by Casey White
Leon stared down at him, his eyes worried even if his face was flushed. “You hanging in there?” he said, trying to force a smile.
A hand grabbed at his legs. Olivia—and a fresh wave of agony rolled through him as she yanked. Daniel bit off a gasp, stiffening. “Hey!” he heard Leon snap.
“You told me to!” Olivia hissed back. “What am I supposed to do?”
“That’s my question,” Maya called from the front. “Where are we going? Any suggestions?”
This...wasn’t going to work, Daniel realized. All of them were panicking. He was panicking—but with a bullet wound in his leg still oozing blood, he needed to find a solution. Now. And none of them had any medical training.
“T-There’s money,” he whispered, raising an arm to paw at his jacket. “In my pocket. Inside.”
Leon frowned. “I don’t think that’s important right now.”
“Take it,” Daniel insisted. “Drive. Then…Find somewhere. W-We can hole up. Until we figure out what to- what to do next.”
He was about to stick his hand into the jacket, but Olivia eased the fabric back, pulling out the wad of cash he’d hidden within. She didn’t say anything, but he heard her indrawn breath.
“Jesus,” James mumbled from the front seat. “Is that-”
“That’s a lot of money,” Leon whispered. “Are you sure?”
“I need to go,” Daniel mumbled, laying his head back against Leon’s lap. Pain. Every hammering beat of his heart drove agony through his wounded let.
Just like that, he could feel every pair of eyes in the vehicle settle on him. Leon spoke first. “What? Wait, you’re not saying-”
“Need to know...how to treat this.” Daniel closed his eyes. He couldn’t quite bring himself to keep looking at the fear in Leon’s gaze anymore. “Just going to brush up.” Alex? This...is an odd request. But-
“Wait.” Leon grabbed his shoulder, shaking him roughly. “You can’t sleep. Daniel, you’re hurt. You shouldn’t-”
“Just for a little bit,” Daniel whispered. “I’ll be back.” Please. I don’t know another way.
Leon kept shaking him. Trying to keep him from leaving, of course. Daniel ignored it, sinking steadily into the black. He was fine. He’d been shot in the leg, not anywhere vital. He’d live, so long as he managed to stop the bleeding.
And already, he could feel Alexandria’s arms around him, pulling him deeper. Taking him home.
Leon’s protests rang in his ears, following him down as he faded to nothing.
* * * * *
Daniel’s eyes opened.
He sucked in a panicked gasp of air, his back arching. For a moment, it was like he’d been falling, as though he’d been in one of those horrible dreams and had just slammed into the ground.
The time-worn timbers and smooth stone of Alexandria stretched out overhead.
His heart pounded. For a while, he could only lay there, breathing.
Hot fires rippled up his legs, bringing that to a screeching halt. He twisted to the side, grabbing for his leg. Blood. Blood, and pain. His palms pressed down against the rough leather and fabric of his pants, squeezing at the wound beneath.
Through the agony, he gasped, opening his eyes. He was in Alexandria—but not in his quarters. He wore his sturdy uniform, his mask still bouncing in place on his arm, but...it was as though she’d dropped him into some random hallway. A shelf waited a few paces down, a stack of books sitting by his head.
He was here—back in the Library. He exhaled slowly, still squeezing his ruined calf. It hadn’t even been half a day yet, but it might as well have been a lifetime.
Another pang, like hot needles plunging into his leg. He grimaced, forcing himself up to his elbows.
He couldn’t stay there. He couldn’t wait around, curled into the fetal position in some forgotten study. He needed to get up and fix himself, and then…
And then, something. His thoughts went blank, after that. What was he going to do? It didn’t matter that he was in Alexandria. Out there, where it mattered, he was bleeding out in the backseat of a cheap sedan with mages hunting him down.
He didn’t know what to do, or how to fix this.
First, though, he needed to fix himself. He rolled, ignoring the fires burning in his leg, and brought himself to one knee. The gunshot leg trailed behind him, unmoving and useless.
Stand, damn you. Get the hell up. Licking his lips, he sucked in a breath of air—and he stood.
