Page 8 of Out for Blood
I pushed open the door and just about cried with relief. Vigo was sitting propped up in the hospital bed, a small bandage on his forehead and a larger one on his left arm, his upper body hidden by a hospital gown that was stretched to the limit by his broad shoulders.
He turned to look at me, and I was pretty sure I saw the same relief reflected in his sage-green eyes.
“Thank fuck,” he said. “The police said you’d made it to town, but I couldn’t breathe easy until I saw it for myself. Actually,I can’t breathe easy now either, but that’s on account of my broken ribs.”
I hurried toward him and he raised his arms and pulled me into an embrace, then gasped. “Ow, fuck!”
I pulled back. “Sorry!”
“I’m not. Worth it to hug you.”
His blond hair was tousled and his face was covered in small cuts, but he’d never looked better to me. He was alive, and I was just beginning to realize that that was one of the things I needed to feel alive too.
“You scared me,” I said.
“You married me?” he asked. “Wait… I married you?”
I’d forgotten about his hearing loss. “No, ‘scared.’ Youscaredme.”
“Oh.” He looked disappointed. “That’s significantly less exciting.”
I was surprised when a small laugh escaped my mouth. Two hours earlier I’d been pretty sure I would never laugh again.
Vigo studied me, then carefully lifted a hand to my face. “You okay, mouse? Did you get away before that fucking grenade went off? You look a little rough.”
I reached up to touch my tangled hair, then remembered my race through the woods along the river. The one time I’d looked in the mirror when I’d finally gone to the bathroom in the hospital waiting room, I’d been shocked by my reflection. It wasn’t just the dried leaves that had tangled in my hair, the dirt smudged on my face, the tiny cut on my left cheek, a wound I didn’t even remember getting.
It had been the haunted look in my eyes, the eyes of someone who’d almost lost everything.
“I’m fine.” I sat on the edge of his hospital bed, glad Bram and Maeve had stayed in the waiting room so I could talk to Vigo in private. “Are you okay? How are you feeling?”
“Like I fell on a grenade.” He looked up, like something was just occurring to him. “Wait a minute…”
I laughed without thinking, then stopped. It felt wrong to laugh when Hawk was in such bad shape. Plus, I hadn’t even seen Jagger yet.
“How bad?” Now Vigo’s expression was serious too, like he’d heard everything I hadn’t said.
“Jagger will be okay,” I said. “I haven’t seen him yet — they have him sedated — but the doctor said he’s pretty cut up. She said he has a concussion and a burn on one arm.”
“Hawk?”
“He’s…” I took a deep breath. For all of Vigo’s humor, he was still injured. The Hawks had been strong for me after my accident. Now it was my turn to be strong for them. “He’s in bad shape, Vigo. He’s cut up like you and Jagger, but he has a bad burn on his right side, and his liver was punctured in the blast. They had to do surgery to stop the bleeding.”
“Fuck…” Vigo’s forehead creased with worry. “He’s going to make it though… right?”
I licked my lips, forced myself to speak the words I didn’t want to think, let alone say. “They don’t know.”
He scowled. “What do you mean they don’t know?”
I understood his confusion. Hawk was bigger than life, as permanent as a mountain. The possibility of anything happening to him, of anything taking him away from me — from us — seemed impossible.
“He’s lost a lot of blood. They had to do a transfusion. He’s not allowed visitors yet, but he’s in the ICU. The doctor said the next twenty-four hours are critical.”
Vigo sank into the hospital mattress, his gaze traveling to the ceiling. “Fuck.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “This is… this is all my fault.”
He turned his gaze on me. “What the fuck are you talking about, mouse?”
