Chapter 54 #2
I snap on a pair of disposable gloves and help as he rolls Deena so I can check her back for injuries. Her back is a tapestry of bruises and contusions, while a couple of slashes stripe down over her shoulders. She was running from her attacker when those happened.
“Okay. Nothing too bad there. The front is worse.”
Both Kade and I stand up straighter as the sounds of Aleksei yelling come then go as he races after someone. He’s furious. He’s also a very competent badass Alpha, so neither Kade nor I make a move to help.
Without doubt, I consider myself equally badass, but I fight against death with my medical kit as my arsenal.
Kade races off to wash his hands, even without me telling him. But that’s Kade—always reading the scene and knowing how to respond.
He reappears as I’m checking her vitals.
“Use anything sterile to clean the lacerations on her chest.” I don’t stop what I’m doing.
He works next to me quietly, and I rejoin him after checking that Deena’s vitals are stable and double-checking the rest of her body.
“It’s hard to know the extent without x-rays.”
Kade doesn’t reply and that's fine; I’m not looking for conversation. I’m thinking out loud.
I grab another sheet out of the linen cupboard, giving Deena as much modesty as I can.
And then, with a small prayer, I examine her for sexual assault.
Just because she was dressed doesn’t mean anything.
The tops of her thighs show proof someone tried to grab her, but thankfully, it’s easy to see she managed to avoid the physical trauma.
I’ll be close by, ready to help her get over the emotional gamut of the attack.
The kit is stocked with drugs I chose intentionally because Deena, Marco, and I don’t have any allergies to these. Grabbing a sedative and a broad-spectrum antibiotic, I load up a syringe, then put them to the side to focus on getting an IV set up.
“Kade, in the back room is an IV stand.”
He goes in search of it and rejoins us as I finish clearing the line. After he pulls the stand to full height, he takes the bag and hangs it up, making sure the lines aren’t tangled.
Deena starts coming to just as I finish administering my first lot of medication. I follow it up with a healthy dose of pain medication.
“Hey,” I say softly, leaning down to talk with her.
Her fear scents the air as much as the coppery tang of her blood. “Marco?”
“We’re finding him. Who was it?”
Fire ignites in her eyes. “Pedro and two, maybe three others. Victor might be here too. Be careful.”
“We will get them, and find Marco. Victor is for tomorrow.” I stroke her face, hoping my touch conveys everything I’m feeling.
As soon as the medication hits, her anxiety and pain fades. Deena is mostly conscious, but her words are slurred and her eyes are glassy. “Marco?” she asks again.
She’s losing track of time, and I move Kade up towards her while I suture the deepest gashes and superglue the more superficial ones.
If there was more than one trained doctor or even a nurse, we could have treated her arm while tending to her other injuries. The judgment I made to treat the knife wounds first is still the right one.
Leaving Kade with Deena, I go to the room I have stacked with medical equipment and supplies.
With Marco, I discovered my maternal instincts made me a bear when it came to his welfare.
It doesn’t matter that I’m not his mother.
I walk back to them, reading the instructions on the splint box, comparing it to the air splint I also have.
I leave the air splint on the counter. I can always use it on the flight back to the city.
The fracture isn’t compound, nor is it in a horrible position. It would be very painful, but it’s probably the best kind of break you could hope for. Poor Deena groans a couple of times when Kade and I set her arm in position, but she doesn’t wake up.
Kade and I start to clean up, but he snatches me as I’m passing, dragging me into one of his cuddles. It’s quick, but his touch packs a wallop, reenergizing me.
“If she’s settled, I’ll got out and see what I can do there.”
I nod against his chest, inhaling more of his steadying cinnamon scent. “Marco knows to hide.”
We freeze at the sound of a sharp whistle. We hear the whistle a second time, and we move to the front door. It’s wide open, exactly how I first saw it. Roshka emerges from the trees.
“Grab your kit and go with him.” Kade pulls away and beats me back to where I had my bag sitting, all packed and ready to go for this very situation.
I stay clinically minded, not letting my emotions take over. I don’t know what I’m walking into as Roshka starts shepherding me to where I need to be.
I pass by Aleksei, who is tying up two men. They’re not people I’ve seen before. “Another one should be here. Pedro. He’s an asshole.”
“Santiago is tracking him down, maya. Nalla is through the trees. You’re safe with the dogs, and I’m literally right behind you. We can’t find Marco, but there are signs he was here.”
“Okay,” I say, walking past him as he continues restraining them. “I should have grabbed something of Marco’s for the dogs.”
“I’ll call Kade,” he says, pulling his phone from his pocket.
Aleksei’s voice is drowned out by the racing beat of my heart. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I press on the flashlight, and the soft glow isn’t strong enough for the pitch-black of the forest. But it will do.
At the hideout, I see the signs Aleksei was talking about.
The door is ajar but the space isn’t wide enough for someone to fit through.
It’s like Marco changed his mind before he got inside.
I squat near the scuff marks in the leaf litter.
They’re small, and around them, the earth remains undisturbed.
There’s no indication of a struggle, and while there’s a possibility he was plucked off his feet, there’d be evidence of that.
Dropping to my knees, I search around the leaf litter, trying to find the rocks we put out here. I find one near the back, and as soon as it’s free, I’m banging it against the hard wood of the wall in the beat Marco, Deena, and I made ours.
Bang, bang, bang, echoes through the night. He won’t hear that, but I hope he picks up on the vibration. We’d tested how far it was until he couldn’t feel the thudding, and it was far enough he had a dozen places to hide.
I keep banging on the side of the hideout until Aleksei squats behind me and takes over.
“Nalla and Roshka have his scent. We sit and wait,” he says. He’s so close, his breath hits the back of my neck, and I lean into his support.
The dogs don’t need any instruction as they start moving slowly away from each other, their noses pressed to the ground. Aleksei shuffles around, then crosses his legs, giving me somewhere to sit.
He hits the rock, following the same pattern before stopping. “Is your friend okay?”
“I think so. They beat her up pretty badly when they caught her.”
“Only weak men beat up women.” He tsks before banging again. “Being brave, and a little silly, must run in the family, huh?”
I know he’s teasing, and it’s exactly what I need. The alternate is me getting lost in the fear Marco must be feeling all by himself.
“I will teach him not to be… so much like you, wife.” He chuckles.
I twist around, ready to defend myself, when one of the dogs starts barking. I barely have time to register the sound before Aleksei is lifting me off his lap, then pulling me along as he races through the undergrowth toward the sound.
I stumble blindly, and honestly, it’s lucky Aleksei is leading the way because when the dog barks again, it sounds like we’ve gone the wrong direction.
Rounding a clump of trees, we find Nalla. Only half her body is visible, the rest pushed into thick shrubs. Roshka is standing in the opposite direction, barking. He stops when he sees us.
The silence that follows is heavy, but before it grows ominous, I hear a sound I’ve been hoping to hear since I arrived.
Marco makes another noise. And I know it’s his by the unique, nasally sound.
“Nalla,” I bark out as I crawl through the thickets, trying to push her out of the way.
But she found him and won’t budge an inch. I also want to hug the shit out of the ornery beast. Marco is in a small ball, his head protected by his arms. I tap his shoulder, and he jumps a mile.
And then I drag his body into my arms and burst into tears.