I focus on cleaning the wound. Applying pressure. Then bandaging his thigh tight enough to stop the bleeding.
“She’s been like this since—“ Kai cuts off, carefully observing her.
“Her mind is protecting itself from trauma it can’t process.”
“Dissociating?” Kai says.
“Correct.” It’s wrong that I feel a stab of pride, but I don’t give a fuck.
“Is she going to be okay?”
I look up at him. “A lot of that depends on her.”
“But you can help her, right? You know this stuff. Psychology. Trauma.” His voice cracks. “Please, Rooke. I can’t lose her. Not like this. Not after everything.”
I finish tying off his bandage and rise to my feet. Haven is still staring at nothing, chest rising and falling in shallow breaths, hands opening and closing on empty air.
She looks like a child.
The corpse of a child.
Trapped in the liminal space between the living and the dead.
Like Billy had been that night.
Haven, however, isn’t begging me to drag her into the light.
She’s waiting for someone totellher which way to go.
Her lips are still tinged blue, and her skin is much too pale for my liking.
I slowly cup her icy face in my hands, my thumb tracing over the tacky blood splattered over her skin. “Come back to me, sweet girl.”
Her eyelids flutter, but her gaze is focused a thousand yards away.
“I need to check that you’re not hurt, okay? Then I need to get you into some warm clothes. If you want me to stop, blink twice, alright?”
Might as well be talking to a mannequin.
I take a slow breath and carefully peel the blanket away from her shivering body. The fire is baking my back, so I’m not too worried about exposing her. Better to get it done now so I can take off her wet clothing and?—
I’m busy peeling Kai’s jacket off her shoulders when I see the splashes and sprays of blood coating her clothes.
She’ssoakedin blood.
My heart’s not racing anymore—it’s hammering.
I do my level best not to let my sudden fear show, squeezing my hands into a fist to stop them trembling.
“You said she wasn’t hurt,” I grit through my teeth.
He flinches when I turn to glare at him. “That’s…not hers.” When I just keep glaring, he sighs. “Ezra?—”
He cuts off at Haven’s whimper.
“We’ll discuss this later.”
I peel off Haven’s blood-soaked coat and examine every inch of her to make sure none of the blood is, in fact, hers before wrapping her in the blanket again.
