Chapter 2 #2
“I’m sorry,” I whispered again. Not sure if I was apologizing for causing pain or for the fact that I’d do it again if I had to. Whatever kept him alive.
I secured the joint before my hands could start shaking worse, wrapping his shoulder in makeshift bandaging.
Back to the microwave. I shoved another towel inside, punched thirty seconds. The machine hummed, yellow light painting my hands brown with his blood. I scrubbed them under the tap while waiting, water running pink, then clear, then pink again. Too much blood. He’d lost too much.
The microwave beeped. I grabbed the towel, hissing when heat bit my palms, and returned to the bed.
His chest rose and fell. Slower now. The shivering had reduced to occasional tremors, but his skin still felt too cold when I pressed the heated fabric to his sternum. I counted to thirty. Moved the towel to his throat, his ribs, his hands, those long fingers still ice against mine.
My touch lingered on his palm, thumb tracing the calluses there.
What are you doing?
I jerked my hand back and grabbed another towel. Focused on warming his core, his extremities. Medical necessity. Nothing more.
Except my fingers kept finding excuses to touch, smoothing wet hair from his forehead, checking his pulse at his throat when his wrist would do, palm resting on his chest longer than required to count heartbeats.
I caught myself and stopped. Then, I found myself doing it again five minutes later.
He was my patient. That’s all. The protective instinct rising in my chest was professional concern, nothing more complicated.
Liar.
Twenty rotations later, his core temperature felt closer to normal.
Fever climbing, infection setting in, his body mounting a defense against invasion.
I’d need antibiotics. Real ones, not the expired amoxicillin in my cabinet.
He’d need IV fluids to replace blood volume.
Imaging to check for internal bleeding. Monitors to track vitals. A real hospital with real resources.
He had me, my kitchen scissors, and determination.
Fantastic odds.
I moved to his head, finally addressing the wound I’d been avoiding. The laceration ran from temple to crown, deep enough that bone gleamed white underneath. Blood matted his hair, dried brown against his scalp. I grabbed a clean towel, soaked it in warm water, and started cleaning.
His hair was softer than expected under the blood and river water. Dark blond, short. I worked carefully, dabbing away dried blood, revealing the full extent of damage. The edges were clean. Recent.
The surgical glue went on in careful lines, sealing the wound closed. It would hold, keeping his skull protected while his body tried to heal. Not pretty. He’d scar badly, but the hair would probably hide it.
I leaned back, surveying my work. His face slack in unconsciousness, all that coiled tension gone. He looked younger like this. Almost peaceful despite the damage, despite everything.
Something twisted in my chest. Unexpected. Unwelcome.
Who did this to you?
The thought surfaced with an edge of fury I didn’t examine too closely. Someone had hurt him this badly way before tonight. Opened his head, dislocated his shoulder, left him to die in a frozen river. And he’d survived long enough to crawl into my alley.
Survived because he was a fighter. Because something in him refused to quit even when his body had every reason to surrender.
My fingers traced the edge of the head wound, feather-light. Treating him as something precious instead of critical.
I pulled my hand back. Shoved to my feet. Crossed to the sink and gripped the edge hard enough to hurt.
Get it together, Clare.
The reflection in the window showed a woman I barely recognized, hair escaped from its tie, blood smeared across her cheek, eyes hollow with exhaustion. Behind her, a dying man who should be in a trauma bay, not a freezing studio apartment.
I’d done everything possible. Applied every skill from twelve years of emergency nursing. And it still might not be enough.
Helplessness crashed over me, cold, suffocating, pulling me under the same way the river must have pulled him. My legs shook. My vision blurred. Everything I’d shoved down for the last hour rose up at once, threatening to drown me.
Not enough supplies. Not enough heat. Not enough knowledge to fix damage this severe. I was one person with kitchen scissors and expired medication, trying to save someone who needed a team of surgeons and divine intervention.
This was insane. Harboring a fugitive. Committing felonies. Probably destroying what was left of my career. For what? A stranger who couldn’t even tell me his name without it sounding like a confession.
My hands gripped the sink edge until my knuckles went white.
Behind me, his breathing caught. Stuttered. Went shallow.
I spun around.
He thrashed suddenly, muscles seizing, head turning side to side. Fighting something I couldn’t see. His body wouldn’t surrender even unconscious, still resisting, still trying to escape whatever hell he’d crawled out of.
I crossed to the bed, pressed my hands to his shoulders. “Hey. You’re safe. Stop fighting.”
He didn’t hear me. Couldn’t. Lost wherever unconscious minds go when the body’s too broken to follow.
But he stilled slightly under my touch. The violent thrashing eased to tremors.
