Glimpse: Book One of the Glimpse Quartet, page 32
Vaughn takes advantage of my hesitation, wriggling out of my grasp and fleeing to the far side of the lighthouse. Blood drips from the corners of his mouth as he resets his jaw, glancing at her with the devil in his eyes.
He lunges for the knife, but I intercept him, retrieving the dagger on my way to her. By the time his eyes focus on me again, I’m standing between them, armed and hungry for blood. Every cell in my body yearns for it, as if I was made for this moment.
I can see him considering every possibility, now that I have the clear advantage. Trails of blood flow down his chest from injuries that are healing, but not fast enough. His eyes settle on her for a moment, and then he makes his decision.
In an instant, he breaks for the door, unlocking it and disappearing into the night.
“Coward!” I rush after him, stopping myself on the frame of the door when I register the change in her pulse.
She’s dying.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Liam
“Get away from me,” she screams. Her sympathetic nervous system is in overdrive, her pupils so dilated I can barely see any green in her irises. If her heart beats any faster, she will go into shock.
I continue toward her anyway. “I need to look at your wounds.”
“No. Don’t touch me.” She throws out her uninjured hand, but the strike is feeble. Catching her wrist, I kneel in front of her, desperate to break through her panic before she injures herself further.
“I am not going to hurt you.” For the thousandth time, I wish I had just told her what she is. But now is not the time. “Trust your feelings,” I urge her, placing her hand over my heart. Her eyes widen, the question plain. If she lives through this, I will have a lot to answer for.
Blinking away a clear wave of dizziness, she nods her approval. I release her hand and check her injuries, starting with the large gash on her forehead.
“You need stitches.” But it doesn’t account for her pallid skin. “And your arm is broken.” Rage speeds my movement, my hands shaking as I continue to take stock. If I ever see that miserable bastard again it will be the death of him. Hell, this time I’ll hunt him down myself, for a change.
“My leg,” she whimpers. My focus zeroes in on her right thigh, at the pool of blood beneath it. The blade on the floor looms large in my vision, my own dizziness threatening to drop me.
“Did he cut you with this?” I hold the blade up for her to see, barely able to get the words out.
She breathes through her pain, struggling to focus. “Yes.”
The world drops out from under me. Not again. I got here in time. It has to be enough.
Already I can hear the phantom ticking of a clock in my head. Even with my intervention, she may not make it. “We need to go.” Slipping the blade into my boot, I scoop her into my arms, careful not to jostle her broken limb.
“Where are we going?”
“The hospital,” I answer immediately, though it will raise more questions than either of us can afford to answer. In any case, it doesn’t matter now. Either I risk discovery or she risks permanent disfigurement—and that is only provided she lives, which she may not, given the steady stream of blood soaking my torso. “But we have to make a stop at my house first.”
More blood trickles down her face, negligible in comparison to her leg, as she searches for my eyes. “Your house?” she asks. “Why?”
Because Vaughn is a sadistic son of a bitch, and I am still walking a step behind. Because I put you in danger and now you might pay the ultimate price.
“The blade he cut you with is enchanted. That wound will not heal on its own.” Pain rips through my back as I let out my wings and leap into the air.
Her head turns toward my chest as she struggles to keep her eyes open. “I’m so tired.”
“I know. But you have to stay awake.” She has to live through this. If she dies, it was all for nothing. What use am I if I still can’t stop him after all this time? The cold is too much for her, especially after the blood loss. She shrinks against me, her head lolling every so often.
When I descend to the doorstep of the bungalow, she breathes a sigh of relief. Brushing everything on the bar to the floor, I set her on top of it and disappear into the spare room, ripping the sheets off the bed and dislodging the floorboard in search of the small box I hid there the second I got into town.
“You’re bleeding.” She points to my chest when I return, her soft voice filled with concern.
