He knows it’s the wrong thing to say as soon as the words escape him, can see the way they make Frisch’s head jerk up and his eyes narrow as he seems to truly look at Josiah for the first time.
“You. I remember you. You’re the one who wouldn’t let me have him back. You took him from me!”
There’s anger in his voice now, a biting sort of rage that makes his eyes flash even through the glass, the type that sets Josiah’s hair on end.
“Yes, it was me. I took him; Rafe didn’t go on his own. So don’t blame him, blame me. Let me in and we’ll deal with this between us. There’s no reason for you to hurt him anymore.”
“But he’s so pretty when he bleeds.”
Even as he watches Frisch grins at him, a baring of teeth more than anything else, and cuts into Rafe again.
Rafe screams, a high-pitched sound that shatters something in Josiah’s mind, sends him careening forward to slam himself against the glass door that’s keeping them apart. He slams himself against it again and again, ignoring the way his shoulders throb with the effort.
“Stop it! Stop it, stop it, stop it! I can’t think when you’re doing that!” Frisch sounds almost hysterical, and the way he raises blood-covered hands to grip at his hair only reinforces the idea.
Josiah forces himself to stop, to grab the anger and pain that’s fueling him and chain it tightly in the back of his mind, not gone but temporarily under control. There’s a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, the familiar shape of Gar slinking crouched across the floor, and Josiah’s careful not to let his expression give anything away. Gar slides up to the door, shielded by the solid metal lower half and reaches up to place a small metal disk on the side of the security lock. He’s typing away at his p.a.t.c.h one handed, Boo placed gently on the ground beside him, opposite hand raised with three fingers showing, a silent countdown to Josiah.
Knowing that he needs to stall for time, that he needs to do something, anything, to keep Frisch distracted, Josiah starts talking again.
“Rafe? Rafe, I’m here. Everything’s going to be alright.” He doesn’t let his voice crack, doesn’t let himself show the weakness that’s eating at him from seeing Rafe so hurt and not being able to get to him.
“Don’t talk to him! Don’t talk to him like you know him! He’s mine, damn you!” Frisch is yelling, hands waving and eyes wild, but he’s moving away from Rafe, moving closer to the door, and Gar’s only holding up two fingers now.
“He’s not yours anymore, Frisch. He’s mine now.” Josiah sneers the words at the distraught man, trying to distract him, trying to keep his attention off of Rafe for as long as possible and his rage focused on him.
“No, no, no! He’s mine! He bleeds for me!” There are tears in Frisch’s eyes alongside the madness and Josiah pushes further.
“No he’s not, Frisch. He gave himself to a real dominant, to someone on his level. He gave himself to a fourth tier that could handle him.” Josiah tosses his head slightly, lets the light glint off the rubies in his oricula so that the gems catch Frisch’s eye.
One minute.
“He wouldn’t do that! He’s perfect and he’s mine and I’m going to make him love me. Me, goddamn you!”
6Frisch turns to head back towards Rafe’s prone form, hand clenched tightly around the scalpel, and there are sirens in the background but there isn’t enough time. Josiah jumps forward and slams his free palm down against the door with bruising force. Frisch jumps, startled, but he turns back around and that’s what Josiah wanted all along. Josiah leans forward until his breath is misting the glass of the door and his tone is low and snide when he speaks.
“He’ll never love you, Frisch. He told me that. Do you know what he did? He stripped down and oiled up and gave himself to me all on his own. I didn’t have to force him: he begged for it. Begged for me like he never would for you because you’re nothing. Do you hear me, Frisch? You’re nothing!”
Frisch snarls and turns back towards Rafe, but Gar’s hand is closed into a tight fist and in the next second the door is open and Josiah’s sprinting forward. He collides with Frisch hard, free hand wrapping around the wrist of the hand holding the scalpel and snapping it with a quick forceful upwards stroke with the butt of his pistol. Frisch howls and drops the blade, but he shuts up quickly when Josiah presses the muzzle of his pistol directly against his sweaty forehead.
“Twitch. Give me one more reason to put a bullet in your brainpan and so help me I will and I won’t even blink.” He growls the words out, teeth gnashing and eyes narrowed.
