Rogue (Dead Man's Ink, #2)(9)

I take a deep breath, watching Cade growing smaller and smaller as he runs up the hill to Rebel’s place, and then I’m looking over my shoulder, out over the endless, scrubby desert between me and civilization…and I’m shaking my head.

I could die out there. That’s not what stops me from running, though. It’s the fact that Rebel could die right here, right now and I would never know it.

My head is swimming as I run up the hill behind Cade. I’ve lost my mind. I must be completely insane to be doing this. My father’s face flashes through my head as I summit the hill, running directly back into the place I’ve been desperate to escape from the past ten days. In my head, for some weird reason, my father is smiling.





THREE





REBEL





I can’t remember the last time I threw up. Certainly not for any reason other than being blind f*cking drunk, anyway. I mean, yes, I suppose I do feel really drunk, but that’s because I’m losing copious amounts of blood and I can’t seem to stem the flow. I’m retching, head spinning, vision blurred when I see a dark shape coming toward me. Coming toward me fast.

“Fuck me, man, what the hell?” It’s Cade. His voice reaches me, though it sounds muffled, like I’ve got cotton wool stuffed inside my ears. “Well, aren’t you in a state.”

I weakly lift my right hand from the ground and flip him off. Cade laughs. “See why you sent for me now, jackass,” he says. “Guy gives you a couple of pints of blood in a foreign country and the next thing you know it’s five years later an’ he wants the damn stuff back. Indian giver.” He laughs under his breath, and my brain works sluggishly? trying to decipher what he’s talking about .

Ah, yeah. That’s right. Afghanistan. We were in Afghanistan and he was shot. He’d lost a lot of blood. I gave him some of mine. The doctors performed a transfusion because we were the same blood type, and Cade was my brother and I wouldn’t just sit by and watch him die while we waited around for the bagged stuff to arrive.

I’ve been fighting to stay upright, to stay awake, but now that he’s here, I feel like I can stop fighting so hard. The bastard won’t let me die, I know it. I fall back, my head bouncing off the floor, and then Cade’s hands are on my torso, spinning me over slowly so that I’m on my side.

Pain washes through me, like I’m being stabbed all over again. It’s weird, though, the ghost of what pain should really feel like. Everything’s going numb. That’s how it starts…dying. Your nerve endings start playing tricks on you, cutting your brain off from your limbs or making you think you’re really cold. At this particular point in time, I feel like I’m half frozen.

“Better…hurry your…ass up,” I stutter. It’s shock. I know it is. My whole body is starting to shake.

Another voice speaks, catching at my focus for a second. Sophia. My hands involuntarily twitch, my fingers curling inwards, as though reaching for the idea of her. “What…what should I do?” she asks.

I can’t see her, but I can sense her close. “Hold this,” Cade tells her. I can’t see what he hands her. She’s standing behind me, breathing quickly, like she’s hyperventilating. Pain bites through me, a sudden, sharp reminder of how shitty it is when your nerve endings actually decide to work in situations like this. Carefully, slowly, I look down, struggling to focus my eyes on what’s happening to my chest. Cade is quickly, efficiently stitching me back together, my skin tugging and pulling as he forcefully shoves the needle in and out of my skin.

“Any…internal…?” I manage.

“No. No, your insides are just fine, you lucky son of a bitch, now hold still.”

I hold still, grinding my teeth together as I’m put back together. I manage to stay awake until the very final stitch is tied off, and then I pass the f*ck out.

I could be out for hours, but I get the feeling it’s more like fifteen minutes. When I regain consciousness, Cade is standing over me, glaring grimly at me while he wipes his hands on one of my bathroom towels, and Sophia is sitting on the edge of the bed, wearing next to nothing. If I had any blood left in my body, I’m sure it would be headed straight for my dick right now. As it goes, I roll over slowly and throw up over the side of the bed.

“Nice,” Cade observes. “Real f*cking nice.”

“Fuck you, man.” It sounds like I’ve been eating gravel. My head is splitting apart. I fall back onto the pillows, my stomach rolling again, making empty threats. There can’t be anything left inside me to bring back up by now. Sophia grimaces at the mess I’ve made; she gets to her feet and heads for the kitchen bench, rifling under the counters, presumably looking for cleaning products.

“Don’t. You don’t have to do that,” I say, wincing.

Cade lifts an eyebrow, shaking his head. “Sure she does, man. I’m gonna sit here and let you steal half my plasma. I ain’t gonna clean up your puke, too.”

“Then deal with it,” I growl. “She shouldn’t have to—”

“I don’t mind. I don’t want to sit here looking at it, either.” Soph drops to her knees and starts mopping up my vomit, which makes me feel about three f*cking inches tall. While she’s doing that, Cade sets up for the blood transfusion. He must have gone back to the clubhouse and grabbed the tourniquets, lines and needles while I was briefly out for the count.