His voice came out as a hoarse whisper. “Eli?”
“I should have a gunshot wound,” I said, pressing against my abdomen with my forefingers experimentally. No pain. I slid my shirt over my head and tossed it to the floor. I’d need to throw it away, of course. Then I stared down at my perfectly smooth, unbroken skin. I should have been stunned. Yet somehow, Iwasn’t even surprised. I raised my gaze to meet his. “I don’t anymore. Did you do this?”
He grimaced, and a flash of his earlier horror filled his eyes for an instant. “I thought you were going to die.”
“Nicolas. Tell me. Did you heal my wound somehow?”
“Eli, please don’t do this.”
“What are you?”
Nicolas went still for a very long moment. Then, when he raised his eyes to meet mine, they were filled with resignation. “We should probably talk.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN || ELI
Alittle less than an hour later, I found myself on Nicolas’s couch, facing him. I had showered and changed my clothes. Nicolas had taken my old ones and put them into a black plastic trash bag. I kept waiting for shock to set in, but it didn’t. My body felt physically fine. Better than fine, actually. I felt stronger, more grounded—somehow more present in my own skin. It was the opposite of shock, if anything.
When I had gotten out of the shower, Eric’s body was gone, and the foyer had been thoroughly cleaned. The smell of bleach still lingered in the air. Anyone looking at the scene would never have known what had happened here.
Though home was right next door, I felt like I might as well have been on the moon. Or maybe in another dimension. Home—stability, normalcy, reality—felt like it was a million miles away.
Nicolas watched me in silence, perhaps waiting for me to speak. There was a distinctly unhappy expression on his face. I had the insane impulse to hold him again, to make that unhappiness vanish like it had never been there at all. I had to fold my arms over my chest to keep myself from doing it.
“So,” he said at last. He seemed warier than I had ever seen him. “What do you know?”
I decided to rip the bandage off. The faster we could get all of this out of the way, the faster we could put it behind us and move forward. “You don’t breathe. You can move faster than should be possible. You don’t have a heartbeat.” Nicolas flinched, but the expression on his face didn’t change. “Your eyes sometimes refract strangely in really bright light, but not always.”
I hesitated, thinking of Eric’s body—which Nicolas had already removed by himself in the time I had spent taking a shower. Granted, it had been a long one. But still.
And if Nicolas hadn’t arrived when he did, I would be dead. I had, in fact, died. “And you’re strong. Really strong.”
“Yes.”
“And you did something to Sam. Some kind of… suggestion or something. Didn’t you?”
Nicolas hesitated. Then, his eyes sliding shut, he nodded. “Yes.”
The admission was like a punch to my stomach. I let out a sharp breath. But I would come back to that. We needed to get it all out in the open. No more secrets.
When he opened his eyes again, I met his gaze. “And you healed me… somehow. You…” I trailed off, not sure how to even put it. Whatever he had done, it defied every medical principle I understood. “You took away my gunshot wound.”
He inclined his head. “I couldn’t allow you to die.”
“How?”
“I gave you some of my blood after you lost consciousness. It healed you.”
A ripple of unease tore through me. But I had the strangest feeling it didn’t come from me—it came fromhim. Nicolas was worried about how I’d react to this bit of news.
I frowned. “I’m not squeamish. The first year of medical school pretty much beats that out of you.” Then I paused, and itreally clicked—Nicolas had saved my life. I met his gaze. “Thank you.”
His expression darkened. “You never should have been injured in the first place.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
“Who was he?”
“Eric,” I said, hating the way his name sounded on my lips. I shuddered. “The ex I told you about. He planned to kill us both.”
