Page 51 of Obey

And then I heard him exhale.

I froze, barely able to believe it and terrified that if I moved, things might change. And I listened closely, my breath caught in my throat.

He took a shallow breath in. And that was enough for me.

“He’s alive,” I gasped. I sat up and looked desperately around for someone else. “He’s alive!” I screamed. “Mandy, Gemini, he’s alive! He’s breathing!”

Within moments, they appeared at my sides and dropped to their knees, their hands gently feeling Knight’s skin. Moving to his throat to feel for a pulse and hovering in front of his mouth to search for breath.

I watched, caught in place as I waited for them to confirm what I’d just heard. Had I been imagining it? I didn’t think so, but I didn’t know for certain. I could have just been so hopeful that I’d made it up to support what I wanted to happen.

The moment stretched out for a year, and then an entire decade.

And then he breathed out again, this time accompanied by a moan.

“He’s alive,” Gemini confirmed, his tone all business. He rocked back on his heels and shouted for Frank and Remy.

I looked up, surprised to see those two emerging from the clubhouse and looking like they’d been back there playing cards or something. They were unharmed and cleaner than anyone else around us.

What had they been doing, hiding out just in case we needed someone clean after the whole battle? Or doing something I couldn’t even understand?

Something that Knight had no doubt told them to do.

I looked back down at him, trying to keep my emotions in check as I categorized all the things wrong. His skin was red and blistered across his arms and hands, and very little was left of the jeans he’d been wearing. Underneath the strips of fabric, his skin was red and angry, though not blistered.

His face was somehow completely untouched.

I couldn’t understand that, but my best guess was that he’d somehow managed to be far enough away from the blast that it didn’t completely incinerate him. This wasn’t the direction he’d been running in, but there was no telling what the blast had done when it reached him. Somehow picked him up and threw him to the side rather than forward.

It didn’t make any sense whatsoever, but he was alive and looked mostly whole, and that was going to be enough for me for the moment.

One of his legs was definitely broken, and an arm as well. Given how he was laying, I was guessing he’d also broken a collarbone or dislocated his shoulder.

His head... was cradled on the cushion of a bike that may as well have given up its life to control how he fell. It was the most bizarre and wonderful thing I’d ever seen. If he was lucky, he would have come through this without any skull fracture or concussion.

I didn’t think about internal bleeding or irreparable damage to any of his internal organs. I couldn’t bear the thought of it.

It was too wonderful to see him still alive to allow for the thought that he might have more damage than he could overcome.

“I can’t believe he survived that,” Remy said, dropping to his knees next to his friend. He put a gentle hand on his forehead and then looked up at me. “We’re going to have to move him, though. We can’t leave him here. The cops are going to be here any second.”

At his words, my brain came back together and I started moving forward again. “Of course we can’t leave him here. He needs a hospital, immediately. How are we going to get him there?”

Remy nodded. “Right. We have cars in the back. I’ll have someone bring one around.”

He shouted for someone to bring one of the cars and then turned back to Knight, looking up and down his big body as he took stock of the damage.

“No way to stabilize him before we move him,” he noted. “He’s fucking lucky he’s unconscious right now.”

“What if his neck is broken?” I asked, trying to move through all the problems we were facing. “If we move him, we could paralyze him.”

Remy gave me a look that said we didn’t have a choice. “And if we don’t move him, he’ll die.”

Right. That was definitely true.

I made a promise to myself that I’d love Knight no matter what, and if he ended up paralyzed, at least he’d still be alive.

The car pulled up behind us then, a beat-up sedan, and we started moving, all of us working together to straighten Knight out as much as we could, without touching the broken limbs, and get him ready to move into the car. He looked even worse once he was laid out flat and I stifled a sob at the sight of him.