We collapsed just inside the door.
“Shit. ” I tried to lift him again, but his blood-slick weight slipped from my grip. I stumbled backwards onto the floor.
Miraculously, I managed to get him onto the couch. His breathing was rattling a wet, terrible sound. I scrambled to the first aid kit, tore it open, and dumped the contents onto thefloor. Gauze. Scissors. Alcohol. Tape. I didn’t know what I was doing. I wasn’t a nurse. I’d taken first aid in school like everyone else, but that didn’t prepare me for this.
I peeled his shirt back and nearly gagged. The bullet wound in his shoulder was bad: an ugly, jagged mess, still oozing blood…. but the one in his lower back? It was worse. I didn’t know if it hit anything vital. I didn’t know how he’d stayed upright or carried me out. Did he have some kind of internal bleeding? Some kind of damage that I couldn’t fix? Was he just unconscious from pain or blood loss?
I grabbed gauze and pressed it to the wound. It made a squelch that turned my stomach, and blood fell in thick globules from beneath it. He groaned, a soft sound: just a reflex, not conscious.
“I know,” I whispered, blinking back tears. “I know, I’m sorry. I’m trying.”
The bleeding wasn’t stopping. I pressed the gauze tighter, hands soaked red. There was a prefilled syringe of epinephrine in that kit. I hesitated. I knew it was for an allergic reaction and not this but… Would it help jar him awake for a little bit? I knew it wouldn’t last long, and it wouldn’t be a fix.
I stabbed it into his thigh.
He jolted slightly, a breath caught in his throat. His eyelids fluttered. He grabbed his chest and my stomach sank. If I gave him a heart attack with that injection, I would just die right here with him.
“Halo?” I leaned over him, running my fingers through his hair. “Can you hear me?”
He looked up at me, glassy-eyed. His lips moved, but I couldn’t hear what he said. He struggled to sit up, grappling for the gun at his hip.
“No.” I cupped his face in both hands. “There’s no one else. Just me and you now.”
He blinked slowly, barely conscious. His hand twitched at his side, reaching for mine. I held onto it like it was the last rope in a storm.
“I’m not letting you go,” I whispered. “I don’t care what it takes. You brought me back. Now I’m going to do the same.”
He needed real help, but Halo didn’t have friends. There was no backup, no cavalry coming. It was just me, and I wasn’t losing him. Not now, not after everything.
His eyes moved to the empty epi-pen and then back up to my face. “I’ll crash out soon.”
“Tell me what I need to do,” I said desperately. “You’re bleeding so much.”
“Hemostats in the first aid kit – get the bullets out if you can.”
I found the hemostats in the bottom of the first aid kit: dull, a little rusted around the hinges. I’d never removed a bullet before. I’d never seen someone who had been shot up close. But I’d watched him take lives with his hands, carry me out of a nightmare with a bullet in his back… if he could do that, I could do this. He was barely breathing again. His skin had gone clammy, and the blood loss was catching up fast. I knelt beside him on the couch, wiped sweat and dirt off my face with the back of my sleeve, and braced myself.
“I’ll do this one first,” I said, more to myself than him.
He was watching me, and as I leaned closer, I heard him sigh.
“You’ve got blood on your face,” he murmured, slurred and distant.
I blinked. “You have blood coming out of your back, Halo. Worry about that first.”
But his fingers twitched weakly toward my cheek. “Did they… hurt you?”
I felt the sting in my throat rise. I pushed it down. He was delirious. “I’m fine.”
I swallowed back my apprehension and unwrapped the makeshift pressure bandage on his shoulder. The wound oozed dark red, but it wasn’t spurting, which I took as a good sign. The bullet was lodged deep under the skin. I couldn’t see it.
I doused the hemostats in alcohol, wiped them clean, and muttered a quick, shaky prayer. Then I pushed them into the wound. Halo’s entire body jerked, a deep groan tearing from his chest.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry—” I whispered, trying to keep my hands steady.
Blood welled up instantly, and I had to work by feel. I pressed deeper. The sensation of metal on metal guided me.
“I found it,” I breathed, surprised and proud of myself.
