Page 122 of Kai
Kai
I blinked my eyes open and found Cece’s worried face hovering above me. A deep frown etched her forehead, and her lips were moving, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. I might as well be wearing earplugs. I felt weak and woolly, and my chest hurt like motherfucking hell.
If pain was a sign of life, I was doing great.
“Kai!” Cece’s shout startled me as my hearing came online. “Can you hear me?”
“How can I not?” I stuck a finger in my ear. “You’re shouting in my face.”
“Thank God.” Her eyes filled up, and the angst tensing her features ached worse than my chest. “Don’t you dare go out on me again, Marine.”
“You got it, sweetheart.” I managed a faint smile and gazed down.
A waterproof bandage covered the spot throbbing on my chest. The pain drummed to the beat of my heart. The last thing I remembered was passing out in front of the sink while trying to take care of my wound.
Several blinks and a glance later showed me I was in my bed. A bunch of red-stained towels piled behind Cece, and my med kit stood open next to her. The IV hooked to the vein in my forearm and the needle taped to my skin announced Cece had kept me hydrated. The empty pre-loaded antibiotic syringes discarded on the night table told me she’d gone into full doctoring mode. She was the reason I was alive.
“How did you get me here?” I asked, still a little hazy.
“Once I stopped the bleeding, I dragged you to bed,” she explained, her face pale and her eyes worried. “You were heavy, but we made it. You lost a lot of blood, and you’ve got one angry stab wound on your chest. You’re such an idiot, Kai.” Her voice broke, and a tear escaped from the corner of her eye. “You should’ve told me.”
“I thought I had it under control.” I rose on an elbow, saw flashes of red, and slowly lowered myself down onto the pillows. “Back at the dinghy, I stuck a cloth over the wound to staunch the bleeding. I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
“Itisa big deal.” I spotted a glimmer of tears in her eyes. “Stop moving. I don’t want you to bleed again.”
Memories of the last few hours came pouring in. “Levine?” I asked.
“Still out.” She nudged her chin toward my Tak, which was propped up against the wall. It showed an image of the merc just as I’d left him, trussed and slobbering from the corners of his mouth.
The asshole had fought me. The pain had marked the second he’d angled his knife around my tactical vest and stuck his blade in me. I hadn’t realized the extent of the bleeding until I felt faint. When I returned toSerenity, my priority had been to secure Levine and make sure he couldn’t harm Cece.
“Sorry, love.” I reached out and took her hand. “I thought I had time to take care of myself.”
“You were wrong.” With an angry swipe, she wiped a tear from her cheek. “The wound is deep. It could’ve killed you. I loaded you up with painkillers and antibiotics I got from your med kit. You’re lucky that the blade didn’t puncture one of your major arteries or your thoracic cavity. For all I know, you could be bleeding internally.”
“But then again, I’m not dead, so there’s that.” I shrugged, then winced when I discovered that shrugging was a terribleidea. “Plus, I heard there’s a doctor on board.”
“A doctor in pharmacology!” she snapped. “You need a proper doctor, an MRI, a hospital, and—”
“Cece, slow it down.” I squeezed her hand. “I’m good.” Without letting go of her hand, I lifted my good arm to check the time. “Oh, shit. Is it mid-afternoon already?”
“It is.” She raked her teeth over her lower lip. “You were out for a while.”
I hated the worry that etched two lines between her eyebrows, the anguish that swelled her eyes with new tears. The cracked, flaking skin of her lower lip revealed she’d been chewing on it for a while.
“Thanks for taking care of me.” I took her hand and kissed it. “What’s Levine’s status?”
“He’s been snoring all day.”
Either the man was highly susceptible to the sleeping sedatives, or I’d overdone it, a possibility given that I’d had to triple the dosage to get the brute to stop his fuckery. Either way, the meds should wear off soon. Next time I faced the SOB, it was gonna be a war of minds. I had to get ready for it.
I pushed up from the bed.
“Please, Kai, you need to rest.” A repressed sob hiccupped in Cece’s throat. “When you didn’t wake up, I was afraid you were dying. You could still die on me.”
Without warning, the fierce woman I knew fell apart. Tears were not something I associated with Cece. She balled up around her knees, rested her forehead on her knees, and wept oceans of tears.
Her anguish cut through me like a cleaver. She’d faced all kinds of deadly threats since I’d found her. She’d handled them with poise and courage, and yet it was a blade to my chest that had her wailing like a child.
