by Lauren Dawes
I hoped they’d come.
My partner was still hitting the ZZZs, and honestly, I would’ve been right there with him if it wasn’t for the need to get the fuck out of here. The pain in my shoulder was a dull throb, the sensation content to sit in the background for now. I knew when I moved, all that would change.
Craning my neck, I tried to figure out how we had landed. The car was on its side, with me at the bottom and Sawyer hovering above me, only staying put because of his seatbelt. The windshield was gone. All the windows had been shattered, and the smell of gasoline hung heavy and noxious in the air.
I was all for waiting for the cavalry to arrive, except there was a small wisp of black smoke curling up from under the hood. The tendril weaved and dance with the air current. Heat would follow if that spark got enough oxygen to it.
We had to get out of here by ourselves.
Inching my hand around, I slid it down to where the seatbelt clipped into the socket and pressed the button. Nothing happened, even after I jiggled the damn thing and cursed at it for good measure. Sweeping my gaze around the car, I glanced up at Sawyer dangling above me, and spotted the still sheathed dagger on his thigh. Straining, I reached up to grab it and was thankful my fucked-up shoulder was on the other side.
Sliding the knife free, I wrapped my palm around the hilt and started cutting the nylon strap holding me in place. It came apart easily under the knife, which was pretty convenient. I also noticed I didn’t have to saw at the thing. The blade just cut through it like it was…well, a knife through butter. I’d have to remember to ask him about that later.
Once I was free, I dropped the knife and called again to Sawyer.
His eyes flew open as he inhaled sharply. They were wild as he looked around, trying to process the scene. He stared at me, blinking.
“Hey, it’s okay,” I told him. “We need to get out of here though. I think it’s going to catch fire any moment now. Can you undo your seatbelt?”
He nodded, and I braced myself because he was hovering a few feet above me in the air, and once the belt was gone, there was only one way to go. I tried to shift away as much as I could, but he landed awkwardly, showering us both with dust.
I coughed, hissing out sharply as the movement jostled my right shoulder.
“You’re hurt?” he asked suddenly.
“I also can’t breathe on account of you sitting on my chest right now.”
“Fuck. Sorry.” He shifted a little, letting me suck in a breath of dusty, smoky air.
“Can you crawl through the windshield…well, what’s left of it anyway?”
He looked at the space and nodded. “Yes. I’ll slide out, then come back for you.”
“Great plan,” I wheezed out, my vision alternating between sharp clarity and eighties Vaseline-rubbed camera lens. “Go do that.”
Sliding from the wreckage, he almost looked graceful, and I wondered whether I could do the same thing. Probably not. A few seconds later, he was gone, and my chest tightened a little. Rationally, I knew he was just outside the car, but as far as my pain-addled brain was concerned, he’d abandoned me at my hour of need.
“Sawyer?” I called hoarsely.
“I’m here,” he said. “There’s an ambulance on the way.”
“Can you get me out?”
My eyes were trained on the opening he’d disappeared through, but I jolted back when his face popped back into view.
I sucked in a pained breath.
“Sorry, he said. “I need to at least try to get you out before—Fuck!”
Alarmed, I demanded, “What? What’s happened?”
But he didn’t have to answer. The black smoke that had just been a tendril before was now billowing thickly. The cloud rose quickly from the car, along with the heat of an intense fire.
“Get me out of here, Sawyer.” I wasn’t above begging if that’s what he wanted.
He disappeared, and I sucked in a sob. He was going to leave me here because I was a sucky partner and nobody wanted to work with me. This was karma wrapped up in a flaming car wreck. There was a sound, like something metallic tapping. I looked down and found my sword waiting patiently for me. Shifting my uninjured arm around my body, I picked it up from the footwell and stared at it.
“Can you get me out of this?” I asked it.
“Cat, we need to find the sword.”
“It found me,” I called, relieved he hadn’t abandoned me.
“You can’t come through the front like I did. The flames are getting more intense. Can you use it to cut open the roof? I think I can pull you out that way.”
