“You’re hurt?” I ask, hopefully in the right direction.
“Little bit,” he grunts. “Broken arm. In three places.”
Jesus.
“And you can’t heal, can you? Because you’re in silver too.”
“No.”
“Anyone else hurt?” Fuck, I hate not being able to see. “Flint, can you use your lighter again, I just... I need to see.”
“I’ll try. It’s almost out of fluid, though.”
It takes four attempts to get it to catch, but eventually soft light illuminates Flint’s face in front of me as he holds it up.
Blood slowly oozes from a cut at his temple, a lone drip sliding down his cheek before he swipes it away. How the fuck did I not notice any of that before?
He also has a bruise on his jaw, and as my gaze drops lower, there’s the telltale mark of claws across his neck. It doesn’t lookdeep, but it’s still bleeding, colouring the neck of his T-shirt a deep, dark red.
Because he can’t heal, I remind myself. None of them can.
“It’s not bad,” he assures me, or tries, because it does fuck all to convince me.
“The bleeding’s not stopping. How is thatnot bad?”
“It won’t kill me,” he rephrases.
I guess that’s as good an answer as I’m going to get. “Thank fuck.”
Without me having to ask, he moves the lighter so I can see Beth next, and I gasp before I can stop it.
“Yeah,” she smirks, licking at the cut on her lip. “They underestimated me. Of fucking course.” She raises her hand and wiggles her three fingers. “I might be missing a couple, but I can still knock them on their arses.”
Her injuries are way worse than Flint’s. The ones that I can see, anyway. I hate to think what the darkness might be hiding.
“Surprisingly no broken bones,” she adds, reading my mind. Then she grins. “Not mine, anyway.”
I ignore the blood coating her teeth and grin back. “Good.”
When Flint shuffles back enough that I can make out Mal, I wish he hadn’t.
He’s pale, even in the glow of Flint’s lighter. His skin shines with sweat, and even though I know he’s trying, he can’t hide the pain in his eyes. My gaze drops to the arm he has cradled against his chest.
“Jesus Christ!”I suck in a breath, desperately hanging on to whatever’s in my stomach. “Is that... is it...”
“Bone?” Mal supplies with a grimace. “’Fraid so.”
It’s justthere, sticking up out of his forearm.
People die of injuries like that, don’t they? I mean I’ve only seen it on the TV, butfuck me, I can see his bone. I lean close enough to realise that his jeans and T-shirt are soaked in blood.
He follows my gaze. “It nicked an artery.”
“Shit!”
“It’s okay,” he adds quickly before a new round of panic can take hold. “They let me heal enough so I won’t bleed out.” He nods down at his hands. “But they wouldn’t let me set the bone before they slapped these fuckers on.”
I follow his gaze down to see the silver-coated handcuffs around his wrists. One arm at an awkward angle to accommodate the one he can’t move.
