Playing God (Helford #2)

(38) Love

“Did we hear gunshots?” Meade demanded softly as we waited to hear if Shawn would follow us, but we all knew that he wouldn’t.

Jonathon nodded, then wasn’t sure if we could see him, so he said, “Talbot. He missed.”

“Talbot doesn’t miss on accident,” Meade said, looking disturbed.

And then Valerie cried out, in horror, “Caitie.”

“It’s okay,” I whispered.

It was immediate—everyone knew something was wrong. My voice shook and came out uneven, and I was breathing too heavily, even for having run so many miles in a short amount of time. Meade and Jonathon looked to me, and Meade moved the lighter closer in my direction. Their eyes went from the paleness in my face and down, down to where my shaking hands were covered in blood—where Shawn’s dagger had buried itself in my abdomen.

“It’s fine,” I tried to tell them, my voice shaking so hard that my teeth crashed together, chattering like they were cold. I tried to breathe but I couldn’t without causing myself pain so I let out a pathetic whimper, and the blood loss was starting to hit me, so I wobbled on my feet. Jonathon leaped forward and caught me as I started leaning helplessly to the right, my eyes trying to roll back into my skull but I kept blinking, trying my hardest to keep myself awake. Jonathon’s hands were unmoving but gentle as he pulled my side against him, supporting most of my weight. He stared down at me, horrified, and I knew what he was seeing—Parker’s death, and mine, only minutes apart.

The horrors of war.

“Caitie?” he called out, shaking me slightly when I didn’t respond. I blinked, forcing myself above the haze, attempting to come to my senses. “Caitie? Oh, god, Caitie, what do we do?”

Meade reached a hand up to cover his mouth, the hand shaking. He took a deep breath, his shaking hand dropping back to his side to curl into a fist. “We need to get her to a closed clinic or somewhere else where we can stitch her up,” Meade announced, taking my place in the chain of command, the only way I would have ever wanted it. He sent a worried look to me and then glanced to a shell-shocked Valerie, who was still staring at the hilt of the blade, the only part of the dagger to be seen. Meade clapped her hands loudly in front of her face, causing her to jump, before he grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him. “Val, do you know of a place around here that would have medical supplies?”

“Not anywhere that would be empty,” she whispered uneasily, looking ready to collapse. She didn’t look away from Meade—I had a feeling she would fall apart if she looked my way one more time. Meade’s face grew frustrated.

“Think of something,” he growled, his voice sounding like it was seconds from breaking. I looked up at him, startled to hear him use that tone of voice, but it seemed to snap Valerie a little bit more into reality. She shook her head, shaking his hands off of her, and she took a deep breath, closing her eyes, picturing lines of a Parisian map in her head.

“Craft shop,” I prompted, still breathing in staggered amounts, barely able to keep my head up long enough to blearily gaze around at them, my eyes too focused on controlling the external flow of my bodily fluids. “Needles. String.”

“That’s not going to last long,” Jonathon argued.

“It’ll last long enough to get somewhere better,” Valerie said, looking back at Meade. “I know a craft shop. There’s a yarn and knitting shop several city blocks from here in a commercial neighborhood, so less civilians. We can hole up there for long enough to sew her up, and then get her somewhere safer.”

“Too late,” I tried to tell them, but they weren’t listening to me. I gasped in a breath to whisper sharply, “Geronimo.”

“Jonathon,” Valerie said, half-turning to us in a way that she talked in our direction, but couldn’t see her sister slumped over, bleeding, trying to think clearly through the pain in my stomach. I had never suffered a wound where the weapon remained lodged into my skin—I had been stabbed, but the knife had always been jerked out during the time of adrenaline, and I had never been stabbed somewhere so vital. Valerie cleared her throat, like she was thinking something similar to what I was. “Hold her up. It’s not far, but I don’t think she can walk on her own.”