Mostly. He made it halfway to vertical before his leg screamed its protest, sending him lurching to the side. He clung to the bookshelf alongside him, leaving bloody fingerprints against the wood. “Don’t fall,” he whispered, panting for breath. “Keep going.” Sure, he might sound insane, but hearing the words out loud grounded him. Stabilized him.
Clinging to the ancient shelves for support, he shuffled forward. It was awkward. Damn, it was awkward. Overhead, wind howled through the rafters. The windows rattled in their frames. He’d have smiled, if he wasn’t utterly focused on keeping himself moving. Alex wasn’t happy, either. Not that he could blame her, when her Librarian was stumbling around getting blood everywhere.
Have to get back to the sitting room. The thought hung in his mind, outlined in razor-sharp precision. She’d given him medicine before, when his idiot guests had burned themselves and collapsed half the Library around their own ears. She could give him something, too. Something to keep him moving. He just had to-
His fingers slipped. Something about the dust and the blood, turning the wood to ice under his fingers. He tried to catch himself, tried to brace with his other leg—which promptly buckled, fingers of fire coursing up from the wound.
The ground rose to catch him.
Daniel hit the ground hard enough to drive the air from his lungs. He lay flat, gasping. Spots of moisture burned in his eyes.
It shouldn’t be like this. It shouldn’t have gone like this.
The winds shrieked louder, seeping through into the Library and tugging at his hair. It fluttered around his face, pulling free of its hair tie to tease at his skin.
“Get up,” he heard a woman whisper.
He didn’t bother looking. He’d heard her voice here before, whoever the hell she was. “F-Fuck off,” he gasped instead, digging his fingers against the stone floor.
“I said, get up, Librarian.”
Daniel ground his teeth together, dropping his chin to his chest. It hurt. It hurt so much—so why did she feel entitled to tell him what to do? The least she could do was help.
But the only way to make it stop hurting was to get there. He had to move.
He reached out as far as he could, bracing against the tiles. Straining with his other leg, he pulled hard.
He moved. Pushing hard, he half-rose into the air on his good leg. The ground dragged at his dead, heavy limb, igniting new fires in the wound. One foot. Another. And then he flopped back to the ground, his arms shaking.
“Keep going.”
“Damn it,” he whispered, scrunching up his face.
Again, he reached out. Again, he dragged himself forward, biting back a hiss at the resulting pain.
Over and over again. He tried not to look up, tried not to see how far he had yet to go or the streak of blood he had to be leaving across the floor. His arms shook. He’d never felt so weak in his life, as though the winds that screamed through Alexandria would tip him right over.
But he had to get there. Somehow. He didn’t know what would happen if he passed out here, inside the Library. Or if...if worse things happened.
He’d never found out what happened if someone died inside her walls, and he really, really didn’t want to.
Another drag. Another smear of red across the stone.
Something around him seemed to sigh, like a heaviness settled over the air. He grinned, eyes glued to the stonework in front of him. Stop being dramatic.
It became a sick sort of rhythm. Drag, pull. Pause to shudder. Wait for the pain to fad
e. Raise his arm again, and go for another drag. He poured himself into that, taking solace in the routine.
Until something broke the quiet. Footsteps. He didn’t hear them until he did, until whoever it was was right on top of him, barreling down like an avalanche. His spine stiffened. He wasn’t wearing his hood, or his mask. He was exposed. Again. He had to-
“Daniel!” he heard Leon cry, echoing from somewhere nearby. “Hey! Where- Where are you?”
Follow the blood, he willed, a twisted smile tugging at his lips. It wasn’t like he was hard to find. “H-Hey,” he croaked instead, sinking to the tile and rolling to his side. “I’m-”
Leon burst around the corner of the study, skidding to a stop as soon as his eyes landed on Daniel. “Fuck,” Daniel heard him whisper, his eyes going round. And then, more loudly, “A-Are you- Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Daniel mumbled. “It’s not- I’m fine. I just need to get to-”
Leon closed the distance between them, surging forward like a wall of terrified, indignant manflesh. Before Daniel could so much as twitch, his hands slid under Daniel’s armpits, hauling him upright.
