Chapter 5 — Carina
The first call comes at one-thirty in the morning.
I'm lying in bed awake, have been awake since I got home at eleven, thinking about the kiss and trying to process what I'm feeling. When my phone rings my stomach drops before I even see the name.
"Carina." Roan's voice is tight with controlled fear. "Zoe's missing."
I sit up, heart pounding. "What happened?"
"Marrow took her from the house. We know where. We're going to get her."
"What can I do?"
The question is out before I can think about it, and there's a pause on his end like it caught him off guard.
"Stay safe. I'll call when she's home."
"Bring her back," I tell him.
"I will."
He hangs up and I'm left staring at my phone in the dark.
I can't just lie here and wait. I get up, pull on sweatpants and a t-shirt, grab my medical bag from the hallway closet.
If they're going after Marrow to get her back, someone might get hurt.
I'm in my car in under five minutes, driving to Roan's house because that's where they'll bring her. The drive takes eight minutes.
I park at the curb in front of his house at one-forty-five and sit in my car with the bag on my lap, watching his dark windows and waiting for headlights to appear.
The second call comes at three-thirty-two.
"Carina, it's Tate." His voice is controlled but I can hear the exhaustion underneath. "Zoe's safe, we got her back. Roan took a round to the shoulder during extraction. He's refusing hospital. Can you meet us at his place?"
"I'm already here. In my car out front."
A pause. "You've been there this whole time?"
"Since about two. I'll be ready."
"We're ten minutes out. Through and through, left shoulder. Entry front, exit back. Missed the bone. Bleeding's controlled but needs proper cleaning and assessment."
"I'll be ready," I repeat.
I hang up and get out of my car, medical bag in hand. At three-forty Tate's truck pulls into the driveway and I'm already moving toward the porch.
Tate opens the door as I'm coming up the steps. "Living room."
I follow him inside and see Roan on the couch where Tate and Carina just settled him.
No shirt. Left shoulder wrapped in field bandaging showing blood. Face pale but eyes clear and focused.
Something in my chest cracks open at the sight of him. The blood, the pallor, the evidence written across his skin that he could have died tonight.
My next breath comes in too sharp and I have to force myself to steady before I cross to him.
He's alive. He's here. Focus on that.
"Hey," he says, voice rough.
"Hey." I kneel next to the couch with my bag. "I need better light. Bathroom?"
"Yeah."
I nod, kneeling next to the couch. The bandaging is competent field work but it needs to come off.
"I need better light," I tell Roan. "Bathroom?"
"Yeah."
He stands and I see the effort it takes, how carefully he's holding the arm. Tate moves to help but Roan waves him off. "I've got it."
I follow him down the hallway to a small bathroom, flip on the overhead light. He sits on the edge of the tub and I wash my hands, pull on exam gloves from my bag.
"This is going to hurt," I tell him, kneeling with my supplies on the floor. "The bandaging stuck to the wound."
"Do what you need to do."
I start unwrapping slowly, watching his face. He doesn't flinch, doesn't make a sound, just keeps his eyes on the wall behind me.
The last layer of gauze is stuck with dried blood and I irrigate it loose with saline. He still doesn't react.
When the bandaging comes free I can see both wounds clearly. Entry front, two inches below the collarbone. Exit back, slightly lower. Clean edges, no tearing. No debris I can see.
I irrigate thoroughly, checking for anything missed. The bleeding has mostly stopped, just slow seepage. I apply antibiotic ointment and re-bandage with clean gauze, wrapping it secure but not tight.
When I finish I sit back and look at him properly. He's watching me now instead of the wall.
"How do you feel?"
"Fine."
"Real answer. Lightheaded? Nauseous? Any numbness in your fingers?"
"No. Just hurts."
"It's going to hurt for a while. You watch for infection—increased pain, redness spreading, fever, any discharge that's not clear. If that happens you go to the hospital. I don't care what you want, you go."
"Yeah."
We're close on his bathroom floor, me kneeling between his knees with supplies scattered around us, him shirtless with fresh bandaging stark against his skin.
The adrenaline that's been running through me since Tate called is still sharp and immediate, but underneath it is relief so intense it makes my hands shake now that the work is done.
