Page 117 of Bittersweet & Strange

“I don’t know how badly he’s hurt.”

“Then let me go.”

I twist out of his hold, but he catches me again, both arms closing around me this time. The sharp breath that leaves him tells me I’ve hurt his injured arm.

I don’t care.

I’ll apologize later. I’ll apologize to both of them later, after Mara patches them up and Dad complains about the fuss everyone made over nothing.

“Rhys, stop.”

“Boone, please.”

I go still.

Not because he’s holding me or because I’ve suddenly stopped wanting to reach my father, but because Rhys doesn’t plead with anyone. He commands, threatens and demands. Even when his voice is quiet, there is always something immovable behind it, something that makes it clear he expects to be obeyed.

There is none of that now.

I stop fighting him long enough to look at his face. His gaze moves toward my father, then returns to me.

I start to feel sick.

“No. No. No. No.”

My entire body jerks against him and his hold breaks.

Then I’m running.

Someone moves aside when I reach Dad. I drop so hard beside him that pain shoots through both knees, but it disappears before I can register it. There is blood everywhere now that I’m close enough to see it, soaking his shirt, staining the hands of the men trying to help him, and spreading into the dirt under his back.

“Dad.”

His eyes are closed. I grab his hand because it’s the only part of him without blood on it.

“Dad, I’m here.”

His fingers move.

A laugh breaks from my throat, thin and broken and nothing like laughter at all.

I look at the man pressing the cloth against his chest, but he won’t meet my gaze. He lowers his eyes to the wound instead, and I immediately look away from him.

My father draws in a breath.

Every thought disappears. The sound is wrong, wet and so shallow that I hold my own breath waiting for his next one.

It comes.

I squeeze his hand.

“Dad.”

His eyelids flutter.

“Come on. Open your eyes.”

They open slowly, unfocused at first, moving past the people gathered around him until they finally find me.