Page 27 of Deceptively Dead

I’ve wolfed down my food by the time he gets to my legs, and I sit back and watch him poke and prod.

“Hmm, there’s only two, here and here, that are deep enough to need stitching.” he points out a large, jagged scratch that runs the length of my thigh, starting off shallow and deepening towards the middle where it still oozes blood. The other is a rip that starts at my shin bone on the right side and curves around to the back of my calf. That one’s deep all the way through and is bleeding at a steady drip that has me concerned. “I’ll start with this one.” He points to the one on my calf.

I bite my lip and nod, no stranger to the pain that awaits me, having had the harem girls stitch me up a time or eight.

“I have some sedatives…” he starts before trailing off with a hard look at my still bleeding wound, “but I don’t want to give you them after you’ve lost so much blood. I only have a small amount of local left with me too, I used most of it to stitch your shoulder.” He sounds uneasy and reluctant but I get what he’s saying. This is going to hurt, no way around it.

“It’s ok, Doc. I know the drill; I’ve been here before. But this time I have you, and I’m sure your skills are much better than a sewing needle and cotton thread. Which means I’m sure you’ll be faster, right?” I’m rambling a bit and the last part comes out as a question when I’d meant to reassure him that I had faith in his skills.Oh well.

“How many?” asks Hunter as Nate grunts and directs me to lay on my side with my injured leg out towards him.

“What?”

“How many times have you been stitched up like this?” he asks gesturing to my leg.

“Oh, um, I don’t really know? Ten? Twelve, maybe?” Nate sits down beside my leg, removing a wicked sharp sterile needle and nylon thread from an individual package. “Where’d you get that from?” I ask him, indicating the thread.

‘Vets.” He replies casually.

“You’re going to stitch me together with dog thread?” I ask incredulously.

“Relax, it’s exactly the same as the human stuff. And a lot fucking better than cotton thread. Don’t watch, ok?” I want to watch but obediently turn my head away. Hunter is waiting there to continue our conversation. Thankfully he decides to change the subject.

“Tell me what happened, how did you end up tied up as zombie bait?” I narrow my eyes at his question.

“Firstly, I was not zombie bait, thank you very much. I was simply, um, biding my time to make a move. I just let you guys kill them for real, so you would feel useful. You’re welcome. Again.” My reply is instant and actually manages to draw a smile from both of them. I preen a little, I always take it as a personal win when I get these serious guys to smile. At least I do until Nate threads his first stitch, then I just try not to squeal.I need something else to focus on.Realising I haven’t yet told them what went down, I quickly jump into an explanation.

I haltingly detail exactly what I remember, filling them in on how I tried to help Caleb at the compound and how he had ended up darting me and dragging me from the yard for my efforts. My recount is interrupted only when Nate hits a particularly sensitive spot, and I need to stop and remember how to breathe.

Once I’m done and Nate has moved on to the cut on my thigh, Hunter fills me in from their point of view.

“I was keeping an eye on you from the roof,” he begins, and I can’t help raising an eyebrow at him, knowing his stalker tendencies usually have him much closer than the roof. “Nate and Chase said you needed some time alone.” He quickly explains with a small shrug, but I can see the hardness in his eyes and I have no doubt that the next time I need some space, I will absolutely not get it.Not that I’m complaining right now. Space is for losers anyway. Losers that get kidnapped. “I saw you stumble and go down, when you didn’t get up right away, I climbed straight down. The guys were watching for you from the kitchen but we couldn’t see you from there. By the time we found a vantage point to see you again it was just in time to see you go down on your knees. We were already running for you, but that little fuck stepped out of nowhere, wearing full camo, and dragged you through. By the time we reached the gate he had a chain around it and a padlock in place.” He practically snarls the last part out, clearly disgusted with Caleb’s tactics and, if I had to guess, the delay in getting to me. For my part I’m remembering the zombie tree and quietly congratulating myself on not being insane. Piecing together that ‘full camo’ must mean pretending to be a shrub. “When we tried to get through… when we tried to get through, he darted us, too.” Hunter looks so freaking embarrassed when he admits they all got darted that I have to look to Nate for conformation, he gives me a bland look and a single nod. I try to stop the laugh from escaping, I really do. Hunter scowls at me from his seat next to the bed, where he’s been holding my hand and squeezing back when the needle hits a particularly bad spot. “Why are you laughing, sweetheart? You got darted too.” He points out helpfully.