He could have died tonight.
He didn't.
He's here.
He reaches out and catches my wrist, fingers warm.
"Thank you for coming."
"I wasn't going to not come."
His grip tightens. "You didn't hesitate."
"No." I look at him directly. "I didn't."
The air shifts between us. The bathroom feels smaller, the space charged with everything unspoken.
He was shot getting his daughter back and I treated the wound at four in the morning and my hands stayed steady and I'm still here and none of this feels like too much.
He pulls me closer and I go, moving forward until I'm pressed against him between his knees, my hands bracing on his bare chest around the bandaging.
"I'm going to kiss you," he says, voice rough. "Tell me if you don't want me to."
I don't tell him not to.
His mouth comes down on mine desperate and hungry. This is raw, fueled by adrenaline and fear and relief. His hand slides into my hair and grips hard enough to sting and I gasp into his mouth.
I kiss him back with everything I have, hands sliding up his chest to his shoulders, needing to touch him and confirm he's real and whole and here.
He tastes like copper and something medicinal and I don't care.
I just need more.
He pulls me closer and I shift forward, end up straddling his lap on the tile floor with my knees on either side of his hips.
The position puts us level and I take it, kissing him harder, hands in his hair now while his hand grips my hip tight enough to bruise.
I can feel him hard against me through our clothes and heat floods straight through my body.
I rock against him without thinking and he groans into my mouth, his hand sliding from my hip to grip my ass and pull me tighter.
"Carina—"
I kiss him again, grinding down deliberately this time. His hand tightens in my hair and he shifts under me trying to get leverage and then I feel it. The slight hitch in his breathing, the tension in his left shoulder.
I pull back. "Your shoulder."
"It's fine."
"It's not. I just treated a gunshot wound, you can't—"
He tries to pull me back and winces when the movement pulls the injury. I see it even though he tries to hide it.
"We need to stop." Even though everything in me wants to keep going.
"We don't—"
"Roan." I frame his face with my hands. "You've been shot. You've been up twenty-four hours. You need sleep."
He looks at me and I watch desire war with exhaustion and pain. Finally he nods.
"Yeah. Okay."
I climb off his lap and stand, offer my hand. He takes it and lets me help him up, which tells me how much he's hurting. I gather my supplies while he watches.
"Come on. You need to lie down."
His bedroom is simple and clean. Queen bed, plain sheets, dresser, nothing extra. He sits on the edge and looks up at me.
"Stay."
Not a question, not quite a command. Just what he wants.
"Yeah. I'm staying."
I set my bag down and toe off my shoes. He's already lying back, settling on his right side to keep weight off the injury.
I climb in and curl into his right side, head on his chest, arm draped across his stomach.
His arm comes around me and pulls me closer, hand settling on my hip.
"I was scared," I tell him quietly. "When Tate called."
His hand tightens. "I'm okay."
"You got shot."
"But I'm okay. Zoe's okay. That's what matters."
I press closer, listening to his heartbeat. Steady and strong and alive.
"This is what it looks like," I say. Not a question.
"Yeah." He doesn't apologize or soften it. "This is what it looks like."
I think about that. About the call at three-thirty in the morning. About the blood and the wound and treating it on his bathroom floor. About the fact that my hands stayed steady and I didn't panic and I handled it the same way I handle emergencies at the clinic.
About the fact that he told me exactly what his world involved and then showed me, and I'm still here.
I tilt my head to look at him. He's already watching me.
"Ask me tomorrow," I tell him. "When we've both slept."
"Okay." His hand slides from my hip to the small of my back. "Tomorrow."
I settle against his chest and close my eyes. Outside the sky is starting to lighten, that pre-dawn gray. I'm exhausted bone-deep but I don't want to move.
His breathing evens out first, his body going heavy as sleep takes him. I lie there listening to his heartbeat and feeling the rise and fall of his chest.
I treated a gunshot wound at four in the morning. Kissed him desperate and hungry on his bathroom floor. I'm lying in his bed wrapped around him and it feels right.
Tomorrow I'll have to think about what this means.
Tonight I'm here and he's alive and that's enough.
I close my eyes and let sleep pull me under, safe in the circle of his arm.