Frisch whimpers, and there’s the sudden smell of urine in the air, but he doesn’t move. Josiah pulls his hand back, moving the pistol away from the other man, but before Frisch can even sigh in relief he crashes the butt of the gun down hard across the back of his head.
Frisch drops and Josiah doesn’t even make an attempt to catch him, just steps over his prone form and heads towards Rafe. He’s dimly aware of Gar’s voice in the background, of running feet and the sounds of backup arriving too late to be of any real use. His attention is focused on getting to Rafe, to making sure that he’s alive.
“Rafe.” Josiah chokes the word out, panic clawing at his throat when he’s close enough to see just how deep the cuts are on Rafe’s back.
Rafe moans low in his throat and it sounds pained and drugged. He flinches when Josiah lays a hand on his arm, and Josiah goes around the table and drops to his knees so that they’re eye to eye. Rafe’s gaze is blurry, the aftereffects of the sedative apparent in his sluggish reactions, but when he focuses enough to recognize Josiah his eyes fill with tears.
“J-Josiah?”
Josiah reaches up and tenderly cups Rafe’s jaw in his slightly shaking palm, dips forward and lays a sweet kiss on Rafe’s brow.
“Yeah, Rafe, it’s me.”
“Hurts.”
“I know it does, I know. We’re going to get you out here’ and we’re going to go home so you got to hang in there for me, alright, Rafe? You got to stay awake.”
Rafe’s eyelids flutter closed, but Josiah taps him gently on the jaw, desperate to keep him awake, not wanting to take the chance that he’ll slip into unconsciousness and never be able to find his way back out.
“Rafe! Rafe, stay with me. Focus on my voice and stay awake.” Josiah hears approaching footsteps and he stands quickly, ready for any new threat, but it’s just Gar, a medical unit in tow and obviously intent on 7getting Rafe free and on his way to the hospital.
Josiah ducks back down and cups Rafe’s jaw in his palm again, fingers stroking soothingly across his bruised skin.
“You did so good, Rafe, so perfect, and this is going to hurt but we’ve got to move you. Just try to stay calm.
Gar’s here and I know you’re going to want to meet him so you need to stay awake, alright?”
“Gar?” Rafe’s voice is reed thin and weak, but he’s focusing on Josiah and that’s really all that matters.
“Yeah, Gar. The friend I was telling you about, the one that helped me find you today. He’s here and he’s going to want to meet you later on and tell you embarrassing stories about me from our time in the Elite together so you need to stay with me.”
“Y-Yeah. Josiah?”
“Yeah, Rafe?”
“Don’t…don’t leave me.” Rafe’s eyes flutter closed again and Josiah hears one of the medics behind him curse loud and vicious, and he feels Gar grip him tightly by the shoulder all at the same time.
“I won’t, Rafe. I swear I won’t.”
He doesn’t get an answer. Rafe doesn’t twitch, and his eyes stay shuttered. His face is slack and Josiah feels pain spike through his chest even as he’s ripping himself out of Gar’s hold. He’s on his knees again in front of Rafe, cradling his bruised and bloody face in the crook of his neck as his hands run gently through his hair.
He breathes softly on the skin that’s next to his mouth and begs low and desperate into the shell of Rafe’s ear.
“Ra
fe, baby? Come on, now. Stay with me. Don’t do this, Rafe. Don’t do this to me. Baby? Come now, open your eyes! Rafe?” It comes out lost and broken, a sound that Josiah would have never thought himself capable of making but isn’t ashamed of in the slightest.
There’s still no response, only the feel of Gar forcefully pulling him back and away and the sight of the medical unit lifting Rafe’s bloody body onto a stretcher and rushing him out the door.
Josiah stumbles to his feet, not willing to be separated from Rafe, not willing to let him out of his sight. Gar’s on his heels the entire time, long fingered hand pressed to his shoulder in a show of silent support that’s normally not their style, but Josiah is strangely thankful for it. He knows that if it wasn’t for Gar’s guiding hand and the promise he’d made to Rafe he would have fought his way through anything and everything that stood in the way of him getting to Frisch.
