It didn’t matter if all of this was an accident.
Marlow got hurt and that was more than enough for me to blame myself over it.
His lifeless body flashed inside of my mind, causing me to stop dead in my tracks.
I thought he was dead. I thought I was belaying down to recover his dead body.
Marlow frowned. “Come here.”
My eyes began to sting.
My hands were still raw from how hard I’d ripped into those pricker bushes to free him, Talos shouting at me when he noticed Marlow pulling in deep, labored breaths. How careful we’d had to be when laying him down because we had no way to tell how badly he’d hit his head or if he’d snapped his neck and was now paralyzed.
“Blake. Come here.” He made another grabbing motion.
Blinking hard out of the memories, I drew my hand up to brush against his fingers.
Alive. He was alive. I needed to keep reminding myself.
He tugged me forward in a surprising show of strength, practically collapsing me on top of him as I stumbled and fell onto the side of his bed.
“Careful,”Dr. Montgomery snapped. “The wires aren’t there for show.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Marlow dismissed playfully, his hand coming up to cup my jaw immediately. “Don’t listen to him, he’s just grouchy he got called in on his day off.”
He slid his thumb across my cheek in the same way I’d done for him in the mountains. A small smile played on his lips, not at all tinged with whatever pain had been coursing through his body while we waited for the helicopter to arrive.
Relief shot through me, hard enough to spring more tears to my eyes.
Marlow’s soft grunt was followed by him quickly swiping his thumb under my eyes, catching whatever he saw brewing there.
“You would be, too, if you heard the police scanners going off with an emergency airlift from Wakefield.” Dr. Montgomery’s tone flipped back into being bland, no longer tinged with the residual anger he’d yelled at me with only moments ago.
Marlow glanced over at him. “Stop listening to the police scanners on your day off.”
“I think a ‘thank you, Silas’is more appropriate in this situation seeing as I sewed you back up nice and neat after all of your guts were spilling out of you.”
“They were not!”
“Tell that to the search and rescue team who had to pack your wounds before you got to me.”
That made me wince.
It had taken so long for us to get into contact with search and rescue, to the point where I’d all but given up before Talos had finally gotten a damn answer from our SOS. We had no chances of moving Marlow up the side of the ravine carefully, and with no way of knowing the extent of his injuries, I wasn’t willing to move him an inch from where we’d found him.
So many hours had been wasted on us trying to get help; precious moments Marlow needed that were the difference between life and death.
We’d gotten so damn lucky with the way he’d fallen, most of the brush clinging to the side of the mountain having slowed his descent before he actually hit hard ground.
Marlow pulled me against his chest, burying his face into my hair. “Don’t listen to him, he’s being fucking annoying. I’m okay.”
I wasn’t sure whether he was doing all of this to make me feel better or himself. At this point, I had no shame left in me to be embarrassed about the blatant displays of PDA in front of his friend, especially when my ear pressed up against his chest and I heard that healthy beating of his heart hammering back at me.
Dr. Montgomery,Silas,snorted. “Whatever. We’ll see how Avery feels in the morning. He was too tired to argue with you earlier before he left.”
Fingers threaded through the hair at the nape of my neck, pulling just enough to soothe me.
“He’s not suing.”