Looking up, I studied the roof. It had been peeled open like a can at some point, just not over the front section of the truck. Lifting up the sword, I swore as my shoulder pinched. Shoving that pain aside, which was hard, FYI, I focused on the sword.
“Can you open the roof?” I asked Reaver softly. “Can you get us out of here?”
The sword began to glow with a pale blue light, and I touched the tip to the half-shredded roof. The sound of heat-buckled steel filled my little bubble of pain, and I watched as the metal literally melted where the sword touched it. I was starting to sweat now, as the heat from the fire in the hood intensified.
The sword stopped glowing, and then there was a Cat-sized hole in roof.
“Thank you,” I told Reaver, then more loudly, I shouted, “I’ve made a hole.”
Sawyer appeared in said hole, his eyes widening as he saw what a good job Reaver had done. Reaching inside, he grasped my good arm and started to pull. I bit my lip as each move sent daggers of pain through me. I think I may have passed out, because when I came back to, I was out of the car, lying on the cold asphalt thirty feet from my destroyed truck.
“There you are,” he said with a small smile. “You passed out from the pain.”
He was looking down at me as he cradled me in his lap. I tried not to think about how weird that was. And by weird, I meant I couldn’t wait to get my head in his lap again. You know, once my shoulder stopped throbbing.
“Noted,” I replied, my fingers curling involuntarily around the hilt of Reaver.
“You’ve got a big bump on your head. The EMTs want to take you to the hospital.”
That was when the world dumped awareness on me. I flinched as flashing lights and the sound of sirens and people shouting hit my senses like a sledgehammer
“How’s our patient?” someone asked above my head. I shifted my gaze to the EMT standing there. He was tall, muscled, and smiled like he genuinely cared. “Awake, I see.”
“What did I miss?” I rasped.
He crouched down beside me. “Oh you know, the explosion. The firemen with their hose.”
“I hope they were naked.” I shut my eyes. “But they kept it classy with bow ties and strategically placed Santa hats.”
The EMT laughed. “The drugs are working just fine, but that bump on the head is a concern. We’re going to take you to Buxton General.”
“But I don’t have a reservation,” I whined, earning me another good-natured chuckle.
“She’s a hoot,” he said, obviously to Sawyer.
I felt my partner brush his fingertips across my forehead. “She’s something alright.”
“They’re just bringing the gurney over now. She’ll be in safe hands with us.”
I shut them out at that point. They were talking about me like I wasn’t even there. I didn’t owe them my consciousness.
When I woke up, I was in hospital, wearing a thin gown and tucked into a bed with over-starched, too-thin sheets and blankets. I sucked in a deep breath through my nose and let it out through my mouth. Well, at least my nose wasn’t broken.
The door to my room opened, and Sawyer walked in. He was in clean clothes, his hair slightly damp from the shower he must’ve taken. The bastard. I was still covered in soot from the accident and subsequent fire.
“You’re awake,” he murmured, placing down the cup of coffee he’d gotten from a vend
ing machine, if the cup and smell were anything to go by.
“Live and in color.”
“How do you feel?”
I tried to shuffle up in the bed, wincing when a dull throb in my shoulder told me to stay the fuck still. “Like I got hit by a semi?”
Sawyer shook his head ruefully. “You’re not far off it. We were hit by a semi.”
“Ha,” I replied dully. “I hope you got his insurance details.” His smile was warm, and I tried not to think about how that made my lady-parts feel. “What happened?”
Shaking his head, he took a seat on the side of my bed. “Someone ran us off the road. Whoever they were, they wanted us dead.”
I let that sink in. I was used to being disliked. With a mouth like mine, not many people did like me, but I’d never had anyone wanting to commit murder.
“What happened to the vamp?”
“Ashed. In the rising sun.”
“Damn it. She was our only lead.”
Sawyer shook his head. “She wasn’t worth losing your life over.”
