Not happy being considered a buffet for the aliens, she turned her thoughts back to the male alien. Hell, as far as she knew, it could be a female. She scanned the repulsive creature, noticing blood seeping through a slit in its chest. The blood was red. She had imagined their blood would be a different color. Was red blood universal?
Glancing around, she became even more concerned that another alien would come across them out in the open. Just leave it and go, she told herself. Instead, she reached into the canvas bag hanging from her shoulder to take out a box of gauze pads. Cautiously, she pressed down hard on the wound, trying to stop the bleeding. As she did, its skin started slipping off to the side with a sucking sound.
Falling backward onto her bottom, she tried not to vomit at the sound. Had she killed the alien by touching it? Squeamish, she forced herself to look back at the alien, expecting to see the repulsive insides. Instead, what she saw had her going to her knees and crawling closer, her mind slow to process what she was seeing.
“What the hell?”
The tanned skin of a human had been revealed, instead of the gory insides of an alien.
Slowly, she reached out to touch the flesh that had come loose. It felt like leather. The human must have either killed or found dead aliens and skinned them to make himself appear like one of them.
“Why didn’t we think about doing that?” she thought out loud. It was a sound plan, which was in direct contrast to the way they had been dealing with the aliens—they ran. In all their searches for food and supplies, they had yet to come across any weapons that could be used to defend themselves.
On the other hand, wearing the suit was probably why he had been attacked. It was kind of a big fuck you from the aliens he had killed to make the suit.
Had the man lying on the ground made the suit for protection in an effort to blend in among the aliens, or was it a callous disregard to the lives he had taken?
Raine estimated his height to be above six feet as she gingerly reached out to move his blond, tousled hair away from his face to get a better look at his features.
Sucking in a deep breath, she saw the masculine beauty of his features, though the lower part of his face was hidden beneath a massive moustache and beard. Curiously, he had parted the beard with each half braided, tying each end of the beard with what seemed like a leather tong. Above the beard, his facial features were breathtaking, with an aquiline nose and a sculpted jawline.
Dragging her eyes away from the man’s face, Raine took out another clean gauze pad to press down on the bleeding wound. The clothes he wore under the alien skin had the feel of a supple leather, fitting his body like they had been made for him.
Feeling guilty taking advantage of him being unconscious, she traveled her eyes down to the broad shoulders and massive chest. Embarrassed, her eyes flew over the bulge of his crotch to move down the long length of his legs.
Holy moly, he was a big dude. No wonder the aliens had ganged up on him.
Her concern grew that they could be sighted out in the open. She rose to stand over the unconscious man. Taking him by his feet, Raine then started dragging him to the spot where she had been hiding during his beating.
Dropping back down to the ground after she came back from getting the skins and covering the trail of blood he had left behind, she situated him as best as she could out of sight. Then she reassumed pressing down on his wound.
“What should I do?” Raine asked the unconscious man. “I can’t drag you all the way back with me. The aliens could come back to the city at any minute. If they find us, they’ll finish you off and either kill me or take me captive. I don’t know what to do.”
Uncertain, she continued putting pressure on the wound, intermittently checking to see if the bleeding had stopped. Time passed with no further sound or movement from the man. Finally seeing the bleeding had stopped, Raine began assessing her next move.
There were three buildings surrounding them, which she hadn’t yet searched. She would go through them to find what she could then come back to check on him. She desperately needed more bandages after using the ones she had found for Lucas. He had been injured while searching for supplies. One of the purple ones had slashed his back before he had been able to escape. He was getting worse, and unless one of them were able to find antibiotics soon, she was afraid he would die.