Something twisted in my chest. Unexpected. Unwelcome.
Who did this to you?
The thought surfaced with an edge of fury I didn’t examine too closely. Someone had hurt him this badly way before tonight. Opened his head, dislocated his shoulder, left him to die in a frozen river. And he’d survived long enough to crawl into my alley.
Survived because he was a fighter. Because something in him refused to quit even when his body had every reason to surrender.
My fingers traced the edge of the head wound, feather-light. Treating him as something precious instead of critical.
I pulled my hand back. Shoved to my feet. Crossed to the sink and gripped the edge hard enough to hurt.
Get it together, Clare.
The reflection in the window showed a woman I barely recognized, hair escaped from its tie, blood smeared across her cheek, eyes hollow with exhaustion. Behind her, a dying man who should be in a trauma bay, not a freezing studio apartment.
I’d done everything possible. Applied every skill from twelve years of emergency nursing. And it still might not be enough.
Helplessness crashed over me, cold, suffocating, pulling me under the same way the river must have pulled him. My legs shook. My vision blurred. Everything I’d shoved down for the last hour rose up at once, threatening to drown me.
Not enough supplies. Not enough heat. Not enough knowledge to fix damage this severe. I was one person with kitchen scissors and expired medication, trying to save someone who needed a team of surgeons and divine intervention.
This was insane. Harboring a fugitive. Committing felonies. Probably destroying what was left of my career. For what? A stranger who couldn’t even tell me his name without it sounding like a confession.
My hands gripped the sink edge until my knuckles went white.
Behind me, his breathing caught. Stuttered. Went shallow.
I spun around.
He thrashed suddenly, muscles seizing, head turning side to side. Fighting something I couldn’t see. His body wouldn’t surrender even unconscious, still resisting, still trying to escape whatever hell he’d crawled out of.
I crossed to the bed, pressed my hands to his shoulders. “Hey. You’re safe. Stop fighting.”
He didn’t hear me. Couldn’t. Lost wherever unconscious minds go when the body’s too broken to follow.
But he stilled slightly under my touch. The violent thrashing eased to tremors.
I kept my hands there, one on his good shoulder, one on his chest. Feeling his heart race underneath. Feeling his lungs work too hard. Feeling him fight to stay alive despite the odds.
Something rose through the despair. Hot. Stubborn. Unreasonable.
No.
I’d made it this far. Dragged him inside, warmed him, relocated his shoulder, closed his wounds. Put myself between him and the police hunting him. Crossed lines I couldn’t uncross.
I wasn’t giving up now.
My palms pressed flat to his chest. His heartbeat fluttered against my right hand, weak, irregular, but there. Proof he was still fighting. Still refusing to quit. But iron will might not be enough for his battered body.
“You don’t get to die,” I said aloud. My voice came out rough. “Not when I dragged you out of that storm. Not when I’m still fighting.”
His chest rose and fell beneath my hands. Blood, his blood, crusted under my nails, dried brown on my wrists. I didn’t know his name. Not really. Xavier felt like something he’d tried on, tested, found almost right but not quite. I didn’t know what he’d done or who was hunting him or why any of this mattered.
Let the storm rage. Let the police search. Let whoever hurt him come looking.
Exhaustion pulled at me, dragging my shoulders down, making my vision swim. But I kept my hands there, feeling proof of life, feeling the rhythm that meant I hadn’t lost yet.
Dawn was hours away. The storm showed no sign of stopping. My supplies were nearly gone, my body screaming for rest I couldn’t take. I had to act.
