44. Claire
“Wes!” I gasp. The shock of seeing him here combined with the shock of not being alone out here and the air I deprived my lungs of during my run makes my chest seize as my heart hammers against my ribcage. All of the bravado I felt yesterday when I faced him is gone as I look at him now, one palm planted on the counter with a shaky arm supporting him.
He manages a wicked grin, but it flashes to a grimace of pain before he snags a whiskey bottle off the counter and stumbles toward me. Except, he doesn’t come for me—he moves past me to the bench and collapses into it, gritting his teeth against the impact as he leans back.
That’s when I see the blood all down the front of his white shirt, soaking through to the skin beneath. He’s shed the suit jacket, and his face is covered in a sheen of sweat, dirt streaking one side and his hair disheveled, but I can tell he’s still wearing last night’s clothes.
“What are you doing here?” I demand, my stomach twisting as my baser instincts tell me to run far away and not look back or think about this monster. “Where’s Remy?”
Panic laces my veins as I consider what may have happened to allow Wes to make his escape, to cause him to be so obviously hurt in a scuffle.
Wes laughs. “I’m not his keeper, Claire. I thought you were.”
I don’t take the bait on that, sliding my hand against the door slowly until I feel the cold metal knob hit the base of my hand. I just have to wait for the right moment to get a good grip on it, and then I can move out of the way to throw it open. Wes’ eyes are too focused on me right now to make a move like that, though I have my doubts about how well he’d be able to chase me.
He looks rough.
“It’s my day off,” I tell him, matching his sarcasm with my own. “Is it your day off from being his prisoner?”
Wes laughs, but his grin turns to a grimace when a wave of pain hits him, making him clutch his side. “I escaped last night.” He says. “While Boudreaux was upstairs pouting over how you wanted to fuck me, the absolute morons he hired to secure his party staged a coup.”
“A coup?” I feel the doorknob under my palm as I grab for more of it, letting my fingers close around it. I hadn’t even considered until now that he may not be alone here.
I let my eyes trail around the space, looking for anything that may indicate there’s someone else with us.
That’s when I notice all the blood.
There’s practically a river of it just on the other side of the island, and a trail going from there to the spot where I’d first found him leaning on the counter. If all that blood is his, there’s no chance of Wes getting up and chasing after me. And yet, I don’t run. My feet don’t get the message that my brain is screaming. “Your men?”
“No,” he laughs and winces again. “No, my dear old dad didn’t send help for me. This was just a wrong place, wrong time situation. I got away, but that bastard stabbed me in the fray.” He uncaps the whiskey and stares at it a moment before lifting it to his lips and taking a sip straight from the bottle. It’s just a small one, but it’s enough to make him pull back, sputtering and coughing and wincing some more. “I knew I wouldn’t get far on foot, so I hid. But I wasn’t counting on how much blood I lost.”
“You’re a surgeon.” I say, as if he doesn’t know that. “Shouldn’t you know how to survive a stab wound?”
Wes stares at me deadpan. The green of his eyes is eerily beautiful, almost neon, but there’s no life in them. No fire, no teasing, no care. He must be in agony, his brain shutting down his necrotic personality to protect him from the edge of insanity. “If I could get to a fucking needle, sure. Not out here in the middle of nowhere.”
“So, you’re dying.” I surmise, choosing not to mince words.
“Bingo.” He musters a lift of his lips, something I imagine is supposed to be a smirk. “It’s your lucky day, Monroe.”
“My lucky day?”
“I saw that look in your eyes yesterday. You want me dead; you just didn’t want to be the one who did it. Scared I’ll haunt you when I go?”
“Wrong.” I don’t want to kill him because I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the first murder I committed, though I’m not going to tell him that. And now that he mentioned it, the thought of Wes haunting me from beyond the grave is horrific—not because I’d live in fear, but because he’s the most insufferable person I’ve ever met and if death can’t even get him out of my life, it means there’s no hope for me. “I don’t want you dead, Wes. I want you suffering… the way you made me suffer. I want you to scream for help that never comes. I want you to rot from the inside out until this version of you on the outside matches your black and dying heart. And I want you to live knowing that you didn’t’ fucking break me.”
“Big words for a woman who stabbed an immobilized man through the hand last night.” He lifts his hand a little, showing the bandage that Dimitri had wrapped around it, covered in the blood of his other wounds. “If it’s any consolation, getting stabbed by you was a lot sexier than taking it from a man my size.”
