Chapter 4
Clare
His legs gave out the second I touched him.
Barely had time to drop the bags before his full weight collapsed against me. Solid muscle wrapped in fever-hot skin, his head falling to my shoulder as everything went slack.
Dead weight pressing into me at once.
My back hit the doorframe. Breath punched out. For one stunned heartbeat I just stood there with my arms around a dying man who’d tried to reach me, feeling the burn of fever through my coat, the rapid flutter of pulse at my throat.
My face flushed. Completely inappropriate awareness of his size, his weight, the intimacy of holding him like this.
Then his knees buckled completely, and we both went down.
Twisted, taking the impact on my hip, keeping his skull from cracking on the floor. We hit hard anyway. My shoulder screamed. He sprawled half across me, pinning me to worn wood.
“Perfect.” Sweat-damp skin, shallow breathing, the scent of infection. “He tried to get to me and nearly died doing it. Really great decision-making all around.”
No response. Unconscious again. Maybe for the best. Hard to explain the felonies while he was awake.
Shoved at his shoulder, carefully, the relocated one, and wriggled out from under him. Every muscle screamed protest. How long had I been gone? An hour? Felt like a lifetime compressed into sixty minutes of committing crimes and dodging police.
Getting him back to the bed was harder than getting him inside had been.
Grabbed him under the arms, planted my feet, and dragged. Bare skin stuck to the floor, a dead weight of solid muscle and terrible life choices. My thighs burned. My back threatened mutiny. Halfway across the room I had to stop, gasping, arms shaking.
“Come on.” To no one. To myself. To him. “A little further.”
Three more feet felt like three miles.
Collapsed next to the frame myself, sucking air as though I’d run a marathon. Everything trembled.
His head lolled. Eyelids never opened. Breathing shallow and too fast.
Stood there for a moment, palms braced on my knees, staring at him.
Unconscious. Vulnerable. Dangerous even in sleep, something about the way tension coiled in muscle, ready to explode into violence at the slightest provocation.
He’d tried to reach me. Had nearly killed himself getting off that bed, fever-delirious and barely conscious, trying to find me.
An ache bloomed in my chest. Unexpected. Unwelcome.
Shoved it down hard and turned to the bags I’d dropped by the door.
Real medical supplies spread across my bed ten minutes later. IV kit. Broad-spectrum antibiotics. Sterile bandages. Saline bags hanging from my coat rack, because apparently that’s what coat racks were for now. First time I’d had proper equipment since this nightmare started.
Tearing open the IV kit, tremors ran through my fingers.
“Come on.” Squeezed them into fists, released. “Get it together.”
Still shaking.
“Dammit.”
Pressed my palms flat to the mattress, breathing slow and deliberate. In. Out. The way they’d taught us in nursing school for high-stress situations. In. Out.
The tremors eased enough.
Xavier hadn’t moved. Still unconscious, chest rising and falling in that labored rhythm that made my stomach clench. Fever climbed under his skin, turning him into a furnace. Pressed the back of my knuckles to his forehead and swore.
103, maybe 104. Bad. Really bad.
The apartment was barely warmer than it had been. The radiator clanked occasionally but put out pathetic heat. My breath still fogged. Xavier’s skin was hot but the air around us was cold, and hypothermia could come back fast if I wasn’t careful.
Grabbed the covers I’d piled on him earlier, tucked them around his lower half. Kept his torso exposed enough to work but made sure his legs, his core, stayed wrapped.
“Stay warm. You just crawled out of hypothermia. Let’s not go back.”
Worked fast. Tried to work fast. Years of ER training meant muscle memory knew the motions even when my brain felt sluggish with exhaustion. Found a vein in his right arm. Missed it the first stick.
“Shit.”
Tried again. Thank god for steadier coordination. The needle slid in clean this time. Saline flowing, antibiotics mixing in.
Broad-spectrum antibiotics. The medical equivalent of “throw everything at it and pray.” Solid strategy when you had no idea what you were treating. Solid strategy when you were way out of your depth and making it up as you went.
Cut away my earlier bandage work. Crude but it had held. The rib injury had reopened during his collapse, fresh blood seeping through gauze, dark and wet. His shoulder joint was swollen but holding. Everything needed proper cleaning, proper bandages, proper care his system desperately needed.
Everything I should have done hours ago if I’d had the supplies.
If I’d been smarter. Faster. Better.
The radiator chose that moment to clank louder, groaning its death rattle. Which it probably was.
Looked at it. Then at the ceiling. “Thanks, universe. Really appreciate the timing.”