“That’s not my blood.” I grimace at the sight of the wide, dark streak flowing from my shoulder halfway down my torso. Ripping off a long streak of the bedsheet, I tie it around her head and cinch it tight to stem the bleeding.
She winces when I use more fabric to fashion a sling, tying a final strip around her body to immobilize the arm.
“That will have to do, for now.” There are far more pressing concerns. Unlocking the box, I pluck the small stone from inside and drop it into my mortar, grinding it into dust with the pestle.
“What is that?” She leans her head against the cabinet, fighting the urge to sleep.
“It will heal your wound.” I nod to her leg. She follows my gaze, her eyes widening when she sees how much blood has seeped onto the counter.
“Why isn’t it clotting?”
“The dagger is enchanted. It was designed to kill angels.” And angels only die when they can’t heal.
Her voice is so faint even I struggle to hear her when she asks, “Do you have a lot of those stones?”
“No.” Ayrie gave it to me some time during the Zhou dynasty, and I’ve carried it ever since.
“Don’t waste it on me.” She raises her hand to protest, dropping it again when a wave of dizziness makes her eyes glaze over.
I roll my eyes at her, tearing through the right leg of her jeans with a serious sense of déjà vu. “Right. I’ll just let you die, then.”
Rinsing her blood from my hands in the sink, I light one of the burners on the stove. “I’m very sorry for what I’m about to do.” Keeping my voice soft, I cradle her pallid face in my hands. “I have to cauterize the wound.”
“Cauterize?” she chokes on the word, panic twisting her features.
“I wish I could give you more time to prepare, but you’re bleeding out.” Wadding up a shred left over from the bed sheet, I hand it to her, pulling a knife from the drawer in the kitchen. “Bite down on that.”
She nods, clutching the white fabric in her hands. Working quickly to clean the wound, I apply the dust in a straight line. It bubbles as it bonds to her blood, sealing up the cut at once. Her eyes are fixed on me as I sterilize the kitchen knife with alcohol for good measure and then hold it over the open flame.
“Ready?” I ask her when the blade turns red. She gives me a feeble nod, stuffing the fabric in her mouth.
“Hold onto me if you need to.”
She grabs my shoulder with her good hand at once, her whole body tensed in anticipation. I can’t give her time to prepare, knowing the knife will not stay hot forever. Pressing the wide edge of the blade to her skin, I brace myself as the smell of burning flesh fills my kitchen, followed by her agonized scream.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Blair
My stomach wrenches with instant nausea.
Heat radiates out from the knife, rippling across my skin like stones skipped on a lake. Another scream bursts out of me and I bite down on the fabric, squirming away from him. He winces, holding me down while he continues to burn me in short, methodical bursts.
I am going to pass out, I know it.
In an effort to comfort me, perhaps, he begins to hum. It does little to distract from the pain, but I try to focus on the sound instead of the smell. My fingernails dig into his shoulder, and I continue to cry until he finally pulls the blade away, discarding it in the sink.
I let the sheet fall from my mouth onto my lap, a sheen of sweat clinging to my forehead. It’s becoming harder to breathe; my whole body shakes. He rests his forehead against mine for a moment, pulling away swiftly to examine me. There’s blood on his face where his forehead touched mine.
“We have to go, now.”
My eyelids flutter shut involuntarily, and he pats my cheeks, willing me to stay conscious.
“Stay with me,” he pleads. “Just a little longer.”
I fight to keep my eyes open, growing more lightheaded by the second. He applies a salve to my freshly burned leg and wraps it in gauze before lifting me into his arms once more. Speaking in a language I don’t recognize, he carries me out of the house and launches into the sky.
It sounds like a prayer, whatever he’s saying. The language is musical, each word flowing into the next. He flies too fast for me to keep my eyes open, but I try to do as he asked, some primitive part of me knowing I should not sleep.
As far as I can tell, everything Vaughn told me was a lie. He was always trying to get rid of me—it must have started that first night I met him at Reno’s. I shudder at the thought, and Liam beats his wings harder in response.