Daniel bit down hard, shuddering as his leg protested. There was no way he’d let Leon see how much that maneuver had hurt. Not when his friend already looked about half a step shy of a total meltdown.
Leon sat back, then, but his hand lingered on Daniel’s shoulder. “Is it-”
“Same thing,” Daniel whispered. “Fucker shot me.” He jerked his leg to the side, reaching for the hem of his pants, but Leon pushed him back against the wall.
“Just sit.” Scooching away at last, Leon took the ankle of Daniel’s pant leg, slowly easing it back.
Again, Daniel cringed, gritting his teeth as the cuff pushed against the raw, sore flesh beneath. As Leon rolled his pant leg up, the pale skin beneath turned to red.
“Fucking hell,” he heard Leon mumble.
Daniel chuckled hollowly. “Got me good. D-Didn’t plan on still being hurt when I got here. Don’t know why.”
“Y-Yeah.” Leon’s eyes darted around the study. “Um. Well. I can wrap it in my shirt, maybe, and-”
“Alexandria has a first aid kit,” Daniel said, trying not to look at the sloppy mess of his leg. “In...In the sitting room. Probably. I-I was going to go get it.”
She’d left it in the sitting room before—but there was no reasons she had to. The thought sank straight through the murky depths of his mind like an anchor.
Alex could’ve woken him up right beside the kit. She could’ve opened a floor tile right beside him and put it within arm’s reach.
She didn’t. She’d left him stranded. She’d put him in the middle of a study, and left him to suffer.
And with that truth whispering in the back of his head, the worries he’d thought he’d put behind him reared their ugly heads once again.
Leon’s eyes lit up. “Got it. I can do that.” He rocked back onto his heels, starting to rise.
Lost in his thoughts, Daniel didn’t realize what he’d said, what he’d done, until it was too late. Leon would leave. He was going to head off, deeper into the Library—and leave him here, alone in the dark. In Alexandria. Bleeding.
Leon turned on his heel, springing upright. “I’ll be right-”
“W-Wait.” Daniel squirmed, hurling himself forward. He didn’t know what he was trying to do, not really. His injured leg only twitched, the ache sinking deeper. “Wait, I’ll- I’ll come with you. I’ll-”
Leon glanced back, his brow furrowing. For a moment, their eyes met.
Daniel could see all of it, then, straight through the endless blue. The confusion, right at the surface, laid over the fear. And then the confusion faded in an instant, leaving behind something Daniel couldn’t place at all.
Just as quickly as he’d started away, Leon whirled. And he started back toward Daniel.
All Daniel could do was stiffen, his back straightening. Leon’s arms wrapped around his shoulders in the next moment, squeezing with a strength that had never been so reassuring.
His temple pressed against Daniel’s. “I’ll come back,” Daniel heard him whisper. “I’m not leaving.”
Daniel shivered, feeling Leon’s hand settle around the back of his neck and draw him in closer. “But-”
“I won’t leave you alone here anymore.” With those final words, Leon drew back. His lips pressed against Daniel’s forehead, soft but firm.
And then Leon stumbled away, his face beet red, and spun to face the hallway. Unsteady at first, but picking up speed, he broke into a run.
Daniel watched him go, his mind totally blank. Within seconds, Leon was gone—but the warmth he’d left behind remained, lingering on his skin like a brand.
Alexandria was still dark and quiet, but now...Daniel didn’t feel quite so alone.
- Chapter Seventeen -
Somewhere, high overhead, the wind continued its endless howl. The lanterns hanging from the rafters swung back and forth, casting shadows to dance across the ground.
Daniel leaned back, his eyelids drooping. His head settled against a wooden bar, books stretching out on either side of him. His mask bounced against the frame, filling his ears with a low clacking.
He smiled grimly. Even a week before, he’d have been panicked—here he was, sitting in Alexandria, maskless, with a visitor in her walls. He should be beside himself, in fact.
But that was then, and this was now. His leg prickled, burning, and he shifted, making a face. He couldn’t bring himself to worry about something like a mask right now, and besides. The damage had been done.
