Chapter 1 #2
It isn’t a plea or panic, but authority stripped raw and still intact, an order even now, even like this.
My hand pauses mid-reach, hovering over his wound.
I meet his eyes again, searching for signs of confusion or shock-induced delirium.
But there's nothing unfocused about his gaze.
He knows exactly what he's asking. “You're badly hurt,” I respond, keeping my tone clinical.
“You need an ambulance. I need to call—”
His eyes don’t leave my face, and there's resolve there, even through the pain. “No police.”
An unwelcome shiver slides down my spine. I swallow it back, forcing myself to stay present. “I'm calling for help,” I counter, already unlocking my phone. The screen lights up my face, too bright in the darkness. “We can figure out the rest after—”
His hand shoots out and clamps around my wrist. The contact jolts through me, my body reacting before my thoughts catch up.
His grip is warm, slick with blood, his strength flaring despite the way his body shakes.
I can feel his pulse through his fingertips, frantic and uneven.
I meet his eyes again, my pulse loud in my ears, the rest of the world falling away.
“Don't,” he urges, his breath stuttering between the words. His jaw tightens, muscles standing out in his neck, and veins visible beneath his pale skin. “Pozhaluysta.” Please.
I look down at our hands, at the blood smearing across my skin, warm and sticky.
At the way his fingers tremble despite their hold, the tremor working its way up his arm.
He’s fading, and I recognize the signs immediately, skin cooling, breath uneven, that hollow look edging into his eyes as his lids start to droop. Minutes. Maybe less.
I make a choice.
“Alright,” I murmur, sliding my phone into my pocket. The screen goes dark, leaving us in shadow. “But you listen to me.”
His grip loosens, his fingers slipping from my wrist, leaving streaks of blood across my coat sleeve.
I shrug out of my scarf, the wool catching on my hair before I yank it free, and press it firmly against his side, right where his hand had been.
The fabric turns dark immediately, soaking through.
He hisses through clenched teeth, his head tipping back against the wall, exposing the line of his throat.
I can see his pulse jumping there, too fast and frantic.
“I need pressure,” I explain, leaning in, bracing my weight over my hands. My palms sink into the wool and the wound beneath. “Deep breaths. In through your nose.”
I shift closer, bracing my knee against his hip and guiding his legs in slightly, keeping him from stretching out flat. I press the scarf deeper into the wound, not just over it, packing and holding, my hands slick with blood.
“Stay with me,” I urge, my voice firm, the tone I use when a patient is slipping. “Look at me.”
His eyes lift back to my face, clearer now. Sweat beads along his temples, his dark hair clinging to his skin in damp strands. A muscle jumps in his jaw, his mouth tightening as he swallows back another sound.
He studies me like he’s committing details to memory, the line of my mouth, the crease between my brows, my eyes, the intensity of it unsettling me even now.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he rasps.
I release a short breath, something close to a laugh but stripped of humor. “I could return the sentiment.”
His fingers drag against the concrete, tendons standing out, nails rasping over rough stone as another wave of pain hits. I lean in, blocking the wind with my body and maintaining constant pressure.
My pulse races, but my thoughts stay clear. I catalogue the damage the way I would in the trauma bay. Deep abdominal wound. Internal bleeding is likely. Blood loss is significant. Pulse thinning beneath my fingers. Skin is cold and slick. Time is collapsing fast.
“Tell me where it hurts,” I instruct, needing him to talk and stay present.
“Everywhere,” he mutters.
“That works,” I reply quietly. “Keep breathing.”
Another twitch at his mouth, faint and fleeting. His eyes never leave me, even as his lids grow heavier.
Somewhere beyond the alley, an engine turns over. The sound is distant but distinct, a low rumble that rolls through the cold air.
I feel it more than hear it. A vibration through the concrete, and through his body beneath my hands. His eyes drift past me, awareness tightening in his features, his breath pulling shorter. His entire body tenses, his muscles locking.
“Listen to me,” he urges, fingers brushing my sleeve, leaving another dark smear. “You need to go.”
My heart stumbles, skipping a beat before resuming its frantic pace. “I'm not leaving you.”
Another engine answers the first, closer now. Tires crunch over gravel, the sound too purposeful to ignore. He swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing. His eyes return to mine with urgency burning through the pain, overriding it.
“Please,” he repeats, and the word is raw, scraped from somewhere deeper than his wound.
The word hangs between us, thin and urgent.
And for the first time since I knelt beside him, my focus fractures, fear cutting in cold as headlights sweep across the far end of the alley.
My pulse surges, loud enough that I'm sure he feels it through my hands, even through the pressure I'm maintaining on his wound.
His fingers curl against my sleeve again, weaker this time, his grip slipping instead of locking. “You have to leave,” he urges, his breath dragging, each word an effort. His accent thickens, the edges roughened by pain and desperation. “Now.”
“I'm not finished,” I counter, my voice shaking despite my effort to keep it even. My hands tremble against the scarf, the wool heavy with blood. “You'll bleed out if I—”
Another engine draws closer, low and heavy, the vibration traveling through the ground beneath my knees.
A third follows, then a fourth. Doors slam somewhere beyond the light.
Voices rise, clipped and unfamiliar, the cadence unmistakably Russian.
My stomach twists, cold dread pooling there.
I've heard the language before, in passing, but never like this. Never laced with command and danger.
I press harder against his wound, trying to ignore the tremor working its way up my arms, and the way my breath comes faster now, shallow and panicked.
Blood has soaked through the scarf entirely, soaking the wool until it sags between my hands.
He groans, his head tipping back, and his teeth gritting hard enough that I hear them scrape.
