The blood was...
I faltered, swallowing past a lump in my throat and taking a few deep breaths. Jasper tried to pull his top back down—silently telling me not to worry—but I was determined. Dylan had asked me to take care of Jasper, and what had Beck said? No man left behind?
Gritting my teeth against the cold, I whipped my coat off, then pulled my tank top over my head. Jasper’s lips parted in confused shock, but I ignored him as I put my jacket back on and zipped it up over my bra. The bulky outer garment would have been no use as a compress—any idiot could have known that—but my soft cotton tank would work. Folding it up into a pad, I gently placed it over Jasper’s wound.
I hesitated—again—but then pressed down firmly. He needed pressure on the wound or he’d bleed to death out here in the middle of butt-fuck-nowhere. Jasper grimaced, but gave me a small nod and placed his hand over mine. Encouraging me.
A sound nearby made me jump, and I whipped my head around to see what it was. Dylan had left small cracks of visibility between tree branches, and I used my free hand to reach up with the intention of widening one gap.
Jasper’s hand tightened on mine, and he shook his head. Clearly, he meant, don’t be an idiot, there’s someone out there and we’re supposed to be hiding. But I knew how to be careful.
Ignoring him, I slowly wiggled my finger into a gap and slid the leaves and twigs aside. Just the tiniest bit. Just enough that I could peer out and see what was happening.
Nothing. The clearing we’d been in was totally empty.
Or was it? Another few muffled sounds came from the tree line and a black clad body dropped into the clearing. Whoever it was, they were too small to be one of my guys—uh, the guys—and his head was at a sickening angle. I was assuming it was a man. Somehow it helped me disassociate from the memory of my mother dying of a broken neck.
I held my breath to keep from gasping as Dylan stepped into my line of sight, engaged in a fist fight with another black clad individual. Except, this was no high school brawl of flying hands and wild swings. This was like an art-form. Poetry in motion. I’d never realized how beautiful martial arts could be until I saw Dylan calmly and efficiently dispatch of his attacker. It was horrifying, fearsome, and a little bit awe-inspiring. When they’d said they were trained, they hadn’t exaggerated.
With his opponent dead at his feet, dumped on top of the other body, Dylan flicked a quick glance over at where Jasper and I hid. Could he see me? Did he know I’d just watched that? That I’d just seen him kill two people with his bare hands?
Before my panic could grip its claws into me any deeper, Dylan disappeared back into the forest once more.
In his absence, I let out the breath I’d been holding in one, long, shaking exhale.
Jasper’s fingers tightened on my wrist again, and I knew he was asking if I was okay. Don’t ask me how I knew, but somehow I was learning to read these crazy, broken boys.
“I’m fine,” I breathed, so quiet I could barely hear myself. Chewing my lip, I turned my attention back to Jasper’s wound and made sure I hadn’t released pressure while I’d been distracted.
We stayed like that for ages. Neither one of us spoke, we barely even moved. My leg fell asleep under me, but I was too damn scared to move. What if I made some noise and one of those scary dudes in black was out there?
Jasper kept his hand on my wrist the whole time, but his grip got noticeably weaker, until it seemed like he was about to pass out. It was only that, that made me move.
“Jasper,” I whispered, patting him gently on the cheek. His eyes were slits, barely open, and all I could see was the whites. “Jasper, come on,” I urged him. “Don’t pass out. Everyone knows you need to stay awake in crap like this.” I patted him harder, just short of a slap, and it seemed to rouse him slightly.
“Why though?” he murmured back, his voice thick and sleepy. “Why can’t I rest? Sleep is restorative.” His eyelids fluttered again, and his head rolled away from my hand.
Panic gripped me, and I smacked him a bit harder.
“Hey,” I snapped in a harsh whisper. “Do not go to sleep, Jasper Eugene. That’s an order.”
I had no idea if that would work, but Eddy seemed to think he would respond to the use of his middle name, and I was all out of tricks.
If it did or not, I didn’t get a chance to find out.
Someone burst through the flimsy covering of our shelter and grabbed me in a tight hold. I screamed, kicking and thrashing as my attacker pulled me out of the shelter and into the clearing.
“A girl?” The black clad man grunted. “No one mentioned a girl. Whatever, job’s a job.” He hauled me off my feet then threw me down on the ground and kicked me in the ribs. I howled in pain, curling over the injured site. This dude wasn’t fucking around, though. He dropped down on top of me, his gloved hands curling around my throat.
“Sorry kid,” my would-be-murderer muttered. “Lost my gun back in the woods there.”