I almost laugh at that. It’s absurd, but I can’t help it. Something about the sincerity with which he said it strikes me as hysterical, and while I do a good job at reigning it in, I crack a small smile.
I’m not sure what sort of extradition laws exist between the U.S. and Costa Rica, and I don’t know if I could ever pursue any sort of legal justice against Wes without implicating Remy and making a mess of everything. But I do know that I want the chance to see him behind bars, locked in a cage, treated like the animal he is.
My hand closes on the doorknob and I throw it open, just the way I planned, slamming it shut behind me. I don’t go for the dock, though.
I don’t know what comes after this life. Heaven, maybe? Hell, probably. But I know that there can’t be anything that comes close to the amount of suffering this world and all of its monsters are capable of inflicting.
I can’t let him die.
I run to the wheel and dangle the keys in front of me, looking for one that looks like it belongs to a boat—not that I have any concept of what that would look like.
I don’t hear Wes open the door until he’s behind me, a hand pressed firmly against the slash in his shirt. “You know how to drive this thing?”
I glance up at him. In the mid-afternoon sun, he looks even more pale than I thought he was. Even if I can figure out which key goes in the ignition and get it close enough to the city to get him to a hospital, it may all be for nothing. I can’t tell how much time he has left. “No.”
Only three keys on this ring have the old-fashioned rubber grip I associate with car keys, so I pick one and try to jam it into the ignition. It scrapes against the metal, too large and blunt. The next one seems like it may fit, but only the tip of it slides in before it doesn’t budge any further. Wes shakes his head and holds his hand out expectantly.
It’s stupid to give him the keys, I guess. But it’s equally as stupid to try and save him instead of letting nature take its course here. “You’ll flood the engine messing around like this.” He mutters as I pass them over.
“Like you care.” I snap, watching him thumb through the keys. He settles on one and holds it up to the light to get a better look at it before sinking it into the ignition and turning it. The boat barely makes a noise as it purrs to life.
“I can’t drive like this.” Wes grunts, gesturing to the side of his stomach. Now that he’s close, I can see that he did at least do a little work on the wound—he’s got a washcloth pressed against his skin and wrapped it with some sort of tape. I guess it makes sense that Remy would have a basic first-aid kit on board.
“Okay,” I nod.
How hard can it be to drive a boat? It’s not like there are a million other boats to worry about in the ocean, unlike driving in the car.
I see his knuckles go white as he grabs ahold of the captain’s chair and fights to keep himself upright. “Go sit down.” I snap at him. He won’t be any help to me in this state, and I don’t need him hovering.
“I can guide you away from the dock.”
“I don’t need you to guide me. I need you to go the fuck away before I change my mind about trying to help you.”
Wes’ lips twitch a little, but the smile doesn’t make it to his face. He turns to hobble away as I take in the gauges and controls on the dash and try to convince myself I’m totally right about this being something I can do.
“Monroe,” Wes calls, just as my fingers close around the wheel.
“What?” I growl, my irritation unmatched as I spin around to see what the hell his problem is.
But it’s not just his problem. It’s my problem, too.
Remy’s running down the dock, his black shirt clinging to him like a second skin as he closes the distance between us. He doesn’t slow down as he rushes at me, though I see the confusion in his eyes when he sees me standing at the wheel. And then understanding seems to grip him, and I see the anger flash across his face.
“Go!” Wes yells, gripping the edge of the boat.
I throw it in reverse, expecting it to peel away from the dock quickly.
It doesn’t.
The motor may as well belong to a kids’ RC car, considering how slow it moves. I know it’s capable of more, given that Remy was able to barrel us through a storm and outrun the onslaught in it.
“Claire!” Wes yells, and I shift the gear to see if that will help. But it’s too late. Remy gets a hand on the side of the boat and launches himself onto the deck before the engine picks up. Wes braces himself for impact, but Remy doesn’t even go for him. He stalks directly toward me, grabs the back of my neck to spin me around, and presses me against the dash. Knobs and levers poke at my back as he grinds me against it with one hand and grabs ahold of the wheel with the other.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He roars, louder than necessary since the engine cuts out in the middle.
“He’s dying.” I say, pointing at Wes. “I’m not just going to let him bleed to death, Remy.”
