Page 7 of Silver Lining (The Diamond Trilogy 3)
My pulse slams against my eardrums, working overtime, and I take a deep breath. It does nothing to crack open the icy fear encasing my lungs. Think of him as a man asleep on a couch, London. One step closer. One more. There.
From this vantage point—hovering over him, a half-step from the couch—things look even worse. His shirt has caved in to the wound below it. The fabric is soaked in blood. Adam has his face turned toward the back of the couch and he looks so still, so horribly still.
A bruise paints one of his cheeks.
I reach for him before I know what I’m doing. Oh, god. What if he’s cold?
If he’s cold, it’s too late, it’s way too late. I’m going to have to walk out of this apartment and never come back, not ever. I’ll have to convince Holly not to look for me, and she won’t be convinced. I know she won’t.
My fingertips are a whisper away from the purple bruise when he moves, a hand shooting out to grab my wrist. I suck a huge breath in for a scream and then swallow the sound, jagged edges and all. My pulse is too big for my veins, the silvery burst of adrenaline so powerful it feels like an electric shock. His eyes meet mine with sharp focus.
“Who did this to you?” My voice sounds thin and high and I swallow that, too. No time for falling apart now. “Who hurt you?”
His pupils recede, and he lets his head fall back on the one throw pillow I own. “An old friend.”
My mouth has gone dry, but I manage a casual tone. “With friends like that, who needs enemies?”
He huffs his amusement, focus slipping away from me and onto the ceiling. “I have enemies, too. Believe me, they’re worse.”
I detach his hand from my wrist and run my fingers through my hair. “Jesus. Okay. You’re here in my apartment. And you’re hurt, you’re dying, you’re—”
“Shot.” He winces as he pushes himself up against the arm of the couch. Not upright, but inclined. I can tell he pays a cost for this. “You can look, if you’re interested.”
“If I’m interested.” My lips buzz with a new bolt of adrenaline. What else is there to do but lift his shirt away from the wound? We both fumble with the project until the formerly gray fabric is over Adam’s head. There’s more blood underneath. Too much to see what I’m doing. “ I’m going to help you, but first I need to freak the fuck out. Wait here.”
“No, I’ve got to go. I’ve got an important meeting.” A wry smile curves his lips, but he lays his head back on the arm of the couch and clenches his jaw.
I soak a clean towel through with hot water, studiously ignoring my shaking hands. And then I return to where Adam’s breathing fast and shallow on the couch, the bloodied t-shirt clenched in one fist. He lets out a breath when I perch on the couch next to him, and another one when I touch the towel to his skin. “Be quick about it,” he says, his teeth gritted.
When the worst of the blood has laid claim to the towel I can see the wound.
Small. Raw. Circular. A bullet wound. I thought my heart couldn’t beat faster, but it does. “You need a hospital. I’m not a doctor. I don’t even play one on TV. This is ridiculous.”
“No fucking hospitals.” His eyes go black with this, spearing through mine.
“You’re delirious. You’re drunk on pain and probably blood loss.”
“I’m stone-cold sober.”
I fold the sacrificed towel up and toss it toward the kitchen. “I don’t know how to treat a gunshot wound, Adam. What am I supposed to do? Put a Band-Aid on it?”
His eyes do that thing again, sliding away from my face to some distant point behind me, and a cold point of fear pricks at my gut. His lips curl in amusement. “Google it.”
“That’s not funny.”
The shake in my voice seems to sober him. “No. It’s not funny. I’ll need tweezers. And towels. Lots of them. More than that scrap you had before. All the towels you own, probably.”
“I hope this part is a joke.”
He narrows his eyes. “And alcohol.”
“To clean the wound?”
“No, to drink. This is going to hurt like a motherfucker.”
Not a joke. Not a joke at all. This has passed a new threshold for serious situations in my life. A man is literally dying on my couch. I’m the only one here to save him.
“Now,” prompts Adam, and up and moving again. Tweezers are in the bathroom. All of my clean towels are shoved into one rickety closet, and the closet won’t give them up. It’s like the closet wants him to die. Fuck the closet. That’s not happening tonight, not if I can help it. And I’m going to have to help it. There’s nobody else.