I grunted and placed my hands down at my side… where I felt Reaver. Sawyer, seeing my expression, also looked.
“How did you convince the nurse to let Reaver in the room?”
“I didn’t.” He laughed and shrugged. “Magic?”
Heaving a sigh, I held back all my questions. This sword had a freaking mind of its own… Although, if I was being honest, I really liked its mind. It had saved my life on more than one occasion.
“When can I get out of here?”
“Well, the doc said your shoulder was only dislocated. He popped it back into the socket, but you’ll have to wear it in a sling for a day or two, and it’ll still be sore for a couple of weeks.”
“That’s why they invented drugs, right?”
“Right.”
“You also have a few deeper cuts on your hands and some shallow ones on your face and neck from the shattered windshield. Add that nasty bump on your head, and you’re all set to strap in for a drug-induced haze.”
He grinned.
I whimpered.
Reaching out, he tucked some of my hair behind my ear and exhaled. “Other than that, they think you’re okay.”
“Does that mean I can go?”
He shook his head. “As soon as you have something to eat and can keep it down, you can go.”
“Great. Let’s do it. I hate hospitals.”
Ten
After I proved I could keep a sandwich down, I was discharged from the hospital with my right arm in a complex sling, a fresh set of scrubs to wear home and more pain drugs and instructions than I could keep straight in my head. Reaver had conveniently disappeared without me touching the glyph at all whenever a nurse or doctor came in, and now I had no idea where it was. A cab was waiting for us, and after Sawyer helped me in, I expected him to shut the door and send me on my way.
That didn’t happen.
He jogged around the back of the car and got in the other side.
“What are you doing?” Okay, that sounded accusatory, and I hadn’t meant it that way. I guessed I was just shocked.
“I’m making sure you get home safe.”
I glanced around. “Are you being filmed? Did someone pay you for this? Am I being Punk’d?”
He frowned. “Why would anyone pay me for this? You’re my partner.”
I let his words settle into my psyche. Partner. He wanted me as his partner. Or at least for right now. Maybe the next time I fucked up, he’d jump ship.
“Okay.” I cleared my throat. “How are you? It looked like you didn’t get injured at all in the crash.”
He tugged the neck of his shirt down, revealing a sculptured chest I wanted to lick chocolate off of. He smirked, then pulled it down a little further, revealing a thick red welt across his chest.
“The doc said it’ll be bruised for about two weeks, but I should be fine.”
“Seriously? That’s all that happened to you? I get a dislocated shoulder, and you get a bruise? Is that because you’re a supe?”
“No, it’s because the truck hit us on your side.” He eyed me curiously. “By all accounts, you should be dead. I don’t even know how the side of your truck wasn’t a ball of twisted steel…well, more of a ball of twisted steel.”
“Maybe we got lucky?” I absently ran my fingers over Reaver’s hilt, which was lying across my lap. That was strange. It had disappeared as soon as the orderly had come in with my sandwich, and I didn’t bother to look for it. Somehow, it had just turned up in the taxi. I wasn’t going to think about it too much.
“Maybe,” he murmured. “I’ve been meaning to ask you…”
“Yes?”
“Your necklace, the stone. It’s opal?”
I wrapped my fingers around it protectively. “Yes.”
“Where did you get it from, if you don’t mind me asking.”
I stiffened at his words but shook myself. Sawyer wasn’t the enemy here. “My father gave it to me after my mother died. He said it was for protection.”
“I’m sorry about your mom.”
I shrugged, even though thinking about her still made my heart hurt. “It happened a long time ago.”
“What about your dad? Is he still around?”
“No.” The word was hollow, and it sounded hollow coming from my lips. “He was murdered about five years ago.”
“Shit. Sorry.”
“What for? You didn’t kill him.”
“I don’t mean that,” he said. “I mean, I’m sorry you’ve lost both of your parents. It’s tough being out in the world by yourself.”
