured as he moved to the side.

I jerked my hand away when Alec reached for it. “I’m not leaving him.” I lowered to the edge of the bed beside Nathan and defiantly tipped my chin up at Alec and Callie. If he died, I would never forgive either of them.

“Kris...” Callie started. I shut her down with a hard glare. She shifted uneasily to Alec’s side.

I turned my back on them to look down at Nathan. His eyes were closed, his face pale and streaked with blood. I gathered a bandage from the nightstand, wet it with my tongue, and wiped his face, my hand quivering like it had a mind of its own. 

Someone placed a hand on my shoulder. I shrugged it off. “Leave us alone.”

There was a brief pause before they shuffled out of the room. The door clicked softly behind them.

Alone with Nathan, the tears I had been holding back finally found their escape. My body shook from the flood of emotion and I lowered my head, unable to look at him any longer.

Opening my hands in my lap, and seeing his blood all over them, I scrubbed until they were no longer red from blood, but from my desperate attempt to get it off of me. My vision was blurry from the tears, but from the look of his ashen face when I looked up again, it was clear he was knocking on death’s door.

And it was all for me. He had stayed to save me.

“Why did you do that?” I whispered, wiping the tears on my cheeks with both hands.

He didn’t respond. I pressed my hand to his chest and felt its subtle rise and fall. His breaths were shallow and slow, his heart beat fast and weak. His eyes fluttered open, barely, and struggled to focus on me.

“Tell me what I can do. Tell me how to help you,” I pleaded.

His eyes rolled shut again. I hung my head as the overwhelming sense of helplessness crumbled me. He was going to die. Right here, right now, Nathan was going to die and there was nothing I could do to help him.

Fingers brushed along the back of my neck. I snapped my head up to see Nathan’s eyes slit open and his arm outstretched. His hand cupped the back of my head and tugged, gently guiding me toward him.

Understanding his intention, I dropped my head to his good shoulder. Doing my best to not hurt him, I stretched my legs out beside his and curled my body around him.

“Stay with me.” His voice was barely a whisper.

“I will,” I murmured, my mouth pressed against the smooth skin where his shoulder met his neck. My tears slid down his chest, where they were soaked up by the bandages.

His cheek pressed against my forehead. The way his stubble tickled and sparked my senses only made me more aware of his battered body against mine. I watched the barely visible rise and fall of his chest and vowed to stay where I was all night, watching. As long as his chest was moving, he was alive.

Even if it was by a thread.

I shut my eyes for only an instant, or so I thought. When they opened again, the room was faintly illuminated by moonlight and the house was startling quiet, and I knew that more than an instant had passed. I shot up and looked at the clock on the nightstand. 1:17.

Five hours!

In a panic, I dropped my head to Nathan’s chest to listen for a breath, a heartbeat, anything to let me know he was alive. I heard a soft la-dup under my ear and sighed in relief.

“Well, am I alive?”

I whipped my head around to the sound of his voice. The moon lit up our corner of the world just enough that I could see the glint of amusement in his eyes as he watched me. Torn between pummeling him for thinking this was funny and wrapping him up in a big bear hug, I merely dropped my forehead against his chest with a heavy sigh. I stayed there, hidden from his observant gaze, as I forced back the tears and swallowed the lump in my throat.

What if he had died while I was sleeping?

“I can’t believe I fell asleep,” I muttered after finding my voice.

“Kris?” He ran a hand through my hair.

Forehead still pressed against him, I shook my head, refusing to look at him.

“It’s alright. I’m almost as good as new.” He cupped my face in his hands and lifted it to his. A single traitorous tear slid down my cheek and he brushed it away with his thumb. “Stop that,” he scolded me softly.

I tried to nod, but couldn’t with him holding my head. “I thought...”
I thought I’d lost you forever
. I choked on the words, unable to continue.

He released me and shifted. “I’ll be fine. I just hurt like hell.” He grimaced as he pushed himself up into something closer to a sitting position.

I helped him adjust his pillow so that he could lean against it. My eyes had adapted to the dark and, with the moon’s help, I took the opportunity to eye the bandages wrapped around his chest and stomach. Blood had oozed through them in spots, but it was mostly dried and old. No fresh blood. He’d stopped bleeding, which meant…

Which meant he would live.
I allowed myself to finally believe it and smiled.

He looked like hell, was weak and still in pain, but he was alive. He was far from
good as new
, but I’d take half way for now. 

He looked down at himself and wrinkled his nose.

“You could probably use some fresh bandages,” I offered. 

“Hopefully I won’t need them anymore.”

I eyed him doubtfully. “You couldn’t have healed that fast.”

He leaned forward and pulled on the bandages. “Let’s take a look.”

