Page 22 of First Blood
He raised the gun again, pointing it right at my face this time. I wouldn’t survive a direct bullet to the brain, not with the rest of the damage I’d taken, especially since he could go ahead and cut my head off after he’d shot me.Laurie, get up and run!But I couldn’t make a sound.
A shot rang out, sharp and deafening in the stillness of the forest, ringing and echoing on and on.
But no bullet hit me. And then the man in front of me slowly toppled and fell, his gun arm falling limp by his side as he slid to the ground and went still.
A quick pitter-patter of bare feet crunching on snow and wet leaves, and then Laurie dropped down on his knees next to me, his white, drawn face filling my vision. He set something down next to me. The gun. Laurie had taken that shot.
“Victor! Victor, oh my God, what do I do?” I moved my lips a little, probably looking like a landed fish. I still couldn’t make any sound come out.You already did it, I wanted to say.You saved both our lives. “Victor?” He set his cold hands on either side of my face, petting me desperately. “Please don’t die. Please. There’s no way to get you to a hospital in time, your chest looks like — ohGod…” He went on, his words dissolving into sobs, and it nearly killed me to lie there helpless when he needed comforting.
Instead, I watched snowflakes dust his curly hair and waited for the bullets to make their way out.
It felt like it took a lot longer than five minutes, but at last my heart muscles shoved that slug out and my heart lurched and pumped blood, once, twice, a skip, and then a steady rhythm, growing stronger. The bullet in my gut was working its way out, and the pain of that nearly made me black out for a minute. Then, at last, the third in my lung popped free.
Laurie was holding my hand to his face, and his tears ran hot down my wrist.
I couldn’t take it anymore. It didn’t matter how much it hurt to move. I couldn’t watch him suffer.
With my other hand braced on the ground, I heaved myself up, biting back a groan. Fuck, that was unpleasant.
Laurie looked up with a gasp, hope and relief and shock transforming his face into something even more beautiful than usual, despite his tears and the blood on his forehead. “Victor?” he whispered. “How are you — you’re not dead.”
“…Be…okay in a…minute,” I said, managing to force some words out at last. “Don’t cry.”
My heart skipped again, but whether it was the bullet’s damage or Laurie’s sweet, tremulous smile was anyone’s guess.
No one could’ve resisted that smile, or the lips that went with it. I leaned in and touched mine to his, the slightest brush of skin on skin. Enough to feel how cold he was, but how soft and delicate and perfect. Laurie made a little sound in the back of his throat, and I wasn’t sure if it was pleasure or pain.
I pulled back, my own pain forgotten. Laurie had run out in the snow with no shirt and no shoes. He was going blue around the edges, and I was sitting here kissing him. My head spun, and I’d think about that kiss later.
Much later, when he didn’t need me.
“Come on,” I said. “We need to get inside.”
Laurie bit his lip and nodded, looking away, and I felt like shit, especially since his lip-biting was doing the same damn thing it always did to me. I’d been shot three times, he was freezing to death, and my cock wanted to sit up and salute. Fucking idiot was as stupid as I was. If I’d died tonight, Esther would’ve had to putVictor Schmidt: We didn’t hire him for his brainson my gravestone.
Laurie didn’t speak again as I got to my feet, though he did try to boost me on one side. I made sure not to actually lean on him. He wobbled as he stood up, and I wrapped an arm around his waist. His bare skin under my hand felt like frozen silk.
Enough. I’d fucked up enough today. So I’d been shot. What the fuck ever. Laurie’s feet were frozen, and there was glass all over the floor of the cabin.
I scooped him up in my arms bridal-style, ignoring his murmur of protest about my wounds, and carried him inside.
Chapter 9
Safe
Laurie shuddered and curled tighter into my arms as I stepped over the threshold, and I didn’t blame him. Two corpses, blood everywhere…it was all in a day’s work for me, but he’d had more than enough for a whole slew of days.
And he’d killed someone. I was sure he’d never done that before. It probably hadn’t even sunk in yet, and when it did, when the adrenaline high wore off, he was going to collapse like a house of cards.
I kicked the door shut behind me and carried him through another door into the cabin’s one bedroom, shutting that one too to keep out the frigid air pouring through the front room’s broken window. A bathroom opened off the bedroom, and I finally set him down next to the shower, leaning him up against the wall. Letting go of him felt fucking wrong, but he wasn’t holding on to me, and I didn’t have an excuse.
The small, old-fashioned bathroom had barely enough room to turn around between the toilet, sink, and shower stall. But it was clean enough, and a stack of only slightly dusty towels sat on a rack over the toilet.
The shower knob produced a groan of old pipes and then a weak stream of water, which got warm after a minute, to my relief.
I turned back to Laurie, who hadn’t moved a muscle except for shivering. He was staring down at his feet, his arms crossed over his bare chest. He had small nipples, a light scattering of chest hair a bit blonder than the hair on his head, and the smoothest skin I’d ever seen. And the last fucking thing he needed was me perving on him.
“Can you get in by yourself?”