Instead he climbs into the back of the medical transport, Gar’s promise to meet him at the hospital ringing in his ears. He clings to Rafe’s limp hand and realizes that he never wants to let it go. Josiah knows that they haven’t actually known each other for long in the scheme of things, but that doesn’t compare to the way the knowledge that he truly does want to Bond with Rafe hits him directly in the heart.
Faced with Rafe bloody and bruised for the second time since they first met Josiah knows without a shadow of a doubt that Rafe is it for him. If anything happens to him Josiah knows that it’ll be like a piece of him has been ripped out, something destroyed that he’ll never find again.
For only the second time in his life Josiah closes his eyes and prays.
7
7Chapter Seventeen
The ride to the hospital is like a nightmare. Rafe stays unconscious, his hand limp in Josiah’s grasp and his eyes closed no matter what the medical team does to him. Josiah refuses to let him go, has a hand on a part of him the entire time, until they’re inside the hospital and Gar and Eagan are there and they’re holding him back from going into the operating room.
He doesn’t even struggle against their restraining hands, doesn’t have the extra concentration it would require. Every part of him is focused on Rafe, on remembering the way he looked on that table, the way he’d asked Josiah to stay with him. For the first time since he can remember Josiah feels truly helpless.
Gar and Eagan hold him together for a while; Eagan has an understanding look on his face and Josiah knows that he’s imagining his own Bonded in a similar situation while Gar looks on, an awkward but fiercely protective shadow. Marcel and Isaac rush in at some point, Marcel enveloping him in a perfume scented, spine cracking hug while she whispers in his ear, and in the background Isaac nods at him in silent support.
They settle in to wait; a mismatched but closed ranked group that gets more than one cautious glance from anyone who wanders too close.
Hours pass Josiah by in a fog, his attention turned inwards until he snaps out of it abruptly when a doctor approaches them. He’s shorter than Josiah by about half a foot, his eyes a light grey color and his hair a close cropped brown. His collar flashes when he moves, the four sapphires embedded in the silver glinting in the bright light of the hospital corridor marking him as having originated from Water. The man looks tired, his face streaked with sweat and lined with fatigue and Josiah feels his heart clench in fear. He’s on his feet and in front of him before he has the chance to say anything, the others crowding close behind him in support and shared worry.
“Is Rafe alright?” He croaks out the question, his entire being hanging on the answer.
The doctor’s eyes narrow, warm but tired grey edging into steel territory as he rakes his gaze dismissively over Josiah and turns towards Eagan instead.
“Lead Enforcer, we need to have a word. Privately.” The man’s voice is honey smooth and cultured but cold as ice, and it pisses Josiah off to be dismissed in such a manner.
Eagan glances between the doctor and Josiah, confusion and a slight hint of nervousness on his expressive face. He knows just as well as everyone, besides the doctor, just how dangerous Josiah can be and they’re all vaguely afraid that this man’s refusal to acknowledge him might actually push him over the edge.
“Doctor?” Josiah breaks into conversation before it can actually begin, his tone sharp and unforgiving.
“Karney, Bryant Karney, and I have nothing to say to you.” Karney’s voice is razor sharp and the venom in it takes Josiah aback for a second before his own tightly reined in temper kicks its way back to the forefront of his mind.
“Listen to me, you son of a bitch, if you don’t tell me how Rafe is right now I’ll feed you your teeth.” The words are practically hissed out and Josiah means every single one of them.
Karney takes a half step back and Josiah sees Gar shift slightly in the corner of his eye but dismisses it when the doctor seems to gather himself. He sets his shoulders and meets Josiah’s gaze head on, distaste curling his 7plush mouth into a sneer.
“I don’t answer to abusive assholes like you so take my advice and back off before I have you thrown out.”
Josiah gapes for seconds, caught off guard by the doctor’s implications, before he steps forward, hand raised to grab the other man by his collar. Gar’s in front of him suddenly, crowding the doctor’s space and speaking in a low intense voice.
