“Woah.Shit.”Zed grips my shoulder.“You’re losing blood faster than I realized.”
Maybe.Or maybe it’s the fact that I haven’t eaten or slept in at least twenty-four hours.Or…all of the above.
After we’ve trudged the handful of miles back to the plane, my vision is tunneling.My feet are so heavy I’m stumbling on tree roots.By the time our pilot, Deon, has gotten us into the air, all I want is a shot of whiskey and a bed.
“Hang on there, hot shit.”Zed slaps me when I turn onto my side in the seat.“Gotta lay you down so I can fix you up.”
“Fuck.”It’s a small plane, made for the times when our team needs to get in and out of hard-to-reach places.The craft is designed more for maneuverability than it is for luxury or comfort.The seats recline, at least enough so that those of us who are used to sleeping literally anywhere can rest.There’s no bed.
My friend hauls me out of the chair and dumps me somewhat unceremoniously into the aisle.Pain shoots through me—from my spent muscles, the stab wound in my gut, and the chasm that opened when Ravi left.My pain is a living thing taking over my body.It has its own heartbeat.
“Ow.Fucker.”
“Don’t go blaming me for this.You’re the one who went off on a torture spree because your boy toy left the state.”
“He’s not my boy toy.”He’s not my anything.Not anymore.
“Let me guess.You pushed him away?Don’t bother answering.It’s exactly what you’d fucking do.”
My only answer is a strained grunt when he pinches the wound on my stomach together.Then another when he hits my skin with a blast of cold.
“The lidocaine is more than you deserve,” he grumbles.“After being such a dumb shit.”
“He’s not for me,” I say.I’ve repeated those same four words over and over these last couple of days.When I’m really struggling, I pair them with: “He’s safer without me.”
“Is he?”Zed jabs a needle into my flesh.The numbing agent hasn’t really even had time to take effect.“Or maybe.”Another jab.“That’s the lie you tell yourself, because Liam Masters is nothing if not a martyr.”Jab.”And you think the only way to redeem yourself is to make yourself alone and fucking miserable.”
What I know is that I had one job, and that job was keeping Ravi safe.I failed.
I’m silent, biting my lips together against the pain of the sutures.Every one of us knows how to do them.It’s part of our training.Some of us are better at it than others.Zed is not the best at them even when he’s in a good mood.
“Your bedside manner could use some work,” I argue.
“Fuck you and your bedside manner.You don’t deserve that shit right now.Look, it’s one thing to go down in a blaze of glory if that’s what finally makes you feel better.Frankly, I’d rather you didn’t, since I don’t want to lose my best friend.But if you continue on this path of recklessness, you’re going to put everyone around you in danger worse than anything you were afraid of happening when Ravi was around.And Ravi won’t be any safer.”
I sink into the hard surface of the tiny plane aisle, puzzling over his words.Usually I’m the one in charge.The one with the plan.Right now I don’t even know how to admit to my friend that he’s absolutely right.
“Everything fucking hurts.”
“Of course it does.In the last few days you’ve gotten shot, stabbed, and concussed.”
“That’s not what I mean.”Not entirely, anyway.
“I know that’s not what you mean.Here.Done.We should get you to a hospital to check for internal damage, but it’ll hold you for now.”He stows the med kit and hauls me up, dumping me into a chair.
My head swims.When I close my eyes, all I can see is Ravi’s shadow beside my bed.Ravi rising and falling on my cock.Ravi walking out the door.
“He fucked me,” I murmur.“Then he just left.”
It’s shameful how pathetic I sound.But I’m too spent to care.
“You fucking told him to, dumbass.”
He’s right.I did.
“He didn’t stay and fight.”Even as I say it, I know it’s bullshit.Ravi’s been fighting for us for nearly two years.“It doesn’t matter anyway.He’s too young to know what he wants.The kid’s pre-med for fuck’s sake, even though anyone with half a brain can see he hates it.”
Another painful jab from my friend.“You’re not going to want to hear this, but I’m going to go ahead and throw it out there that maybe if you hadn’t rejected him so thoroughly and so repeatedly, maybe if you’d given him some damn support as his guardianoras his lover—either one—he might not have felt like he needed to be the thing his dead parents wanted him to be.I sure as fuck don’t get why he’d want your cranky ass, but I’ve seen the way he looks at you.I’d bet my car, my house, and my own dick that all that kid’s ever wanted was to know you approved of him.”