A trickle of warmth came out. Not heat, exactly. Just less cold. Enough to take the edge off the bone-deep chill that had settled in my studio since I’d dragged him inside.
Small mercies.
Turned back to Xavier, antiseptic-soaked gauze in hand, and bent over the rib injury. Kept the covers tucked around his lower half. His system couldn’t afford to lose more heat. Not after what he’d been through.
Then... those dark irises were staring at me.
No warning. No gradual surfacing. One second unconscious, the next aware.
His palm shot up, fast despite the damage, and grabbed my wrist.
Flinched. Couldn’t help it.
Not hard. Not threatening. Just... holding.
Fingers wrapped around my wrist, thumb pressed where my pulse jumped. Gentle grip for someone who’d reached for a weapon earlier with lethal precision.
My heart kicked up. Blood rushed to my cheeks. Completely inappropriate timing, Clare.
Those dark irises searched my face, trying to understand. Trying to place where he was, who I was, what was happening. Lost. Confused. Scared underneath the wariness.
Something in my chest twisted.
“It’s okay.” Kept my voice steady despite my racing pulse. Despite the fear that spiked cold when he’d grabbed me. “Just cleaning the injury. You’re safe.”
The word reached him. Something in his expression cleared slightly, recognition without memory, instinct connecting dots his conscious mind couldn’t.
The grip loosened. Didn’t let go entirely. Just... softer.
Held mine for another heartbeat. Then they fluttered closed, and he was gone again, palm sliding off my wrist to fall slack on the mattress.
I realized I’d been holding my breath.
Released it shakily. Tremors again.
“Right.” Fingers finding his pulse. Still fast. Still irregular. “Safe. Safe from everyone except the woman committing felonies to keep you breathing. The woman who has no idea what she’s doing.”
My heart hammered, but I forced steadier coordination to work. Years of ER training: panic later, work now. Push through. Deal with it after.
Cleaned the rib injury with methodical efficiency.
Or tried to. My coordination was off, exhaustion making movements clumsy.
Applied proper bandages. Checked the shoulder joint.
Swollen but holding. The head gash looked better with real supplies.
Reinforced it, making sure infection couldn’t set in.
Talking helped my nerves. Filled the silence with something other than my racing thoughts and the voice screaming that I was in over my head.
“You’re in my apartment. Industrial district. No one knows you’re here. Police searched the area, but the snow covered our tracks. For now.”
For now. They’d be back. They were always back.
Industrial district. Classy. Nothing said “illegal medical facility” like a studio with a broken radiator and bloodstained floors.
Moved over his torso, checking each injury systematically. The fever was climbing again despite the antibiotics. His system fighting too many battles at once.
What if the antibiotics weren’t enough? What if I’d grabbed the wrong ones? What if...
His breathing changed. Faster. More distressed.
Looked up just as those dark irises snapped open, completely different from before.
Not confusion. Terror.
Thrashed suddenly, violently trying to get up. The IV line pulled taut. Dropped the bandages and grabbed his shoulders.
“Stop! You’ll tear everything open!”
Didn’t hear me. Didn’t see me. Fighting something invisible, something I couldn’t see, trying to escape whatever hell his fever-addled mind had dragged him back to.
Had to use my weight, press him down on the mattress. His strength even half-dead was shocking, had to work to hold him, feeling the heat of him, the power coiled in muscle and bone despite the damage.
Going to hurt himself. Going to rip open everything I’d just fixed.
“Hey! You’re safe! Stop fighting!”
Yelling now. Urgent. Commanding. ER nurse voice, the one that cut through trauma-induced panic, through shock and fear and pain.
Please work. Please.
Those dark irises finally focused on my face.
The thrashing stopped but panic didn’t leave. Stared at me as though he’d never seen another human being before. Confused. Wary. Utterly lost, searching my face for something, answers, threat assessment, anything that made sense.
Something fierce rose in my chest. Need to fix this. Fix him. Make the terror disappear.
Had no idea how.
Then... unconscious mid-stare. Going slack under my palms.
Stayed frozen for a moment, breathing hard, fingertips pressed to his shoulders. Feeling his chest rise and fall beneath them. Fever burning through his skin into my touch.
“What the hell was that? Fever? Head injury? Something worse?”
Released him slowly, checking the IV line. Still in place. Saline still flowing. His vitals all over the place but not crashing.
Yet.
Tremors again. Pressed them flat to my thighs, tried to breathe steady.
“Get it together. He needs you to get it together.”