His hands hooked under my armpits. Agony seared through me as I was hoisted into the air.
I was floating when I next woke. My chin pressed into soft fabric, my stomach supported by something firm. Both my hands were held, the skin warm as rain drenched the clothing I’d been helped into.
The fingers around my right hand were slender, topped by long nails. Those around my left were wonderfully familiar.
I breathed deep and my eyes dipped closed, but the rush of unconsciousness didn’t feel as unwelcome as it had before. It was easy to sleep with all the pain gone. I drifted through the storm, held and safe and rescued.
I wished I could grip Kit’s hand, but the connection between my desires and actions had been severed. It was okay. He held my hand tight enough for the both of us.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
KIT
Louisa stopped telling me not to drain too much of Lucas’s pain after the third time he cried out, bonelessly flopped over one of Errol’s broad shoulders as we ran through the rain. We needed to get him to Callum, who had more reserves for pain draining than the three of us, and we needed to get him there fast.
My vision wasn’t perfect in the dark, but I’d shied away from looking at Lucas’s leg. Even a quick glance as I’d rushed into the hut had turned my stomach. It had laid across the straw at an odd angle, the sodden fabric of his jeans full to bursting.
Callum would be able to drain Lucas’s pain effortlessly while we figured out how to help him. There had to be something we could do for his leg. Hopefully the strange wetness to each of his breaths was just because he’d gotten drenched. The clammy chill of his skin was probably his body’s way of fighting the cold.
We’d found him. Now we just had to get him to safety so that we could help him.
I stumbled when Errol stopped by his jeep, but didn’t stop draining Lucas’s pain. I was exhausting myself, but how could Ipull back when I could feel that everything I was able to take only smoothed off the rough edges?
‘Kit, get in the other side. I’ll put Lucas across the back seat and you can support his head while I drive.’
What Errol said made sense, but I was reluctant to let go of Lucas’s hand. I squeezed it, then raced around the four-by-four. Lucas whimpered, then cried out when Errol lowered him from his shoulder and eased him across the back seat.
As soon as I touched him again, dark swirls danced across my hands. I rested his back to my chest, keeping his legs straight across the seat. With my arms laced around his torso, I gripped his hands in one of mine and pressed the other to the side of his face.
‘You’re going to be okay,’ I whispered as Errol and Louisa climbed into the front.
Lucas didn’t give any sign he’d heard. His skin was a horrible mix of blotchy reds and stark whites. His eyes fluttered and weak moans escaped over his chapped lips. In the hut, salty lines across his face had evidenced where his tears had fallen. The barrage of rain between the hut and the car had washed them away.
I hated thinking of Lucas in that hut, hurting and alone. I hoped he wouldn’t remember, would have vague memories of the storm before waking up somewhere dry and warm.
Louisa reached between the front seats and gripped Lucas’s hands as Errol started up the car. I didn’t look at her. I held Lucas tight and drained more of his pain. I didn’t need energy for walking anymore.
‘You’re safe now,’ I murmured into his matted hair. ‘We’re going to make sure you’re okay.’
The slam of the car door pulled me from a stupor of draining Lucas’s pain and whispering promises over his laboured breathing. The drive to find Lucas had felt much longer than thereturn trip to Callum and Aster’s cabin. My arm ached where I’d been pulling too much of what Lucas felt into myself and tiredness sapped my bones, but I didn’t stop draining the whole time we manoeuvred Lucas out of the car. Errol hefted him back over his shoulder and rushed to the cabin, Louisa and I following with Lucas’s hands pressed between ours.
The cabin door opened before we reached it. For one second, Aster stood on the threshold. In that second, the hope on his face crumbled. He stepped aside.
‘Bring him into the bedroom,’ Callum commanded, his fear of the storm secondary now there was someone for him to care for.
Errol was gentle as he slid Lucas off his shoulder and into the middle of the blanket covered bed, but Lucas still cried out.
I gripped his hand and sunk onto my knees beside the bed, gritting my teeth against the desperate sobs threatening to rise up through my chest.
Lucas looked so much worse in the light.
‘Aster, we need scissors.’ Callum knelt on the bed, one hand on Lucas’s belly under the jumpers and coats we’d hurriedly thrown on in the hut.
Aster hurried in with scissors and a cup of water. He climbed over me and sat on the bed near Lucas’s head.
‘Hey, bestie,’ he crooned, threading shaking fingers through Lucas’s tangled hair. He used one hand to raise his head. ‘Can you drink this for me?’
Aster pressed the cup to Lucas’s parted lips. He tipped a trickle of water over Lucas’s tongue, but stopped when it leaked from the corners of his mouth. He grabbed a tissue and dabbed at Lucas’s face.