Something nags at me in the back of my mind, a puzzle piece that doesn’t quite fit. But I can’t stay on it long enough to figure out what it is.
As we near the hospital, Liam drops to the ground, running a little too fast for a human to the emergency entrance.
“Help!” he calls, the panic in his voice surreal. I’ve never heard him sound so out of control. “She’s bleeding,” he calls to the nurses in the hallway. They scramble to get a gurney to us, Dr. Bridges running up beside me as Liam sets me on the bed.
“What happened?” someone asks in a clipped, clinical voice.
“We were hiking when she fell. She’s got a head wound, a broken arm, and a sprained ankle. She’ll need a transfusion.”
No one questions him, but the nurses look at each other with more than a little alarm. “Okay, I need you to wait here,” one of them says, putting her hand on Liam’s chest to hold him back.
“I’m going with her.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I need you to stay here.” The voices get further away as they rush me through the hallway. He argues in a voice too low for me to make out.
“Liam,” I rasp. I don’t want to be away from him now, when Vaughn could come back at any moment. What am I supposed to tell them? We don’t have our story straight.
“You’ll see him soon, honey. Do you know your blood type?” Dr. Bridges hovers over me as the nurses wheel me into a room.
My throat aches, still swollen after Vaughn choked me. I can still feel his hand on my neck, squeezing tighter and tighter…
“A-positive,” I mumble, my whole body trembling.
Dr. Bridges barks orders to her staff, checking out my eyes with a flashlight. “We’re going to get you taken care of, okay? You just try to relax. What’s your name?”
“Blair Knight.” Never mind the fact that she’s known me since I moved here.
“How old are you?”
“Seventeen.” I continue to answer their questions, humoring them with polite smiles when they insist that everything is going to be okay.
They want to know what happened to me, but I try to avoid those questions as much as possible until I can talk to Liam; an epic angel battle in a lighthouse is sure to get me admitted to the psych ward.
Dr. Bridges works fast, the nurses dressing my wounds in the background of her questions. Someone cleans the blood off my forehead, and I feel the sting when they shoot a numbing agent into my skin. For the next several hours, I fade in and out as they work on me.
“Where did this burn come from?” someone asks, and the pain in my leg grows so large it’s all I can think about, my pulse throbbing at the sight of the wound.
“Camp stove,” I mutter, unsure whether I should lie for him. But then, what else is there to do?
After the blood transfusion, they X-ray my arm.
“Bad news, Blair.” Dr. Bridges points to the spot on the screen, though it’s clear as day even to me. “Your bones are displaced, so you’ll need a reduction.”
“Okay.” I swallow, staring at the mismatched halves of my ulna and radius. I am too tired to grasp the reality of what they’re about to do.
“Are you sure this is from a fall? It’s pretty hard to break these bones.” She looks at me with the same concern she’s worn since I walked in.
Shrugging to beef up my lie, I force myself to make eye contact with her. “It was a bad fall.”
The specialist they bring in is skinny, his Adam’s apple bulging in his throat. A nurse holds my shoulder in place while the skinny stranger takes my hand.
“Alright. One. Two. Three.” He pulls my hand until the bones pop into place. Almost as painful as the cauterization, which they have asked me about four times now.
With the splint in place, I lean my head back, surrendering to the drip of pain medication in my IV.
“You’re going to need surgery, but we have to wait a few days for the swelling to go down.” Dr. Bridges is apologetic, but I don’t pay her much attention as at last, I am allowed to sleep.
Feet shuffle in and out of my room, checking on me too often to get any real rest. On one occasion in this timeless vortex, I register Liam sitting in the corner of the room, his hands clasped to his forehead.
The nagging feeling in my gut returns when I see him. There’s something I need to ask him, but I can’t make myself remember what it is before I am pulled beneath the surface of the waves.
