Charlie swallowed hard, but the sight of Leo’s blood was just the start.Oh God,his arm.From his elbow to his shoulder, Leo’s arm was utterly ruined, a marbled mess of scarred flesh . . . burned flesh.
Leo’s flesh.
His body.
His skin.
Leo.
“Stop fucking staring.”
Charlie jumped. “I’m not.”
“Bollocks, you aren’t.” Leo snorted. “Do you think I don’t get enough of that? Bloody doctors poking and prodding me.”
“I’m not staring,” Charlie insisted, though he had been. “And I’m not prodding you, am I? I’m over here.”
“Whatever.”
Leo’s voice had lost its fire. He shifted and angled his body away while he did something to his arm, shoulders hunched, head bowed. Even with his diminished view, Charlie could tell it hurt. He let Leo be awhile and considered the dingy spot Charlie had picked to hide out in. Dank, dark, and littered with rubbish, it was hardly the best place for first aid. Still, Charlie had observed Leo enough to reckon it was this or nothing.
Leo hissed, pained and low. Charlie chanced a hand on his other arm. “Is it really messed up?”
“Dunno. It’s so bloody I can’t see.”
Charlie steeled himself and clambered over Leo’s legs to crouch by the water. His stomach churned. Leo was right: in his elbow joint, there was nothing to see but a smeared mess of blood. “We should clean it.”
“We?”
Charlie ignored Leo and stretched for his bag. Inside he found the bottle of mineral water Kate insisted everyone left the house with each day, and popped the sports cap. He tipped it over Leo’s arm. It helped a little, but not enough, so he looked around for something to wipe it with. Nothing seemed suitable.Stuff it.He tore a strip off his own shirt.
Leo’s eyes widened. “What are you doing?”
“Cleaning you up.” Charlie soaked the scrap of fabric in water, held Leo’s arm still, and laid the wet fabric over Leo’s elbow joint, covering the worst of the blood.
Leo winced.
“Am I hurting you?” Charlie asked.
“No.” But Leo’s shiver said otherwise.
Charlie took his hands from Leo and tore another strip from his shirt to dry Leo’s arm with. “Are you all right?”
Leo nodded. “Yeah, sorry. It’s just seeing it . . . makes me . . . you know?”
Charlie filled in the blanks. Oddly, the more he stared at Leo’s mangled flesh, the less it bothered him, but the blood? He shuddered, glad that most of it was hidden by the scraps of his shirt. “Do you feel sick?”
“I do now.”
“Eh?”
“Hold my wrist again, will ya?”
“Erm, okay.” Charlie took Leo’s injured arm and gripped his wrist, loosely at first until Leo’s stare seemed to compel him to squeeze tighter and press his thumb into the pulse point thrumming beneath Leo’s warm skin.
Leo closed his eyes. His head dropped. “Your hands are cold.”
“Sorry.”