“After my mom passed, my dad kind of threw himself into his work with an almost fanatical fervor. I wouldn’t see him for weeks, sometimes months on end. When he did come home, it was only to collect some information before he was off again.”
“What did he do for work?”
“I don’t know exactly. They were both archaeologists, so I assumed he was on digs.”
“Who looked after you then? You couldn’t have been old enough to look after yourself.”
“I wasn’t. Our next-door neighbor, Mrs. Brown, looked after me. She spent more time at my place than she did her own. She ended up moving in for a while, right after my mom died, because my dad just disappeared one night and didn’t come home the next day. In the end, he was gone for about six months, so I was lucky to have her.”
Reaching out, Sawyer stroked his thumb over my knee. “I’m sorry.”
Shaking myself, I said with a cocky lilt, “We’re all a little fucked up, aren’t we?”
I looked out the window to see we were turning onto my street. When the cab stopped, Sawyer paid him, then helped me upstairs to my apartment. He tried to take me to my bedroom, but I shook my head.
“Shower first. I’ve got vampire in my hair.”
He smirked. “I bet you’ve never said that before.”
I grunted and shuffled toward the bathroom. Sawyer followed at my back like a shadow, pushing things out of the way when needed and holding my elbow when I swayed.
“I’m okay,” I said. “Just a little nauseous.”
“The doc did say you might feel like that. It’s all part and parcel of the side effects from the painkillers you’re taking.”
“I never want to be hit by a semi again,” I grumbled, then turned on the shower. I was about to undress, but stopped when I couldn’t get the sling off my right arm.
“Do you mind?” I asked him.
Sawyer approached me, slowly releasing the three clasps that held the sling against my side. I concentrated on his strong fingers as he worked the straps free then gently eased my arm out. When I sucked in a hiss of pain, his eyes shot to me.
“Did I hurt you?”
I shook my head. “I’ll be fine.” Hooking the thumb of my free hand into the waistband of the scrub bottoms I’d been sent home in, I tried to pull them down and soon realized this was not a solo endeavor.
“Will you let
me help you?” I eyed Sawyer warily. “You won’t be able to do this by yourself,” he pointed out. “Plus, I’ve seen plenty of women naked before. You don’t have to be shy on my account.”
“I’m not worried about your sensibilities,” I grumbled in reply. But he was right, of course. I couldn’t do this on my own. With the ache in my shoulder and the pain in my knee, I was a fall hazard waiting to happen on a wet tiled floor.
“Look, the doctor said I needed to keep an eye on you tonight so I can either help you or you can go without a shower, which I don’t think you want to do.”
I didn’t have the energy to argue with him. All I wanted was to get the vampire off my skin and out of my hair. “Fine.”
With a nod, he crouched down and slid the thin fabric from my hips. I didn’t have any underwear to take off since the doctors had removed every stitch of clothing when I was rushed to the hospital. Keeping my eyes fixed on the tiled wall in front of me, I cooperated when Sawyer told me to bend a knee or keep myself steady by leaning on his shoulder.
“Okay,” he finally said in a hoarse voice.
Slowly, so as to not fall over and have Sawyer crow his victory over me, I stepped into the shower and promptly listed to one side.
I braced for impact, but Sawyer was there, holding me up with an arm around my back. I huffed, then peered over my shoulder to find his silver eyes hot and liquid.
“You’re still dressed,” I said, although why that was my first concern, I didn’t know.
“My clothes will dry.” He shuffled me closer to the spray, where I turned my face into the water and hissed when the small cuts on my skin let their presence be known. Adding more cold water to the mix, I tried again, sighing when all I got was a slight throb. Putting my face under the flow fully, I let all the ickiness from my day sluice off me.
“Want me to wash your hair for you?” he asked, his breath warm against the shell of my ear.
I nodded. Honestly, he could’ve offered to cut my toenails and I would’ve said yes.
Leaning me gently against the wall, he grabbed my shampoo and squeezed a little into his hand. I shut my eyes when he ran his fingers through my hair, creating a lather.