The cords in his neck stand out, and his jaw locks.
“Look at me,” I demand, leaning closer, my knee sliding on the damp concrete. The cold seeps through my scrubs, biting at my skin. “Stay with me. Breathe.”
His eyes find mine again, the pupils blown wide, dark and intense even as his lashes flutter. His chest lifts in an unsteady inhale, then another. He follows my cadence like a tether, like I'm the only thing keeping him alive.
“In,” I coach quietly, my voice low and close. “Out.”
The alley changes all at once. Footsteps hit the concrete, fast and closing in, shadows peeling away from the headlights and stretching toward us. I see them clearly now, dark shapes moving into position, spreading out until the space tightens and there’s nowhere left to go.
He exhales, a sound torn loose from his chest, rough and pained. “They're here.”
“Who?” I whisper, the word trembling on my lips.
His mouth opens, then closes again. Whatever he was going to say was lost. Instead, his eyes fix on my face, intent and unsettling in their clarity.
“Listen to me,” he continues, urgency threading through the pain that's dragging him under. “If they see you here—”
A shout cuts him off, loud and unfamiliar, then another.
The words come fast and clipped, bouncing off the brick as footsteps close in.
Movement appears at the edge of my vision as figures step out of the light, spreading across the mouth of the alley and cutting off the direct path back the way I came.
My chest tightens, my ribs squeezing around my lungs. Blocked.
His fingers curl into the fabric of my coat, panic breaking through his eyes now, raw and unfiltered. Whatever control he’d been holding fractures.
“Go,” he demands again, his voice tearing through blood and strain. “Now.”
I shake my head, stubbornness flaring even as fear crawls up my spine, lighting every nerve. “I’m not—”
A figure steps into the light, tall and broad, dressed in black from head to toe. His face is hard, all angles and shadow, his eyes sweeping the alley with quick, assessing focus. Another follows, then another, their attention locking immediately on the man bleeding out.
One of them issues a short, urgent command. Two move toward him at once.
No one looks at me yet, and in that narrow space of time, I make the decision. I shove my scarf deeper into his wound, pressing down with everything I have. He cries out, his body tensing, back arching away from the wall, the sound ripped from deep in his chest. It slices through me.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, leaning close so only he can hear, my voice wavering despite my effort to keep it even. “I’m so sorry.”
His hand tightens around my wrist one last time, the grip already weakening, fingers slick with blood and sweat, and his eyes hold mine, dark and intent despite the pain, carrying recognition, gratitude, and fear all at once. Not for himself, for me. Then he lets go.
I rise quickly, my heart hammering, and back away, keeping low, my eyes locked on him until the shadows swallow me. I turn and run.
My boots pound against the concrete, the sound swallowed by the shouts behind me.
My breath comes fast and burning, tearing at my throat as I run.
I cut behind a stack of pallets along the mill wall, the rough wood scraping my palms, then force myself through a narrow gap between the buildings.
Brick presses in on both sides, catching my shoulders, my bag snagging on a nail.
I wrench it free without stopping. The cold air hits my face hard, stinging my eyes and cheeks.
I keep moving until the noise behind me dulls, the voices stretching into distant echoes.
I press myself against a brick wall, my chest heaving, and my hands shaking violently now that there's nothing left to hold together. Blood stains my fingers, my sleeves, and the front of my coat. My scarf is gone, left behind with him, soaked through and useless.
Engines surge again, closer this time, then pull away, tires shrieking as the vehicles move off. The sound thins into the night. I risk a look back through the gap between the buildings.
Men are already on their knees beside him.
Their movements are fast and sure, hands going where they need to without hesitation.
One issues orders in Russian, the words cutting through the cold.
Another presses a cloth to the wound where my scarf had been, holding pressure and keeping his breathing steady.
They lift him with a reverence that surprises me, supporting him as they move toward the vehicles, urgency in every motion. Whoever he is, he matters.
Reverence.
That's the word that lodges in my chest as I watch them surround him, shielding his body as they load him into the back of a dark SUV. Not panic or fear. Reverence. Like losing him would mean losing everything.
The doors slam shut. Engines rev, loud in the sudden quiet, then the vehicles pull away, exhaust hanging in the air as taillights vanish around the corner. The alley empties as quickly as it filled.
The quiet that follows is abrupt.
I lean back against the wall, legs giving way, and slide down until I’m sitting on the cold concrete. My knees draw in without thinking, arms folding around my middle as my breath turns shallow and uneven. Each exhale fogs the air in front of me, brief and visible, then gone.
I look down at my hands and have to blink once before they make sense. They don’t look like mine. Blood coats my palms, dried in some places, sticky in others. My pulse beats hard beneath the skin, proof that I’m still here. Still breathing.
I wipe my hands against my coat out of reflex, then stop. The fabric is already darkened, the mark unmistakable. I let out a short, empty sound that might have been a laugh if there were anything funny about it.
I force myself to my feet and start toward the hospital lights at the end of the path. My legs feel unsteady, but they work. I focus on that. One step, then another. The distance feels longer than it should, the world slightly off balance, as if everything is tilted a few degrees to the left.
By the time I reach my car in the overflow lot, the shaking has eased, replaced by a dull numbness that spreads through my arms and legs. I unlock the door, climb in, and start the engine. It turns over immediately. The sound's normalcy almost undoes me.
I rest my forehead against the steering wheel and close my eyes, and his face surfaces without invitation, the line of his jaw, the intensity of his gaze, as if he needed to memorize my face.
“Get it together,” I murmur, the words automatic and familiar. It’s a phrase I’ve leaned on more times than I can count.
This time, it doesn’t help. Not even close.