Primal (Wrong Side of the Tracks 2)

“You don’t need them anymore!” Jag grabbed Dane’s arms and attempted to pull him back, away from the edge that would have sent him tumbling toward the white house.

And that was the selfish crux of the matter. Jag wanted to keep Dane locked like Gollum would have kept the One Ring.

“I’m not your fucking pet,” Dane shouted, twisting so rapidly the momentum sent Jag down, onto a crate. The thing must have been rotten twice over, because it collapsed, as if Jag had been punched down by a superhuman. Dane was about to dash down the slope, but he stalled, frozen on the spot when he saw a metal bar sticking out of Jag’s stomach, covered in blood.

Jag looked up at him, wide-eyed, and his trembling fingers reached for the rod piercing straight through him at the side. He lay sprawled on what was left of the crate, and his breath sped up when he attempted tugging on the rod, to no avail.

Heat burst into Dane’s panic-filled head when Jag tried to move off the thing next but ended up kicking about like a badly wounded deer.

“No—” Dane uttered and kneeled next to him, his head so blank he wasn’t sure if the whole thing wasn’t a hallucination. But no. There was a rusty piece of iron sticking through Jag’s flesh. And it was Dane’s fucking fault.

Nausea pushed at his throat when the scent of copper reached his nose, but he ignored it and met Jag’s gaze, increasingly frantic. “I’m sorry… I didn’t know—”

Tears spilled from Jag’s eyes so abruptly, he must have been holding them in and couldn’t any more. “Wh-why do you hate me?” he sobbed, and more blood pooled around his wound, making Dane hyper-aware that he needed to either get Jag help or run, in which case Jag would have surely pulled himself off that rod and followed him until he bled out like a pig.

“I don’t—Jesus,” Dane whimpered, shaking as he bent to see whether the piece of metal was attached to something. Relief was like sugar melting on his tongue when he only found the broken wood of the crate. The most logical, safest bet would have been to leave Jag here and run to the house below, but this idiot wouldn’t have let him.

With slack features, Jag grabbed the front of Dane’s T-shirt, but his grip was weak. “Don’t go…”

Every bit of Dane was boiling with panic, but inaction would achieve nothing, so he gently pushed his arm under Jag’s shoulders and tried to lift him while making sure the rod moved as little as possible. “We need to find you help.”

Jag’s bloodshot eyes turned toward him, but he pointed in the direction of the house Dane had meant to head for all along. “Let’s get there.”

Dane gave a frantic nod and squatted behind Jag to help him up without making his body bend too much in any direction. Seeing blood drizzle down the other end of the bar made him lightheaded, but this wasn’t the time to feel sorry for himself.

Getting Jag to stand took ages, and his trembling skin—slippery with sweat but weirdly cold—didn’t make this any easier. By the time he was back on his feet, Dane was shaking just as much.

“Just… careful. You can’t fall.”

Step by step, they made their way down, and this man, who’d seemed frightening to Dane for such a long time, now depended on him with his life. Guilt mingled with a flood of tenderness, and Dane had to fight off a blurriness forming in his own eyes when he thought that despite all his flaws Jag loved him with the devotion of a dog. And as clueless and misguided as he could be, seeing him scared and in pain awoke the kind of protective feelings Dane had so far only had for his family.

Jag had made many mistakes when it came to their relationship, yet a part of Dane already knew he wouldn’t abandon this man. They just needed a chance to talk on neutral ground, and if that was to happen, Jag’s stupid, strong, and loving heart needed to keep beating.

The way down was dangerous and nerve-wracking, but by the time they reached the asphalt around the house, Dane exhaled, raising his gaze from the gruesome sight of the bar piercing a body he’d been caressing not that long ago.

He was about to speak when Jag let out a strange noise and lost his footing so rapidly he’d have fallen face-first if Dane didn’t have enough strength to keep him up. “No!

“I’m… I’m fine…” Jag uttered, but his eyelids drooped, and he felt heavier in Dane’s grip by the heartbeat. When Dane looked at the trail of red droplets they’d left behind, his desperation skyrocketed. He sucked in a lungful of air and cried out the same way Jag had.