I swatted his hands out of the way before he made a mess of the wrap. I knew where the end was, and grabbed it. Starting from there, it was easy to unravel. With each layer I peeled back, the blood turned from dark and rusty, to bright red. His abdomen, once fully exposed, was covered in blood, but the wound itself was barely bleeding. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, if I weren’t seeing it with my own eyes. The edges were coming together, where most would have needed stitches, and the gash wasn’t as deep as I recalled. He really was healing at an unbelievable speed. 

I raised my eyes to his in astonishment and he shot me a told-you-so grin. 

The wound below his left shoulder, once uncovered, looked to be at about the same stage of healing. I couldn’t conceal my amazement.

“Nice perk to being part-god, huh?” he said.

“It’s incredible, really. You probably should be bandaged for a little while longer, but…” I looked at him and shrugged, at a loss for words to describe the miracle in front of me. 

“Let’s get wrapped back up then,” he said. “I don’t know about you, but I could use some more sleep.”

I hesitated, and felt the heat rise into my cheeks. “What about the other one?”

“Other one? Oh, yeah.” Nathan pushed the sheets down, exposing the wrap around the wound in his thigh. I didn’t know if he’d been aware that he was in nothing but boxers, but I sure hadn’t forgotten. He wasn’t shy about it one bit. Me, on the other hand...

Fortunately, it only took him a matter of seconds to unravel it himself, saving me from the embarrassing task. In another stroke of luck, I was saved from having to redress it. Out of the three wounds, this one was healed the best and didn’t need bandaged any longer. I was relieved when the sheets were pulled up and I could concentrate again.

But then his bare chest and abs—and boy were those nice to look at—made concentration difficult too. Even gross and bloody, they were a sight to behold. I’d bet he would look really good cleaned up, fresh from a shower.

My blush deepened as I tried to push the thought out of my head.

“You okay?” Nathan asked.

I plucked the roll of bandages from the night stand, avoiding his eyes. “I’m fine. Lift up your arm a little.” He moved his left arm out from his side enough that I was able to wrap around his shoulder. I set to it like it was the only thing on my mind.

“You really okay?” I knew I wasn’t fooling him one bit and glanced at him hesitantly, expecting a teasing smile. He was dead serious as he nodded pointedly to my eye. “What happened to you?”

I lifted a hand to my face. I hadn’t had a chance to see myself in a mirror yet, but considering the amount of swelling I felt around my eye, I suspected it didn’t look good. I shrugged, trying to pull off indifference. “They drugged me, tried to knock some information I didn’t have out of me. You know, the usual hostage stuff.”

He didn’t return my fake smile. “Lillian did that to you?”

I focused on my hands as they moved the bandages, and nodded reluctantly. I couldn’t begin to imagine what he was going through after seeing Lillian alive, but Skotadi-evil. It must be like losing her all over again.

“I’m sorry, Kris.”

I looked up and finally met his eyes. “What could you possibly be sorry for?”

“I couldn’t stop them. I wasn’t there.”

My hands froze and I stared at him. “Are you kidding me?” I was tempted to smack some sense into him. If he weren’t so badly injured, I would have. “Nathan, you saved me. Again. This time, you almost died for it.” I sliced through the bandage with a pair of scissors and tucked the end under a few layers to secure it. He was quiet and still as I worked. When my eyes finally drifted to his again, he met them without blinking.

“I would do it again,” he said.

“I wouldn’t want you to.” I tried to sound convincing, but the tremble in my voice produced the opposite effect. I shifted to dress the final wound and tried not to notice Nathan’s eyes following me.

“I know,” he said after a minute. “That won’t stop me.”

I attempted humor. “Because that would require you to actually do something I asked?”

“Because I can’t stand the thought of anything ever happening to you,” he countered.

The lump in my throat was back. I swallowed, but it stayed. Breathing was difficult and came in sharp irregular gulps. My hands trembled as I forced them to work. I tried to avoid brushing my fingertips over Nathan’s skin, but that only made me more aware of each accidental touch, and every tingle those touches shot through every nerve in my body. The shock to my heart sent it into overdrive.

I pretended not to notice that my body was selling me out, pretended not to be as rattled as I was. I pretended that being this close to him didn’t make me want to be closer, and that holding back wasn’t torture. I pretended to be engrossed in doctoring him despite the churning inside my head, my heart, and my gut.

I wasn’t pulling it off. I felt his eyes on me and knew he saw right through me. In an attempt to hide my traitorous face, I tipped my head down. His eyes lingered on me a moment longer, then shifted. His chest rose and fell under my hands from a deep heavy breath.

I ignored the voice in my head that said Nathan was having the same difficulties as me. It was absurd. He wasn’t. He couldn’t.

I was relieved to reach the end of the bandage roll, until I realized it stopped, of all places, in the middle of his back. I had to lean forward to reach around him, dipping dangerously close, to secure the end. Instead of shifting to give me more room, his head angled closer, crowding us together in a tight, highly-charged space. His steady breaths tickled the spot behind my ear and sent a shiver down my spine, in a good goose-bump-inducing way.