Chapter Fifty
Blair
“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry.” My mother is still hysterical by the time I’m finally lucid enough to talk to her. Kissing me tenderly on the cheek, she apologizes for the third time in last hour.
“Can I have some water?” My voice is still scratchy, even though my neck is suspiciously void of bruises. “When can I go home?”
She busies herself with the water, her hand shaking when she tries to set it on my tray. “Dr. Bridges said she would release you this afternoon, depending on the swelling.”
“Has Liam been here?”
Her face turns sour when I say his name. “They said he brought you in—covered in blood.”
Haunting images from that night plague me—as does the memory of my burning flesh. Vaughn’s hands still grip my neck when I close my eyes. And I’ve never seen Liam so out of control.
“Honey.” Mom takes my hand, her eyes grave as she looks at me. “Is he the one who put you in here?”
“What?” I am so shocked by the accusation I can’t help but laugh. If it weren’t for Liam, I’d be lying dead in the bottom of the lighthouse right now—that is, if Vaughn didn’t clean up the evidence. For all I know, I’d be a missing person, never to be seen again.
She’s not going to let this go, and I realize when she leans closer that she’s sober. Has she been here the whole time? It’s the only reason I can think of for her current state. “He didn’t do this to you?”
“Liam saved my life, Mom.” It’s true, even if I still feel off about him. The least I can do is protect his story now.
Behind her, I see him lurking in the hallway. I wonder if he’s trying to avoid the doctors and their many questions.
“Um, do they have any vending machines?” I need to get her out of the room so I can talk to him. “You know how much I hate Jell-O .”
“I don’t think they actually serve Jell-O, here.” She smiles at me, smoothing my hair back from my face.
“Probably not, but I could still go for some powdered donuts?”
She looks me up and down, her eyes shifting to the heart rate monitor even though I’m sure it means as much as her as it does to me. She nods at last. “Okay, but I’m coming right back.”
As soon as she turns the corner, Liam slips into the room, making a beeline to my bedside. “You’re awake.”
Part of me wishes he would climb in beside me and hold me until the nightmares go away, but another part is deeply unsettled after witnessing his capability for violence. And then there’s the awkward part—the part where he left me alone with Vaughn, knowing what he was capable of.
When I do not speak, he reaches for my hand. I pull it away, just an inch, and he recoils, pain and confusion battling in his eyes.
“Thank you for saving me,” I whisper. “I owe you my life.”
He shakes his head, his expression so grim I know he’s been punishing himself these last two days. “You should never have been there. It’s my fault.”
As much as I want to comfort him, I’m hard-pressed to disagree.
“I’ll find him. I won’t rest until you’re safe.” His jaw is so tight I worry about the tendon snapping in half. Taking a deep breath to keep the betrayal off my face, I force myself to meet his eyes.
“I appreciate you looking out for me. But I think I need some time.” I feel so stupid for trusting Vaughn. All the signs were there, begging me to notice.
But it doesn’t change the fact that Liam left me.
“Time?” He seems genuinely confused, his brow so scrunched it nearly covers his stormy eyes.
“I…I need to think about some things. And I’d prefer if you left.” My voice is barely audible, but I know he can hear me when his spine straightens. He looks like he belongs in a military lineup, his hands moving behind his back.
“If that’s what you want, I’ll respect your wishes.” He speaks slowly, like these are the most important words he’s said all day.
“That’s what I want,” I breathe. He turns away, stopping just inside the door.
“I don’t want you to be afraid of me, Blair. Please, give me a chance to explain. When you’re ready.” Striding out of the room without another word, I wait until I’m certain he’s gone, biting the insides of my cheeks to keep from crying.
I’m tired of waiting for his explanations. I’m tired of living in a world that requires them. All I want is to go back to the way things were before I knew him: shitty, but predictable. And yet, the thought of not knowing him sends a pain through my chest so visceral it competes with my assortment of injuries.
