Chapter 29 #2
“Sorry,” she muttered, grumbling, before crouching next to Esme and tucking her fingers under the gauze at her neck to feel her pulse. “We need to get her back. Now.”
That much I fucking knew.
A loud, pained cry broke through the woods and Sky came barreling out of nowhere, skidding to a stop a few yards away and breathing hard. For a second, it was like we spoke the same language. I could hear him crying out for Esme, wailing into the woods at the sight of her covered in blood.
I understood him more deeply than ever before.
Shadow was hovering behind him and it struck me what she’d had to go through when I’d been like this.
At that image, a near-supernatural strength surged in my chest, even with my own injuries and exhaustion. I lifted Esme in my arms, heading right for Sky.
I’d never ridden him before, but we both knew that he needed to be the one to carry her back. He didn’t put up a fight—even helped—when I climbed onto his back with Esme in tow.
“Keep her on the saddle,” Soren said, coming up next to us and throwing Sky’s reins around Esme’s lifeless form.
“Take it from personal experience, you’ll only hurt yourself trying to keep her off it.
Bellamy’s leg was injured so I had no choice, but with Esme’s neck, you’ll be better off getting back faster. ”
It was a miracle I even understood him. My mind felt like it was breaking under the weight of my panic.
Distantly, behind the Bond’s wordless screams of anguish, I thought that this might be the beginning of the end. The start of the madness that would end up draining my life force and sending me to death right after Esme.
As if Sky could read my thoughts, he took off at a full sprint. Shadow followed, whining in concern but keeping up a rough pace.
I understood why Soren had nearly died himself bringing Bellamy back.
I knew, practically, that I was severely injured. I’d probably strained a few muscles and dislocated my shoulder. I’d clearly suffered a beating at the hands of Elijah’s goons while I’d been out. Who knew the lasting effects of the tranquilizer.
Still, I felt like I could scale a mountain. Only if Esme was at the top, begging me to come to her. I wouldn’t know when to stop, when my body was pushed past the brink in its relentless efforts to get to her.
An hour ride—maybe more—passed in a blink. The only reason I had any conception of time was that Soren kept catching up with me on Lucky’s back, shouting something at me over the wind. Probably asking if I was still present in this world.
Knowing him, he made himself wait ten minutes or so in between check-ins. He’d done it seven times, the last one in a particularly strained voice that made me think that my mental state had started to bleed through into my physical appearance.
The entire ride, all sixty-some-odd painful minutes of it, I kept one hand curled around Esme’s wrist. Her pulse, though weak and thready, was the only thing keeping me sane.
Important to note, seeing as the exact minute our camp came into view, her pulse slowed to a stop.
I’d never imagined that a psychotic break would present as a total black out, but the next thing I consciously understood was Soren punching me square across the jaw.
I was standing now, in the hospital wing. Esme was across the room, laying on a stretcher with someone rolling her away from me.
Soren punched me again, drawing out a string of creatively worded expletives.
“Well, I wouldn’t have to be such a motherfucker if you would stop yelling at people,” Soren barked me, making me realize that my throat was, in fact, hoarse.
“Is she…” I couldn’t bring myself to finish that sentence. In addition to the hoarse voice, I also realized there was water—tears—dripping down my face.
“She’s stable,” Soren said, voice low. Maybe it was my mind playing tricks on me, but I imagined there was a for now that he kept quiet.
“Why isn’t she—” Damnit, my throat was closing up, choking the life out of the words. My body knew what I was trying to ask, what I was trying to say, and it just wouldn’t let me.
Soren, bless his stupid shaved head, knew what I was trying to ask.
“I don’t know why she’s not healing faster,” he said, speaking very carefully as if he was scared his words had the power to slice my skin. It sure felt like they did. “Can you try to tell me what happened? When, I mean.”
I breathed in, fighting against an assault of memories of Elijah with a knife at Esme’s throat. “Elijah just walked up behind her and…”
I couldn’t get it out. Probably never would.
Soren nodded, as if I’d said something crystal clear instead of trailing off with a broken sob. “The Bond kicks in when you get injured protecting your paranima. You heal faster, generally. It’s probably the only reason she’s—”
He was damn lucky he cut himself off when he did. If he’d finished that sentence, he might have ended up with my gun to his temple.
“If Elijah hurt her while she was tied up, it might not have been enough to trigger the advanced speed of healing.”
He was likely right, but I wasn’t in the headspace to process logic right now. Not when Esme was lying on a table while people sewed up her throat.
My spirit crumbled, then my body followed and my knees hit the floor. “I don’t know how you got through this.”
Soren laughed, completely void of humor. “I was knocked out for most of it. Esme was like this when she had to do this for you. I can give you some drugs if that would help.”
“What would help is letting me into surgery with her.”
“So you can ask the doctors what they’re doing every two seconds?” Soren scoffed right in my face. “Hell no.”
He realized that I was planning on running him over at the last possible second, tackling me to the floor. “I was going to say,” he said, right as I put him in a headlock. “That I can take you to a viewing room.”
I had to wait a full minute for Soren to stop coughing, then grabbed the back of my head in pain when he slapped me upside the head in retribution. “Now that I have your attention,” he said, “I will take you there after you let a doctor look over you and take a shower.”
He cut me off before I could protest. He was lucky I wasn’t letting the Bond’s take on this matter out, or he’d think the earlier string of insults was a poem. “You really, really do not want to see the early stages of that surgery, trust me. You’ll never get the image out of your head.”
An idea sprouted. “You…”
Soren gagged, his face going a little ashen. “I saw your entire eyeball before they stitched you back together, man. Not a good look. Let them get started on Esme and make sure you’re in a good place so that she has someone healthy to wake up to.”
I clapped my hands over his back in a tight hug, tears sprouting again. The Bond fled, finally realizing that we were out of immediate danger, and all that it left behind was full body relief that we were okay—for now.
“It’s going to be okay,” Soren said, patiently waiting until I could get myself together and stop the tears from actively flowing. When I finally stepped away, his own eyes were a little bloodshot. “Come on. Let’s see if we can find a doctor still willing to treat you after all that yelling.”