The absurdity of how damn casual he sounded blew my freaking mind. All while his grip tightened and cut off my air supply. My fingers clawed at his hands, and my whole body thrashed, but I was no match for this dude. He was a professional fucking killer, and I was a damn high school student.
My vision darkened at the edges, my lungs screamed, and a high pitched noise began ringing in my ears. This was it. I’d survived a car crash, and a plane crash, but my number was up.
I started to give up, my head dropping to the side as the fight left my limbs. But something caught my eye.
Jasper had dragged himself half way out of the shelter and waved Dylan’s knife at me, getting my attention before he slid it across the frost covered grass. His aim was true, and it skidded right into my side, beside my attacker’s knee. Thankfully near my hand that wasn’t broken.
The black clad dude didn’t even notice it, he was so invested in strangling me. Scrabbling around with my hand, I snatched it up and stabbed it into the closest part of him I could reach—his side.
He let out a hoarse shout, but his hands loosened on my neck and I sucked in greedy gasps of air, filling my burning lungs and coughing as I choked on saliva and air.
“You little bitch!” my attempted murderer screamed, like I was in the wrong here?
My limbs were weak and heavy, but my desire to live was strong. I yanked the knife out again with considerable effort—having maintained my grip on the handle—then used it to slash at the man. He stumbled backward, dodging my wild swings, and I used the distance to scramble to my feet. Now we were some feet from each other, with nothing between us except a bloody hunting knife clenched in my trembling fist.
“S-stay b-back,” I stuttered, my throat aching as I waved the blade in what I hoped was a menacing way. Cold and shock and pain, combined with oxygen deprivation, had made my whole face numb, and the words were hard to force out. Not to mention he’d been trying his best to crush my throat.
The man must have noticed my severe lack of experience with my weapon, because his guarded posture relaxed. Noticeably so. Fear for my life gripped me, and I stepped forward and slashed my blade at him again. Maybe I didn’t know how to use it, but how hard was it to stab someone? Besides, sometimes the unpredictable was harder to fight. Right?
My attacker must have agreed with my mental ramble, because he took a couple of quick steps backward, avoiding my blade and holding his hands up.
“Now, that’s not necessary, little girl,” he mocked me. “Put the knife down and I promise I’ll make it a quick death, yeah?”
I slashed at him again, forcing him back another two steps. “How does get fucked sound?” I spat back at him. I didn’t need to follow through with anything more threatening. He’d done exactly what I’d been aiming for.
His retreat away from my blade had carried him directly in front of Jasper’s hiding place.
As quick as a striking cobra, Jasper slashed the man’s Achilles, then dragged a second blade across my attacker’s throat as he dropped to the earth.
The whole thing was over in less than three seconds.
For at least double that, I just stood there frozen in horror as blood spread in a rapid pool around the black clad man’s body. It was so... thick. So dark. So fucking final.
Bile burned a path up my throat, and I dropped to my knees, coughing up the meager contents of my stomach into a bush.
We weren’t safe yet, though, so as soon as I was sure I had nothing left to throw up I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand and dragged my shock shaken ass back to Jasper.
“What now?” I asked him in a stricken hoarse whisper. I couldn’t seem to peel my eyes from the dead man. Not even when Jasper tried to get to his feet and collapsed again with a hiss of pain.
“Riles, I need you to pull it together,” he muttered, grimacing as he clutched a hand to his side. My tank top was still acting as a compress, but it looked heavy and wet with blood. “We need to get out of here. Hide until we’re clear.”
I nodded, but barely felt the motion. My head was so numb it was like I’d become a bobble head. “Hide. Right. Where? How?”
Having a task, a purpose, it helped me get a grip. Jasper was hurt and he was relying on me for help. We were sitting ducks, and he was dead right that we needed to move.
“Just help me up,” he suggested. “Probably help me walk too. We don’t need to go far, we just need to not be here.”
My head bobbled again, and I crawled over to him. He draped his free arm over my shoulder and leaned heavily into me as we stood.
Fuck me, he was in a seriously bad way.
Without wasting breath on pointless words, I let him direct me. All that mattered, was making it out of these woods alive. I wasn’t qualified to make that happen on my own, so I needed to place my faith fully in my companions—rich, pretentious assholes or not.
13
To my intense relief, we didn’t need to wait long before the others found us again. We’d been in our new hiding place—a fallen, hollowed out tree trunk—for only a short time before Evan’s grinning face appeared in the opening, scaring the living shit out of me.