I grin at him as I reply, “Yeah, but I’m not a big, sexy, muscled up killing machine. You guys are. I’m just the damsel.” I finish with a wink. Hunter rolls his eyes at me and Nate shakes his head. I think I hear Nate mutter something that sounds like,“You’re notadamsel, you’reourdamsel.” I’m not sure, but I swat at him anyway. He just winks and pulls through the last stitch.

“Anyway,” Hunter pulls me back to his story, “once we woke up from the drug, we collected some weapons from the house and went out the front gate. It was pretty easy to follow his trail once we got to the back gate. And he was moving pretty slow.”

“Yeah, the dickwad told me I was fat!” I feel the need to exclaim indignantly. I then have the satisfaction of seeing them both hiss out protests and bask in the praise they throw my way.I’m getting a touch vain around these guys.

“We lost you for a bit after the scuffle on the ground, but then we just followed the groaner’s screams.” Hunter concludes.

I nod, having lived through the rest with no desire to rehash every little detail.

Nate bears down on me with two white pills and a big ass needle full of antibiotics. When I side eye him but hold my arm out, he gives me a tight smile.

“Don’t worry, Trouble, this the last of the antibiotics I’ve got.” He says reassuringly, but his eyes are worried and Hunter casts him a sharp look at the information. Nate nods at his unspoken question and tells him “We’ll have to get her back as soon as possible, I’ve gone through everything I had with me and everything I had stocked here, this should last 24hours, but I’d be reluctant to let her go without more for any longer than that.”

“It’ll take two days to get back.” Hunter growls and Nate just nods. Hunter runs his hand through his dark hair and puffs out his checks, obviously trying to think of a solution that will allow me to recover before we move. I can save him the effort because there isn’t one.

“Well, let’s get going.” I say to them as I struggle into a sitting position and manage to swing my legs over the bed. Natepounces on me before I can stand though, grabbing my legs and bodily moving them back to the bed.

“Nope.” He says, “Tonight she rests, we can leave tomorrow. I’ll bandage the wounds with some salve in the morning before we leave.” He looks at me with a pensive expression, “you need to be as mobile as possible; Caleb is still flitting around out there and it’s nearly certain that he has back up of some sort, somewhere. No way a teenager, with an infected wound like you described, would have survived this long alone.”

Hunter nods along with him as he talks, clearly, none of what Nate’s saying is a surprise to him. It shouldn’t be to me either but I just haven’t really put much thought in to Caleb’s sudden appearance.Other than to catalogue the ways I might kick his sickly little ass into next week. “Agreed, everyone needs to be at their best when we leave and that means resting today, sleeping off the rest of the poison and heading off first thing in the morning. You better go let Chase know what’s happening. I’ll stay with Angie.” Hunter makes the final decision and gets Nate moving.

Nate nods and goes to leave but turns back just as quickly to place a gentle kiss on my forehead “You need to stop giving us heart attacks, love, stitching you up hurts my soul.” He murmurs into my hair. Then he kisses me again and walks out the door. He doesn’t wait for an answer, which is good because my traitorous heart is currently lodged in my throat and beating like it might explode. His gentle words and chaste kiss, so at odds with his dominating personality, reminds me what I decided when fighting for my life.

I’m going to fall and see if they really will catch me.I owe it to them, but mostly I owe it to myself to give that trust. I don’t want the rest of my life, however long it may be, to be dictated by my past. If Nate hadn’t walked out so fast, I would have jumped him then and there.

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