I kept my hands there, one on his good shoulder, one on his chest. Feeling his heart race underneath. Feeling his lungs work too hard. Feeling him fight to stay alive despite the odds.
Something rose through the despair. Hot. Stubborn. Unreasonable.
No.
I’d made it this far. Dragged him inside, warmed him, relocated his shoulder, closed his wounds. Put myself between him and the police hunting him. Crossed lines I couldn’t uncross.
I wasn’t giving up now.
My palms pressed flat to his chest. His heartbeat fluttered against my right hand, weak, irregular, but there. Proof he was still fighting. Still refusing to quit. But iron will might not be enough for his battered body.
“You don’t get to die,” I said aloud. My voice came out rough. “Not when I dragged you out of that storm. Not when I’m still fighting.”
His chest rose and fell beneath my hands.
Blood, his blood, crusted under my nails, dried brown on my wrists.
I didn’t know his name. Not really. Xavier felt like something he’d tried on, tested, found almost right but not quite.
I didn’t know what he’d done or who was hunting him or why any of this mattered.
Let the storm rage. Let the police search. Let whoever hurt him come looking.
Exhaustion pulled at me, dragging my shoulders down, making my vision swim. But I kept my hands there, feeling proof of life, feeling the rhythm that meant I hadn’t lost yet.
Dawn was hours away. The storm showed no sign of stopping. My supplies were nearly gone, my body screaming for rest I couldn’t take. I had to act.
I stepped back from the bed, cataloguing damage with fresh eyes.
Blood loss, critical. Fever spiking. Infection brewing beneath the surface, silent and deadly.
The gauze I’d pressed to his ribs was already soaked through.
Painkillers for sure. Every towel I owned was brown with his blood or wet from heating.
I had nothing left that would keep him alive past morning.
Think. What do you need?
Saline to replace blood volume. Broad-spectrum antibiotics. Clean dressing. Proper bandages. IV supplies. Antiseptic that wasn’t three years expired.
The hospital sat forty minutes across town on a good day. In this storm, with roads icing over and police searching? Impossible. I’d never make it back before he crashed.
Drug stores? Laughable. They’d have band-aids and aspirin, maybe some gauze if I got lucky. Nothing that touched what he needed.
My mind spun through options, discarding each one. Then it clicked.
The clinic.
Every quarter I volunteered there, free medical care for homeless populations, vagrants, people who couldn’t or wouldn’t access traditional healthcare. They operated on donations and expired stock from hospitals, but they had supplies. Real supplies. Saline, antibiotics, sterile equipment.
And I had a key.
My pulse kicked up for different reasons. The clinic sat twenty blocks north, near the train station. Fifteen minutes on foot if I moved fast and didn’t run into patrols.
Big if.
But there was no other option. Xavier would die without intervention. The fever climbing through his body right now, the infection setting into those wounds. I could slow it with what I had, but I couldn’t stop it.
I grabbed every towel that wasn’t blood-soaked, shoved them in the microwave in batches. While they heated, I piled blankets onto the bed, my winter comforter, the spare from the closet, the throw from the couch. Buried him under layers, trapping whatever warmth his body generated.
He didn’t stir. That scared me more than the thrashing had.
I pressed my fingers to his throat, counted. Pulse still unstable. Core temperature climbing, fever or warming, didn’t matter which. Both meant his body was fighting.
“Keep fighting,” I whispered.
The microwave beeped. I pulled out scalding towels, arranged them around his torso under the blankets. Heating pads for the dying. Pathetic. But it might buy him time.
I checked his shoulder binding, his head wound, the bandages across his ribs. Everything held. For now.
You’re insane. Leaving him alone, breaking into a clinic, committing more felonies. Outstanding plan, Clare. Really brilliant.
I grabbed my coat from where I’d thrown it, blood-stiff and frozen. Didn’t matter. My boots sat by the door, still wet from the alley. I shoved my feet in, laced them with shaking fingers.
One last look at the bed.
Xavier lay buried under blankets, face slack, breathing shallow. So still he could be dead except for the faint rise and fall of his chest. I’d done everything possible with what I had. Now I needed more, or everything I’d done meant nothing.
I leaned over him, hand hovering above his cheek. Almost touched. Pulled back.
“I’ll be back,” I said instead. “Soon as I can. Just... keep breathing. Don’t you dare stop breathing.”
No response. Not that I expected one.
This was insane. Leaving a dying man alone to break into a clinic. But staying meant watching him die.
I straightened, grabbed my keys, checked the peephole. Hallway empty. I slipped out, locked the door behind me, and hit the door at a run.