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When his face lifted, she realized she’d been drawing him all wrong again. There was no emotion in those light green eyes of his. Not even the pain he must have been feeling, given the way he clutched at himself with a hand smeared in blood. He was wearing black again, but the wetness at his stomach had to be blood.
His eyes squeezed shut. The tightness in his jaw screamed his pain.
“Can you make it inside?” Alina asked, still too afraid to touch him. If she touched him, he might run again.
“Not… staying.” The words held a rattle as he forced them out. His body hunched inward as he held out a key in his gloved hand.
His hand had smeared it red. Alina lifted her eyes from the key to him. His body swayed where he stood.
“Don’t be an idiot,” she said, her voice thick as she turned toward the door. “At least patch yourself up first. I promise not to touch you.”
A choked sound followed, and her shoulders hunched under the brokenness of it.
“I know. My promise isn’t worth much. But—”
He fell into her, making her stumble. She whirled, clutching at his body despite her promise only moments before, trying to ease his progress to the porch floor. “Oh God, Luka!” His face was slack. He’d passed out standing up. The way she clutched at him had ridden his shirt up, and the bandage wrapped around his stomach was soaked through.
Fear filled her with an icy coldness. He’d lost a lot of blood. In the morning light, there was a clammy feeling to his pale face.
She ignored her promise to not touch him. All of her strength focused on dragging him inside. Luka usually moved so nimbly, as if nothing could catch him, but this was the second time he’d arrived at the safe house injured. Alina wanted to ask who could hurt someone like him.
Asking would be pointless. Luka rarely spoke. With his sever injuries, he wouldn’t hear her anyway. He might not even wake up.
The supplies were in the bedroom. Her arms shook as she managed to pull him that far, but she wouldn’t be able to wrestle him onto the bed. The attempt might do more harm than good. She left him on the carpet instead, rushing into the bathroom and gathering the supplies in a sweeping grab for everything.
She let it all drop around him as she fell to her knees beside where he lay. His breathing was harsh in the stillness. She shoved up his shirt.
The bandage covered him from hip to hip and up almost to his chest. There was a slightly sour smell along with the coppery one. It really was soaked through. The adhesive around the edges was as soaked as the bandage itself, barely holding it in place. Alina’s hand shook as her nails pulled up the last of it so she could move the bandage aside.
Luka’s stomach had been slit open. Her throat tightened around the urge to gag. She began to panic that the bandage had been all that was holding his guts inside. There was too much blood.
“No!” The word was more of a choked sound as panic gripped her. Her hands went for Luka’s still, thin face. She patted at him desperately, needing him to open his eyes. “Luka, this is too much.” Her head fell to his chest as she tried not to cry. The heartbeat there was so slow and light, as if it would fade away. “I don’t know what to do.”
The door to the bedroom swung open. Alina lifted her head, the last of her hope dying. Someone had come. She was too numb to feel fear.
A blond man with dark blue eyes stood in the doorway. His eyes narrowed on Luka’s wound, and his nostrils flared as something glittered in his gaze.
Alina’s head lifted from the heartbeat she was still worried would soon stop. She clutched at the fabric bunched around Luka’s chest.
“Enzo, help me get him to the bed,” the blond man said, and another man approached her.
Alina scrambled back from Luka, forcing her instinct to snarl in protest down deep. If they wanted to move him to the bed, that meant they wanted to help. He’d bleed out just as well from the ground.
It hurt to watch the two men grip him. “He doesn’t like to be touched.” Her words were too soft to reach them.
The blond man grunted with effort. Luka was slight, but so was this man. He stared down at Luka when it was done, and there was a flash of pain in his eyes. He lifted a phone, his words clipped as he spoke into it. “How far out is the doctor?”
The man called Enzo crouched among the supplies, lifting the towel she’d snagged and folding it. He pressed it hard against the wound with one hand, motioning her over with the other. “You want to help, come help, doll.”
Alina didn’t trust either man, but she wanted to be at Luka’s side. Even limp and hurting, he’d held out his hand toward her again. She remembered how patient he’d been each time he’d done that.
The wound on his stomach where the towel didn’t cover was difficult to look at, much less touch. “I don’t know what to do,” she admitted. It was pointless to pretend differently. They’d likely heard her say as much to Luka before. They’d been the only ones to hear her.
“Not much to do.” Enzo’s attempt to staunch the blood only soaked through the towel. “Here, hold this down.”
Her hands replaced his. The blond man listened to his phone as he watched her closely. His gaze was so different from Luka’s, which had often brushed past as if it couldn’t land on her.
Enzo moved to the pile of supplies she’d left scattered on the floor, his hand closing over the roll of adhesive. “Here, lift,” he said as he returned.
