Kelly Meding - Wrong Side of Dead

Partway there, I grabbed Phin’s arm. “Hold on for a second.” I balanced on my left foot and yanked down the zipper on the right boot. Cool air hit my legs, and I peeled the offending leather away from sweaty, red-marked skin. My ankle protested being bent back to its normal angle, and again when I put my weight on it. Blissful pain. I moaned.

Phin made a sound somewhere between a snort and a laugh. “Better?”

“Almost.” My left leg soon joined my right in boot freedom. I let go of Phin, then threw the offending objects against the nearest wall. They hit the floor with a clattering thud. I bounced on the balls of my feet, stretching my calf muscles, smoothing out the aches. “Yeah, much better.”

“You’re going to leave them there?”

I eyed the boots. “I borrowed the damned things for this rave. If someone wants them, they’re welcome to them. Knee-high leather boots with three-inch heels are torture devices.”

He chuckled and continued walking. I padded behind, the ceramic tile floor cool on my bare feet. A familiar buzz of power tickled over my skin as we passed the Sanctuary. A vampire was always standing guard at the hall entrance leading down to what had once been a set of the mall’s public bathrooms. The women’s restroom was the last place anyone would think to find a Sanctuary. Its location had certainly surprised the hell out of me.

The infirmary was a few stores down, in what I’m told was once an electronics outlet. Not that it mattered much, since the entire thing was gutted, outfitted with an emergency surgical suite (not that we had a surgeon yet, but it was on the To Do list), a fully stocked closet of supplies, an exam room, and four private patient rooms. The adjacent store was under construction as an expansion. We were in a pretty dangerous and injury-prone line of work, after all.

The infirmary wasn’t a doctor’s office, so there was no waiting room. Just a desk, some filing cabinets, and the curtained exam room. All of our Boot Camp medical staff had been slaughtered last month. The Assembly brought in an Ursia (were-grizzly bear) physician they trusted, and who was familiar with human, Therian, and vampire anatomy. Dr. Reid Vansis was good, and he knew it. He also had the grumpy personality of most Ursia I’d met, which made him someone I preferred to avoid. But he’d saved Milo’s life when he was shot, and I respected him for it.

But Vansis also wasn’t in. As the only doctor in residence, he had a large whiteboard on the wall behind his desk where he wrote his location when he wasn’t in the office. In large black letters he’d scrawled “SLEEPING.” Which meant we were not to disturb him except for emergencies. Which this clearly wasn’t.

Terrific.

“Take off your shirt,” I said.

Phin yanked the hem of his shirt out of his jeans and up over his shoulders, and whipped it off in one smooth motion. He wasn’t fast enough to hide his wince, though. A long, pale line divided his chest from sternum to belly button—a terrible reminder of the hell he’d been through because of me.

“Turn around,” I said.

He did, presenting a lean, perfectly muscled back. Hiding just above the waist of his jeans was a four-inch gash, still oozing blood. This close, I could see the dark, damp patch where the blood had soaked into his pants. I could also see more meat than I was comfortable with.

“Damn, Phin, that might need stitches.”

“It does?” He twisted his torso in a vain attempt to see his own lower back, and only managed to make the wound gape wider. He hissed, then quit trying to see it and felt around with his fingers. “It’ll heal, Evy. Use those butterfly bandages to keep it together until it can mend.”

I eyeballed the gash. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

Therians healed faster than the average human, but it would still be several days before that wound was completely gone. And it would likely scar. Small lines and imperfections dotted his back and shoulders—scars I never had the guts to ask about. I still didn’t.

We moved our little production into the curtained exam area and assembled a tray of useful items—bandages, medical tape, alcohol, gauze, scissors. He turned, once again presenting his back. I wetted some gauze with the alcohol and paused to assess the playing field. This wasn’t going to work.

“Okay, Phin,” I said, “I need you to drop your pants.”

“I—pardon me?”

Saturday, July 26

12:20 A.M.

Phin turned his head far enough to see me over his shoulder. “Drop my pants?”

“Yes, please. The wound is too low and your jeans are in the way.”

“I was uncertain if I would have to shift this evening.”

I frowned. “Okay. And?”

“In the interest of expediency, I wore as few layers as possible.”

What the hell was he—? Oh . “You’re not wearing underwear?”

“Correct.”

“I’ve seen you naked, you know.”

He turned completely around, his face a question mark. As a general rule, Therians weren’t shy about nudity, but he was always more careful than most about exposing himself. In front of me, at any rate. “You have?” he asked.

“Well, I was half-delirious from smoke inhalation and it was hard to see through the inferno.”

“I don’t—Oh, the factory fire.” Understanding dawned, and he smiled. It was a warm, friendly smile. “I suppose that’s only fair, as I’ve seen you naked, as well.”

I forced a grin, even as my heart pounded against my ribs. Neither of our situations had been ideal; however, the reason he saw me naked nearly two months ago was one of the worst memories of my life. I shoved it away, not wanting to ponder the circumstances of that day and what that fucking pùca had done. Mimicking Wyatt’s body and face so perfectly, then knocking me out and stealing syringes of my blood. Driven by an instinctive need to leave chaos in its wake, the pùca made me believe, for the merest fraction of an instant, that Wyatt was actually hurting me.

I looked at the floor, the ceiling, anywhere but at Phin.

Warm palms cupped my cheeks. “Evy, I am so sorry. That was a callous thing to say.”

I swallowed against the acid creeping into my throat. Met his gaze and found myself staring into intense twin pools of concern. “It’s okay.”

He pursed his lips, eyebrows furrowed, his sharp features displaying every bit of the predatory bird he shifted into. “No, it isn’t. It was meant in jest and it caused you pain, which wasn’t my intention.”

“I know, Phin. I’m fine.”

“I’m still sorry.”

“Apology accepted.” I pressed gently into his hands, appreciating the gesture. The joy of simply being touched in a nonviolent manner. I curled my fingers around his right wrist and squeezed, marveling again at the hard muscle beneath feather-soft skin. “Thank you. Now turn around and drop your pants.”

His eyebrows arched, and then he laughed. He undid his belt and shoved his jeans down to his knees. With the field clear (and my eyes firmly on the wound) I cleaned the skin around the slice, then put a clean gauze pad over it.

“Hold this down hard,” I said.

He reached around and pressed the pad against the cut while I opened a few butterfly bandages. I still thought it needed stitches, and I didn’t trust myself to apply the liquid bandage stuff to anyone besides myself.

“Have you spoken to Wyatt recently?” he asked, breaking a perfectly good nonawkward silence.

I swatted his hand away and peeled off the bloody gauze pad. The bleeding had slowed, but it was still oozing. “You mean besides him telling our squad to not get killed tonight as we left a few hours ago? No.” Two of the butterflies adhered easily. The third was refusing to stick, so I opened another.