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“That’s the only positive thing in this craziness.”
Simona’s gaze suddenly freezes on me. Focusing in on the blood that sprayed all over me. “Oh god, that looks bad,” she says, her voice quivering.
Reaching out with pale fingers, she grips onto my arm and tries to raise her head to look at her injury. Her breath hitches when she sees that my right arm and hand are covered in blood too. A keening comes from her throat.
That sound nearly tears me in half.
I want to stop time. Rewind. Undo the horrible damage the bullet did to her small body. I want to break the fucker in half. Carve him up bit by bit.
Radio chatter breaks in over the comm system. I rip hers off of her ear. She doesn’t need to hear that shit.
The only thing that matters right now is right here. Her and me.
Hoarsely, she says, “That… wasn’t supposed to happen.” A tear leaks from her eye, traces across her cheek, across the small moon shaped birthmark, down into her blonde braid.
With a quivering voice, she says, “I’m angry as hell to admit this, but I’m scared.”
Her skin is cool and damp when I cup her face with my free hand. “It’s okay, Sprite. I’ve got you. Look at me.”
The pale blue of her eyes is filled with a war of fear and resolve. Emotions and pain ghost across her face.
It guts me. I’ve seen a lot of terrible crap. But for some reason, seeing her frightened, in pain, does something visceral to me.
That rattles me too.
I’m no greenhorn at seeing broken bodies.
Leaning down, I get right in her face. Eye to eye. “I’m right here. I won’t leave you. Okay?”
She nods, whispers, “I’ve never been shot.”
“It hurts. I have. I can’t give you anything for pain right now.”
She gasps when we hit a hard bump. After she catches her breath, she says words that change everything. “I’m allergic to opioids. That’s why I didn’t get numbing when you gave me stitches at the clinic.”
My breath locks up hard. This is really bad news. “Fuck, you should have told me to have something else on hand…”
Clenching my jaw, I try to get my head around that royally fucked up announcement. Things just went from bad to nightmarish.
On a hissed breath, through clenched teeth, Simona says, “I didn’t think I was going to get shot. I’ve been shot at plenty. But I didn’t think it would happen.”
My skin bristles with anger. I should have known this. Without knowing, I can’t take proper care of her. “And how long have you been in the business of slinging guns?”
She ignores my question. After a beat, she says, “I’ve got a thing about blood. Especially my own blood.”
Hoping I can make her feel a little more at ease, I say, “Not me. Doesn’t bother me at all.” I compress her arm tighter against the temporary bandage, doing my damndest to cut off the blood flow.
“That’s a lot of blood.”
I’d be scared all to hell if it was me laying on the floorboard gushing blood too. Jesus. All I want to do is hold her tight against me, kiss the hell out of her, and tell her everything is going to be alright.
No way am I going to tell her how fucked up this situation really is. There’s no use scaring her more. “I’ve got you.” I repeat as I stick her slender forearm with the IV from my pack. “This is what I do. I’ve saved hundreds of people from bullet wounds.”
She nods as her chest rises and falls in shaky bursts. Her face is tight with pain.
“Can you use a tourniquet?”
“Too high for a tourniquet, but I know what to do.”