“I don’t give a fuck about him!” He snaps without taking his eyes off of me.
That blazing inferno of copper and sage in his eyes tells me all I need to know. He’s not just mad—he’s furious. “Well, I do!”
I’m not sure why I say it—it’s not entirely true. The extent of it is pretty much just that I don’t want him to die, but that’s not a good enough reason to tell Remy I care about him. And if I thought Remy was furious before, I don’t know what to call the state he slips into when he repeats the words back to me. “You care about him?” He laughs.
“I don’t want him to bleed to death on your boat, Remy!” I try to reason, but it’s useless. There’s no backing my way out of this. He’s eerily calm, the quirk of his lips more of a disbelieving smirk than a smile.
“Well, I’m glad to know how you truly feel, Claire.” He drops his hand from me like I’m searing his fingertips. “Go.”
“Go?”
“Go sit your ass down. You’re clearly not capable of driving this boat, and I don’t want to die today.”
I don’t even bother being offended since he’s right. I don’t know what I’m doing, and though I can tell he’s pissed about it, this is better than stealing the boat, crashing it, and then explaining what happened. Even if by some miracle I didn’t crash his boat, I’d still be responsible for explaining all the blood splashed around the deck like a damn murder scene.
The life is draining from Wes when I turn to look at him. His skin is ashy, his lips pale and pressed together tightly. I watch him stumble toward the bench seat, one hand out in an attempt to get some balance, the other clutched against his wound like that will keep his insides from falling out.
Remy’s angry stare tingles in the space between my shoulder blades as I cross to Wes with my arms folded. I don’t want to be near him, but I don’t want him to die more than I want to ignore his existence and betrayal. “So cold.” Wes pants when I lean against the bench without getting close to him. I can hear his ragged breaths, and while part of me feels vindicated at his obvious distress, another part of me feels like this is a very hollow victory.
“You’ll be fine,” I say tersely. “You’ll warm up soon.”
“No,” he grits his teeth as the boat rocks into a wave. I don’t know if there are speed limits on the open sea, but if there are, Remy’s probably exceeding it. That tells me he at least cares a little about what happens to Wes, whether it’s for altruistic reasons or otherwise. “You’re cold… frigid like your icy eyes.”
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.
But I already know there’s no such thing as right and wrong. The world doesn’t exist in black and white, as easy as that would be to navigate. I’m not sure how much time passes that way as I stare into the void of my soul. I consider for a moment going out to the hall and seeing if there’s a dog or cat out of the kennels I can pick up, but before I can act on the impulse, the doctor’s muttering pulls me back into the moment.
“What now?” Remy grits out, his jaw clenched. He looks like he’d very much like to punch the doctor. I’m not sure what the extent of their relationship is, but it’s clearly not too deep.
“I can’t do anything else without more blood. Do you know his type?”
“Why would I know that?” Remy shakes his head. “You’ve patched him up. The rest is in fate’s hands. Call me when he wakes up… or doesn’t.” He turns, grabbing me by the shoulder and leading me toward the door.
“Wait!” I shake myself out of his grip and dart toward the doctor. “I’m O negative.”
“Claire.” Remy’s voice is full of warning.
“Can’t you take my blood?”
The doctor blinks at me from behind his wire-framed glasses. “I could, yes.”
“So, do it.”
“No.”
An arm snakes around my waist, hauling me against Remy’s chest. I can feel the tension rolling off of him before I even look up into his face. I step out of his grip just enough to prove the words I’m about to speak. “You don’t get to decide this.”
“You don’t get to risk your life for him!” Remy counters. His eyes are smoldering. If I thought he was mad before, he’s livid now, and it’s equal parts terrifying and exhilarating.
“It’s a blood transfusion, not a kidney transplant.”
“You’re not doing it.” He says the words with an air of finality, grabbing my wrist in one of his hands and making to pull me toward the door again.
“You have no say in what I do with my body.” I snap. “We’ve fucked around a few times, but that’s all we are to each other. You don’t get to say if I give my blood any more than you get to say who I fuck when you decide I’m not worthy of your time.”
For one second, I think he’s going to grab me around the waist and throw me over his shoulder, but the unhinged look in his eyes fades as quickly as it came. “Fine.” He crosses his arms over his chest and turns his hard gaze on the doctor. “Make it quick.”