Finally Ace pulls the stoker away, panting, and Kellen immediately dumps cold water over the burn, then more vodka. The wound goes from blackened and glistening to an angry matte red, but for the first time there’s no fresh blood. The blankets are soaked through. I blink hard, seeing stars.
Ace’s hands are shaking, but he cracks open the antiseptic and pours it straight into the freshly sealed wound. I fish around for bandages, my own hands moving by muscle memory. We wrap Adrian up from as high up on his leg as we can get, all the way down. It’s silent, then, except for the shuddering breaths of the three men and the low, animal moan that escapes me without warning.
I am crying, outright sobbing, and I don’t care who sees.
Ace puts a bloody hand on my shoulder, squeezes. I lean into it until the world stops spinning. Zeke and Kellen lift Adrian and carefully walk him up the beach. His head lolls to the side, lips parted, face blank and slack. Ace lifts the bundle of leg and tells me he is going to get rid of it, and then I’m there, alone, standing in a pile of blood-soaked blankets and sand.
My legs shake, and I don’t know how to move.
I just stare down at the mess, wondering what the fuck just happened and how everything changed so quickly.
“Hey.”
Ace’s voice comes from behind me, soft and careful.
I still don’t move.
How long have I been standing here?
“Gracie,” he murmurs, a warm hand running up my back.
I crumble.
As if in slow motion, I fall to my knees, just as a loud wail comes out of my lips. Then, I’m in the sand, in the blood and mess, just crying. Ace is there, his arms around me, strong andsecure, even though he just witnessed far more trauma than I did. That’s the kind of man he is, though. The safe kind, the one who will hold you up even when his entire world is crumbling.
“I got you, baby. We’re goin’ to get through this.”
My body shakes, and he just hangs onto me.
He hangs on until I stop wailing.
He hangs on until I go limp.
Then, he carries me back to camp.
Just like he carries everyone here.
He’s a fucking hero, even if he doesn’t realize it.
16
ADRIAN, BEING THE ABSOLUTEtrue warrior he is, wakes up a few hours after the whole ordeal. We have loaded him up on painkillers, but how long those will bring relief, we don’t know. As his eyes open, he looks around at all of us, hovering, waiting for his reaction to the horrific events that unfolded earlier.
Through a bloodshot gaze, he scans us all. “Tell me you kept the leg.”