Reaching down, Daniel clasped a hand around the wound in his calf, squeezing. The leather of his pants was soaked through by then. There was no bullet hole, he mused. He hadn’t been wearing them when he was shot, he supposed—but if Alexandria could whisk him into different clothes when he came to the Library, it would have been nice to slap a new leg on him as well.
She hadn’t. And already, red was starting to drip to the tiles underneath him.
He closed his eyes. He’d fix it all. Somehow.
The clatter of urgent footsteps around him sliced through the silence like a hot knife through butter. Daniel’s eyes snapped back open.
Leon burst back around the corner, his face still cherry-red—and a white box hung from his grasp. A comically-oversized red cross was emblazoned on its side. “Found it,” he gasped. “Right on the table. T-This is it, right?”
“Probably,” Daniel said. “Let’s...Let’s see.”
For a moment, Leon’s eyes met his. Just as quickly, they flashed away. Daniel’s heart sank.
With everything else in his life falling to shambles, the idea of something coming between the two of them was almost more than he could bear.
Leon crossed to him in an instant, though, falling to the ground beside Daniel’s leg. “Okay,” Daniel heard him mumbling. “I can do this. Yeah.”
It’ll be fine, Daniel willed. “Alexandria...doesn’t use regular medicine,” he said instead. The piercing agony was starting to fade, leaving him numb and cold. Somehow, he didn’t think that was a good sign. “Don’t panic.”
Just for a moment, Leon’s lips curled up into a crooked smile. “You’re telling me not to panic. When you’re lying there bleeding.”
“Yep.”
“Man, how’d I wind up here?” Leon mumbled. He dropped the case to the floor, though, flipping it open.
Two objects waited inside—a roll of bandages, and-
Daniel snorted, leaning his head back again. Another tub of salve.
“W-What?” Leon spluttered. “What the hell is this? How am I supposed to-”
“She never gives instructions,” Daniel said. “Just...slather it on, or something.”
“But what does it do?” Leon said. He hadn’t moved, still staring at the case’s contents like they might explode.
Daniel bit back a sigh. “It’ll- They’ll help. Probably.” He swallowed. A sheen of swe
at was starting to glisten from his forehead, and the taste of acid rose in the back of his throat. “I’m...I’m not feeling so great. So can we-”
“Sorry,” Leon mumbled, shaking his head. “Of course.” He grabbed the tub, unscrewing it. For a moment he stared down at the white paste within, his eyes wide and his face starting to turn a distinctly green shade.
“Fuck it,” he whispered, plunging his fingers into it and turning to Daniel’s ruined leg.
Daniel had steeled himself, expecting the worst, but even Leon’s gentle, careful touch sent red-hot daggers up his calf. The edges of the wound screamed, one final protest. Within seconds, the areas he’d covered in the goop started to chill and go numb. Not fully. Definitely not fully. But...it was better.
Watching Leon through eyes that were starting to water, Daniel exhaled, forcing himself to relax. “It’s...doing something,” he whispered.
“Well, that’s good,” Leon said with a hollow laugh. “My parents always wanted me to be a doctor. Look, ma, I’m doing it.”
Daniel laughed along with him—until he saw something tucked under the edge of Leon’s coat. A long, slender pipe, poking from an inside pocket.
The dead man’s pipe. He still had it, even here in Alexandria. He swallowed again, and for a moment, even the agony of Leon poking and prodding at his leg fell away.
That pipe had come from a mage. It’d stayed behind when the mage had...disintegrated. And now, it showed up here in Alexandria?
Maybe it was just because Leon had been carrying the damn thing, Daniel told himself. He’d had it on his person. Surely that was all.
It was a rational explanation—but Daniel couldn’t shake the sick feeling in his gut that worsened by the second.
His eyes flicked back to Leon’s face. Leon...hadn’t hardly looked at him since he’d returned. He was all but huddled over Daniel’s leg, working with an intensity that bordered on feverish. Daniel was worried about the pipe and its implications, yes. But in that moment, his mind was made up.
He couldn’t just let this lie, and watch everything get wiped away into the silence.
