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When I search for them, they are gone. Where they were standing is only a puddle of blood.
“How is he doing?”
The deep voice comes from above me and around me, and I spin but can’t find it.
Then, suddenly, I’m back in my body.
My eyes are still closed, far too heavy to open, but I know I’m awake because of the pain.
It is everywhere, rippling through my body in a constant current but also coming from somewhere deeper. Somewhere in my core, like the pain is being created there and sent to the rest of my nerves. I try to move, but my legs are strapped down. Even if they weren’t, I don’t think I’d have the strength to pick them up.
“He’ll live.”
Through the haze of pain, I’m able to recognize the voice of the woman who has been helping Eve every morning. Kari, I think.
“He is lucky,” she says. “The shot to the leg is the worst. The others are grazes.”
“Our guys need to work on their aim,” the deep voice says. He is probably a Cartel member. One of the guards who shot me, maybe. Or one who dragged Eve away. “Hey, buddy, wake up. Edgar wants to see you.”
I hear shuffling footsteps. I want to get up and chase after them, demand to know where Eve is. What happened to her?
Did they kill her?
The thought hurts worse than any of my wounds, but still I can’t move. Can’t speak. Can’t do anything but lie here feeling useless.
I hear the door open and close, and I know I’m too late. The opportunity has passed.
Then, I slip back into the darkness.
* * *
When I wake up again, I’m shivering.
I’m cold everywhere. So cold most of my body feels numb, and for a second I have the terrifying thought that I’m dying.
Eve and Milaya are gone, maybe dead, and I’m dying in a room at a shitty inn under the watch of Cartel members who want to skin me alive.
Then, I feel the cold shift down my back like it is a living thing, crawling down my body. I flinch.
“Luka?”
The sound of her voice, even scratchy and sleepy, is like music to me. For the first time in I don’t know how long, I open my eyes and turn towards the sound of it.
Eve is lying next to me. Her face is splotchy and bruised, one of her eyes swollen until it is almost shut. But she is smiling.
“Luka, you’re okay.”
I reach out and grab a strand of her hair, more to tell myself that she is indeed real and not a figment of my imagination.
Then, I look down and see the ice pack pressed between our bodies. It is wedged between her ribs, which are clearly black and blue, and my side where a large bloody bandage is taped down.
“Are you too cold?” She pulls the ice pack from between us, showcasing even more of her bruises.
I frown. “What did they do to you?”
She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. You almost died.”
“Just grazes,” I say. “That is what Kari said.”