“Josiah wasn’t the one who did this. It was Zweil’s former dominant. Josiah is an enforcer and the last one who would hurt another in such a way.”
Karney searches Gar’s face for a moment, his eyes flickering around to the rest of their group as well before they land on Josiah again. The doctor studies him for a moment and seems to find what he was looking for because his face softens, his eyes warming and his shoulders relaxing. He steps around Gar so that he’s face to face with Josiah again and this time when he speaks his voice is smooth and warm.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. I see far too many cases such as this one and it never gets any easier.” Shadows flicker behind the doctor’s eyes and Josiah understands. He’s still angry but he understands.
He recognizes someone who’s been wounded before.
“Rafe?” He pushes aside everything else, focusing on the one thing he truly wants, needs, to know.
Karney scrubs a hand over his face, exhaustion once more in his movements as he begins to give Josiah his report.
“I’m not going to lie to you; it was touch and go for a while. The drug he was injected with mixed with the trauma and blood loss did a number on his system. The cuts he suffered on his back were deep and will take time to heal, and even with our technology he’s going to have scars. Overall he’s stable for the time being and our main concern is the possibility of infection. We cleaned the wounds and gave him a full round of antibiotics, but there’s always the possibility that something latched onto his system before he got here. He’s going to need a lot of help over the next few weeks, and I would prefer it if he wasn’t left alone. If he needs a place to stay I know people who work at Sanctuary and a few private facilities.”
“He’s mine.” Josiah snaps the words out, unable to hold them back when this man, this stranger, is talking about sending Rafe away.
“What Marx here means is that Zweil is officially under his protection and that’s not liable to change any time soon. He’ll have a place to stay and all the hands on care he could ever need, I imagine.” Eagan speaks up for the first time, an almost amused expression on his face as he works to smooth things over.
There’s a knowing look in Karney’s eyes at that, and he seems to soften even further towards Josiah as he nods in agreement.
“I’m sure you’d like to see him now. I’ll only allow one of you in at a time and only on the condition that you do not upset him. He’s still weak and he’ll be in pain for a while, but it’s probably best that he receives the reassurances I’m sure he needs.”
Karney motions for them to follow him and personally leads them down the hall to the private room where
Rafe is. No one else makes a move to enter the room, all of them knowing that it’s not their place and that Josiah would never allow it anyways. He intends on being the first person Rafe sees when he opens his eyes.
His breath catches in his throat when he walks through the door and lays eyes on Rafe’s still form. He’s lying 7face down on his stomach, his back a mass of bandages, and the sight of him simultaneously makes Josiah relax and breaks his heart. He wasn’t able to spare Rafe this, wasn’t able to protect him properly like he’d promised him he would and that knowledge, that guilt is already beginning to eat at him.
Josiah makes his way to Rafe’s bedside, careful to keep his footsteps light, and stares down at him. Even like this, even beaten and asleep, Rafe’s beautiful to him. He has to fight the dual urges to drape himself growling over Rafe’s prone form to keep anyone else from touching him and the urge to turn around and hunt Frisch down and kill him with his bare hands.
He has a feeling that those will be two urges he’ll be fighting with for a long time to come.
He reaches out and strokes a careful hand through Rafe’s hair, fingers careful not to get caught in any tangles. He’s caught off guard when Rafe’s eyes flicker open, pained green focusing on him with surprising clarity.
“Josiah.” Rafe whispers his name, and Josiah musters up a smile for the injured man.
“Hey, Rafe.”
“I’m sorry.” Rafe’s eyes flutter shut and Josiah’s surprised to see a lone tear work its way from the corner of his eye.
“What for?”
“I-I wasn’t strong enough. I, they took me and I couldn’t stop them. You told me to keep myself safe and I couldn’t do it.” Rafe’s crying silently then, tears dripping down his face one after the other.
Josiah wipes them away with his free hand and continues stoking his fingers through Rafe’s limp hair.
“No, Rafe, I’m sorry. You were perfect. You killed one of those bastards, and you fought them every step of the way. I’m the one who wasn’t there when you needed me. Wasn’t where I should have been.”
Love in the Land of Fire Page 12
