I stepped back from the bed, cataloguing damage with fresh eyes.
Blood loss, critical. Fever spiking. Infection brewing beneath the surface, silent and deadly. The gauze I’d pressed to his ribs was already soaked through. Painkillers for sure. Every towel I owned was brown with his blood or wet from heating. I had nothing left that would keep him alive past morning.
Think. What do you need?
Saline to replace blood volume. Broad-spectrum antibiotics. Clean dressing. Proper bandages. IV supplies. Antiseptic that wasn’t three years expired.
The hospital sat forty minutes across town on a good day. In this storm, with roads icing over and police searching? Impossible. I’d never make it back before he crashed.
Drug stores? Laughable. They’d have band-aids and aspirin, maybe some gauze if I got lucky. Nothing that touched what he needed.
My mind spun through options, discarding each one. Then it clicked.
The clinic.
Every quarter I volunteered there, free medical care for homeless populations, vagrants, people who couldn’t or wouldn’t access traditional healthcare. They operated on donations and expired stock from hospitals, but they had supplies. Real supplies. Saline, antibiotics, sterile equipment.
And I had a key.
My pulse kicked up for different reasons. The clinic sat twenty blocks north, near the train station. Fifteen minutes on foot if I moved fast and didn’t run into patrols.
Big if.
But there was no other option. Xavier would die without intervention. The fever climbing through his body right now, the infection setting into those wounds. I could slow it with what I had, but I couldn’t stop it.
I grabbed every towel that wasn’t blood-soaked, shoved them in the microwave in batches. While they heated, I piled blankets onto the bed, my winter comforter, the spare from the closet, the throw from the couch. Buried him under layers, trapping whatever warmth his body generated.
He didn’t stir. That scared me more than the thrashing had.
I pressed my fingers to his throat, counted. Pulse still unstable. Core temperature climbing, fever or warming, didn’t matter which. Both meant his body was fighting.
“Keep fighting,” I whispered.
The microwave beeped. I pulled out scalding towels, arranged them around his torso under the blankets. Heating pads for the dying. Pathetic. But it might buy him time.
I checked his shoulder binding, his head wound, the bandages across his ribs. Everything held. For now.
You’re insane. Leaving him alone, breaking into a clinic, committing more felonies. Outstanding plan, Clare. Really brilliant.
I grabbed my coat from where I’d thrown it, blood-stiff and frozen. Didn’t matter. My boots sat by the door, still wet from the alley. I shoved my feet in, laced them with shaking fingers.
One last look at the bed.
Xavier lay buried under blankets, face slack, breathing shallow. So still he could be dead except for the faint rise and fall of his chest. I’d done everything possible with what I had. Now I needed more, or everything I’d done meant nothing.
I leaned over him, hand hovering above his cheek. Almost touched. Pulled back.
“I’ll be back,” I said instead. “Soon as I can. Just... keep breathing. Don’t you dare stop breathing.”
No response. Not that I expected one.
This was insane. Leaving a dying man alone to break into a clinic. But staying meant watching him die.
I straightened, grabbed my keys, checked the peephole. Hallway empty. I slipped out, locked the door behind me, and hit the door at a run.
Chapter 3
Xavier
