With that, he strides out of the room with my finger clutched firmly in his hand. I’m confused, but I don’t have time to dwell on my grave situation. Camden caught me, exposed and unprepared, armed with a muscle man and a plan, two things I didn’t have with me.
Still bleeding from where my finger used to be, I grab Nate by the hem of his jeans and drag him out of the room into the corridor. He’s heavy as hell, too tall for me to be able to maneuver him alone. I bang his limp body against the doorframe by accident, but he doesn’t even flinch. My arms burn and my legs shake under the strain of his weight, as I pull him out to the living room area of the apartment, one inch at a time. I catch Simon lying flat on the floor, his neck cut open. I drag Nate outside the apartment, but this is an old Victorian building. There’s no elevator.
The adrenaline that exploded in my veins subdues, and I feel the sharp pain in my hand and my thighs itching with my own urine. I have to hurry up before I faint.
Reluctantly, I round behind Nate’s head and grab him by his shoulders, each arm hooked under an armpit, and protecting his head. I slide him down the stairs, all while trying to pull him up to me so his head won’t take a hit. He looks so fragile, even with his huge size, with his eyes closed and that hole in his stomach.
The minute I get out of the building, I lose it. Every ounce of self-control evaporates as I yell for help. I grab strangers by the collar, staining them with my blood and sweat, begging them to call an ambulance, knowing that they are going to call the police too, but I’m far too gone to care. Trapped in a bubble made of insanity, I desperately want to burst. It’s ironic, my need to be strong for a man who is my only weakness.
I can’t lose him. Can’t let go of my peace.
Fifteen minutes later, we’re both at St. Mary’s Hospital.
Nate is being ushered to the operating room while I fight the staff who are trying to tend to my wound, demanding to join him.
The art of letting go. Camden thought he was bad at it, but me, I’m worse.
Five hours later, my hand is wrapped up and Nate is recovering in the other room. He lost a lot of blood and had to have a transfusion, but Simon didn’t manage to reach any of his inner organs. I was not allowed to stay by his side as I’m not next-to-kin, but the minute he wakes up, he asks for me. A nurse approaches my sad plastic table in the cafeteria and places her palm over my bandaged hand. “Your companion said he’d like to see Miss Cockburn?”
Nate is still subdued under mountains of morphine, but he squeezes my healthy hand when we meet. His lips are chapped and he has an IV drip attached to his arm.
“He’s dead,” I croak as soon as my ass hits the chair beside his bed. I’m too tired to cry. “Preston. Camden killed him.”
“Baby-Cakes.” His sucks in a shaky breath, stroking my palm in his. He doesn’t need to tell me he’s sorry. It’s all in his facial expression, wrapped in grief.
He knew this all along, I didn’t want to listen.
Our foreheads meet, and I take a whiff of my peace. Fragile and hurt, it’s still there. I used to look at Nate as someone invincible who could catch a bullet in his hand. Now I know that he is mortal, like me. It makes me love him even more.
“Tell me something beautiful,” his lips speak into mine. This time, I don’t have to search my brain for an answer. No words written by someone else can do us justice.
“Us,” I rasp. “We’re beautiful and ugly and broken. . .and whole.”
Four days later, the police finally come to terms with the fact that they aren’t getting anything from us. “Snitches are bitches,” Nate whispered to my neck when they first arrived in his hospital room. I stick to my story that a bunch of teenagers in beanies cornered us in an alleyway, stabbed Nate, cut my finger out when I didn’t want to give them my bag and ran away with our money. We’re just two tourists from America who want to go home and lick our wounds. It’s a crazy lie no one believes, but you can’t force the truth out of people. Especially people like us.
A week later, we’re free. Me sans a finger, Nate with a new, fresh scar on his stomach. Simon hit a spot that’s already heavily covered in ink. His “tainted” side, as Nate calls it. The scar will not be visible under the steampunk clock scribbled on his stomach.