Page 34 of Love Bound

Calm.

Stay the fuck calm.

"Okay, easy," I say, as if to a caged animal.

He looks up and there is so much pain in his gray-green-whatever-the-hell-color eyes he has, I have to look away so I don’t get lost in them. Or in his agony.

Focus.

He closes those eyes and leans back, his shoulders releasing. I'm sure he’s been picturing freezing or bleeding to death up here. There's a smeary trail of blood from where he's fallen.

"Hey," he says. "I fell through."

I kneel down, and tip his head forward to see where he's hurt. He doesn't flinch. "I should get you in a neck brace."

"I'm fine," he says, his voice completely in control.

I try to match it. "I'd say you're far from fine, my friend."

He opens his eyes again but looks down at his side. Blood seeps through his fingers. "I don’t have a broken neck." He tries to scoot up a little and his breath hisses between his teeth.

"Let's see what's going on there," I suggest.

"No," he says. And then his gaze reaches mine, and for a second I see the total, complete control as if he's adjusted now. "Your family had a lot of rebar."

He shifts his hand away from his side and he involuntarily shudders. There, in the gloomy light, is the darkened stem of rebar covered in blood.

"It's through me," he clarifies.

"Oh my God." I reach for my phone, but there's no connection, no text, no talk. There hardly ever is and, with the storm, we're cut off. I shiver, an adrenaline rush, but he mistakes it for cold.

"Go get a coat," he says calmly.

I ignore this, but his comment makes me see other things. He's soaking wet, his skin ashen, gray at the temples, and his lips—those beautiful lips—are turning blue. He's either going into shock or hypothermia or both. It's got to be in the mid-twenties in here. And he's soaked to the skin.

"We need to move you," I say. "We can't stay here."

Devon would kill me, but I don’t see any other choice. The roads would be impassable by now and walking five miles for help is not an option. I could take the dinghy out once I make sure he’s safe and have Bobby Millan radio the coast guard who could then contact the hospital, but even an ambulance wouldn’t make it down the curving mountain road into town. It’s a forty-five-minute drive in good weather.

I slip an arm around him and feel him against me. He plants his feet and I stand, leveraging my right leg against the trunk to get him to a semi-standing position.

And then I swallow bile.

The other end of the rebar sticks four inches out the other side, and blood—thick and dark—has pooled underneath him.

A lot of blood.

He's breathing hard, but steady on his legs. A little too self-sufficient. "Lean on me more. We've got to get to the second floor," I tell him.

"Okay, Claire-girl, whatever you say."

I kick the door wider, and we move slowly, step by step, and I feel him tense every time his right foot lands. I'm on his right, my hand over his, trying to stop the bleeding, trying not to look at his back.

"I'm such a bad neighbor," he says, and I realize he's trying to make a joke. And then, more seriously, "Shit. I'm getting blood all over you."

I grip his soaking windbreaker as we stand at the top of the stairs. "I'm going to take a step first, and then you go," I say.

"No dead man lift?" This is a joke, but his face grows even grayer.