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It takes a moment, but I realize he’s talking about my temperament. When I get it, I laugh. It’s absurd that he has the nerve to mock my handling of him, as if I don’t have the right to want to put as much distance as possible between us. After what he did, calling me frigid is like telling the rain it’s wet. “Forgive me for not falling over myself to appease my fucking kidnapper.”
That gets a laugh out of him, though it turns into more of a grunt of pain before the wind whips between us and carries it away. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”
“You think you deserve forgiveness?”
“You think I want it?” He counters.
He’s beautiful—he has been from the moment I first saw him. But beneath the gorgeous emerald eyes and those sharp cheekbones, he’s rotting.
Like me.
“No.” I shake my head.
Wes and Remy and I are all fucked in our own rights, our humanity decaying. The truth is, we’re all the monster in someone else’s nightmares. I killed my monster, but it didn’t make me a hero. It made me into one of them. I’ve been baptized by the blood of my tormentor and practically burnt myself to ashes in the wake of my dance with the darkness. Deep down, part of me knows that trying to save him is a half-assed grab for redemption, as if there’s any hope for my soul. In reality, saving Wes could cause more harm to the rest of the world. A flash of an old fable crosses my mind—the woman who asked the snake why he bit her.
Because it’s my nature, the snake said.
It didn’t matter that the woman healed the snake, saved him from death. He still bit her at the first chance he got. Wes is a snake, but am I the woman who gets bitten and accepts her death?
“If you die, Wes,” I swallow, my throat thick, “You’ll never get a chance to prove you won’t bite me.”
His eyes flash a moment, like he wants to make a joke about biting me, but his lips just flick upward before the grin slips from his face. He’s fading.
I glance up just in time to see the strip of land in the distance growing as we approach. Remy comes in hot, probably faster than he should reasonably be going. By the time I look back at Wes, he’s slumped to the side, his head drooping on his shoulders. “We’re here, Wes.” I say, though I don’t know if that’s actually true. I see a few buildings, but not what I expect a hospital to look like.
I’m already draping his arm over my shoulder by the time Remy appears, glaring at me like I kicked his puppy. “What are you thinking, Claire? He’ll crush you, and then I’ll have two people to drag in for medical attention.”
Wes’ weight shifts toward me as I pull him up, proving Remy right again. Thankfully, he doesn’t drive that point home, choosing instead to loop Wes’ other arm around his neck. “I’ll support him. Just apply pressure to the wound.”
I don’t have anything to cover him with, and I don’t have time to strip off my tank top and use it as a bandage, so I just press my hand to the spot where Wes had kept his. It’s covered in a layer of blood-soaked gauze, sticky as it dries and congeals on top of it. His blood isn’t as hot as I expect it to be—fair, I guess, since he’s a cold-blooded reptile.
Walking three-wide with me trying to stay attached to Wes enough to keep pressure on his stomach is awkward at best, but Remy supports him as he practically drags Wes over the side of the boat, and I scramble after them. My eyes search the cityscape, looking for our destination but still not seeing anything that looks like a hospital.
Remy leads us up the dock and then makes a sharp turn right while I nearly trip over my feet trying to stay on them. A figure rushes at us, waving their hands above their head as if trying to get us to notice them. When he gets close enough for me to see the balding man in the white coat, I narrow my eyes on Remy. “Garcia,” Remy nods as the presumed doctor edges me out to take over the burden of dragging Wes the rest of the way to a white door painted to blend in with the rest of the building before us.
As soon as he opens the door, it’s to a cacophony of sounds—barking, meowing, cawing.
The door swings shut loudly behind me as I follow them into the building, where my suspicions are confirmed as he leads us past a row of kennels. Doors line one side of the hall, and he throws one of them open to reveal a silver exam table that even I wouldn’t fit on. That doesn’t deter the doctor—or veterinarian—who helps Remy ease Wes onto the table. His legs dangle off the end, and he doesn’t protest. He’s lost consciousness now.
I want to yell and ask what a vet is going to do for him now, but he turns and grabs a couple bags of blood from the little cooler behind him. “Is that human?”
It’s a stupid question—I doubt they’d try to resuscitate him with pig blood, though he probably deserves that. The better question, really, is why he has that. “Type O.” The doctor confirms, setting about grabbing things. “Universal donor. I always keep it on hand for emergencies.”
My eyebrows raise of their own accord, but I decide it’s best not to ask anything more. A veterinarian who keeps human blood on hand for emergencies is probably involved in more than just checking on household pets. I take a step back, sure that I shouldn’t be here, and yet Remy isn’t moving. He stands with his hands braced on the edge of the table, his broad shoulders tense and his shoulders hunched as he waits for something.
There’s a flash of silver as the doctor brandishes scissors, and then he cuts Wes’ shirt off, exposing his work surface. I turn away then—I can’t see him like this. In such a fragile state, it’s hard to reconcile this man with the vicious asshole who would have easily handed me off to his father so I could be passed off to a stranger as some little plaything. I can feel my throat threatening to close, so I focus on breathing through my nose and looking at the posters on the walls. The majority of them are in Spanish, which I don’t know enough of to deduce anything coherent, but the pictures of dogs and cats and their anatomy is a good distraction until the doctor’s muttered curse draws me back to the matter at hand.
“What?” Remy demands. His tone suggests that the doctor would be wise to figure out whatever the problem is.
“It’s not enough blood. I can see the bullet—it didn’t nick anything important, but if I take it out, I could graze his small intestines. It’s right there.”
“You’ve done this before.” Remy snaps. I’ve never heard him take that sort of attitude with someone who didn’t do anything to warrant it—it feels oddly uncomfortable.
“Yes.” The doctor nods without glancing up from his work. I’m far away enough that I can’t see anything beyond whatever silver instrument he’s got inserted into Wes’ stomach, and that’s more than enough for me. “But if I hit that I don’t have enough blood to patch him up. I barely have enough as it is.”
“So, leave the bullet and sew him up.” Remy commands.
The doctor nods and lifts a needle with thick, black thread already looped through it, at which point I turn away again to study the posters on the wall. The din of their conversation and the sounds of various instruments clanging against metal fade into the background as I focus on calming the storm in my head—the angel and demon are in all-out war over whether this was a waste of our time, whether it was the right thing to do.
