Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 89074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
The trail of blood is visible in the low light.
And there’s more of it.
Little streaks of blood along the floor, leading in.
“Fuck,” I whisper under my breath.
My hands are shaky now, but I have to move. I have to spring into action. If something happened to Hunter—
If something fucking happened to him, I’ll destroy whoever did it with my own hands.
I round the corner and enter the room ready to fight.
My heart pounds in my chest as I follow the blood, and my eyes go wide when I see that Hunter is alone.
Completely alone.
He has one hand holding a white T-shirt as he wraps it around his hand. I can see more blood starting to soak into the white fabric, and my heart skips a beat.
“You hurt yourself,” I say.
He looks up at me. “It was an accident.”
“You fucking hurt yourself. Get over here.”
I step over to him and pull away the shirt to see that he has a bad cut along the side of his hand. A knife is resting on the table nearby, with blood along its edge.
“I toss these knives around every day. Every goddamn day, and I’ve never given myself a scratch. I’m better than that. It… just went up in the air and came down wrong.”
He’s frustrated.
I’m fucking pissed.
“Come downstairs with me. Right now.”
“Fuck off. It’s fine, Rayne.”
“You’re coming with me to the first aid kit, and you’re putting something on that wound that’s cleaner than a fucking T-shirt.”
“I keep my knives clean, and this shirt is clean, too. I’m not stupid—”
“You are stupid, if you don’t get downstairs with me. Do it. Now.”
I step behind him and give him a shove on the small of his back. He sighs, but at least he starts to move.
“You’re like a doting dad,” he tells me.
“Move.”
I head down the staircase with him, startled by the amount of blood on the T-shirt.
We walk past Oliver and Noah as we head to the downstairs bathroom, and Oliver brings his hand to his mouth in shock when he sees the blood.
“Holy fuck. Did something happen?” Noah asks.
Hunter starts to make an excuse. “Part of my, uh, bed frame splintered off—”
“Nope. No more fucking lies,” I say. “He was playing with his knives like a goddamned idiot, and now I’m going to fix his own mistake.”
Hunter puffs out a breath. “Damn. Okay. If it’s like that, Rayne, then why don’t you just tell them about all of your mistakes, too?”
“Ignore him,” I say. “He’s fine. Or he will be.”
“Rayne’s afraid of a little blood, apparently,” Hunter mutters.
Ollie is grimacing. “It’s more than a little.”
“First mistake was trying to help you, I guess,” I say under my breath as we walk into the bathroom.
I slam the door behind us and reach for the first aid kit, grabbing the disinfectant first. I take Hunter’s arm and position it over the sink, and when I take away the T-shirt, blood drips into the white porcelain basin of the sink.
I squirt the liquid onto his wound.
He doesn’t even wince, even though I know this shit hurts like a bitch.
“Really unnecessary, Colson,” he mutters.
“Someone is out there trying to kill you. Not going to let you die from an infected wound on your hand, Hunter. That would just make it too easy for them.”
He groans. “You’re starting to sound like me. Since when do you like playing a medic?”
I work quickly on the wound.
“I’ve gotten enough injuries on the football field to know what I’m doing. For the most part, I guess.”
I can tell that the wound is shallow, and it probably doesn’t need stitches.
I wrap him in thick gauze and tape it shut around his hand.
“A+ work, Rayne. You’ve fixed me. Want a gold star?”
“You want me to smack you?”
“Wish you would,” he says with a little teasing tone in his voice that makes me rage.
I don’t even hesitate.
I reach up and smack my open palm along his cheek.
His mouth hangs open in shock as a faint pink mark appears on his skin.
“You need to start taking this more seriously,” I tell him.
“You think I haven’t been taking it seriously since the moment I knew there was a threat to you? I know the dumb jock is a stereotype, but you’re really a lot smarter than that, Rayne—”
I reach up and smack him again and I hate that it makes him smile.
What I don’t expect is for him to take his uninjured hand and bring it up quickly against my neck, pushing me back up onto the tiled wall of the bathroom.
He doesn’t crush my windpipe.
He just holds his hand against me like he’s cuffing me in place, and then leans in to kiss me.
Even when I want to shake him, his kiss is able to bring me back down to Earth.
Even when I’m so worried for all of us that I’m two moments away from panic at any time.