Page 69 of Lost and Bound
I jolted in and out of consciousness, hating it more each time. This felt like…I’d escaped. Hadn’t I? And it’d been like this. Moments of sensation and pain, interspersed with nothingness.
Calder had taken me somewhere.
Calder!
I tried to force my eyes open, tried to get to him—hands pushed me down, but at least I could tell they were hands, could feel what the fuck was going on around me.
“Jared!” That came in clearly, not all fuzzy and distant like before. “Jared, don’t try to fucking move, please, this is hard enough without you getting all crazy!”
Nate. That was Nate’s voice.
“Nate,” I tried to say, a little slurred mumble.
“He’s conscious,” Nate said. “He said my name!”
Oh, gods, who gave a fuck if I’d come back to life? Where the fuck was Calder? I tried to make my lips move enough to ask.
“I think he just said he doesn’t give a fuck,” Nate said. “And then—Calder! He’s asking about Calder!” Of course I fucking was, was Nate a fucking idiot? “He’s alive,” Nate added. “He’s still out. But he’s alive. Jared? Can you hear me?”
His voice faded out again as all the remaining blood in my body left my brain, shock and relief and joy nearly destroying me.
Calder was alive. I’d saved him.
He’d lived. For once in my life, I hadn’t fucked up, and Calder hadlived.
I could pass out again, and I did.
I woke up for real lying on my side in our bed in the pack house. Opening my eyes felt like more effort than I could handle, but the mattress under me felt familiarly saggy in the middle, and the scents of all my family, and of dust and mildew, and more distantly of the redwoods and the familiar earth of the Armitage lands, all surrounded me.
And Calder.
Opening my eyes might be worth it if I could see him.
Alive, Nate had said he was alive.
At last my eyelids did me a favor and lifted a little.
Calder lay beside me on his back, eyes closed, completely still. And he looked like himself again, his skin pale and smooth, except for a blackened smudge and a trace of blood along his jaw. Someone had cleaned him up and missed a spot.
I shivered, the memory of what he’d looked like as he lay dying in my arms flashing back with horrifying vividness.
But he was alive. I could feel our bond, silvery and warm. I could hear his even breaths and the thump of his heart, and the heat of his body next to mine had the whole bed cozy and comfortable.
I reached up, the movement exhausting, but I had to touch him. I laid my hand on his chest and bit my lip hard to keep in a moan of relief. Calder, alive under my fingers.
“Hey, Jared.”
I startled and looked up, tearing my eyes away from Calder. Arik sat by the bed in an armchair, curled up with his legs tucked under him and his head resting on one of the wings of the chair’s back. He looked like hell, with huge dark circles under his eyes and golden stubble glinting on his jaw. I realized I’d never seen Arik anything less than perfectly clean-shaven.
“You came for us. I heard you, and Nate, and Ian. Your voices.” My own sounded ridiculously rusty and weak. “We’re home. Where is everyone?”
“In the kitchen. They were all here too, but having Ian where people are trying to recover is like…” He shook his head, as if an adequate comparison eluded him.
“You don’t need to tell me, I get it.” I wanted to see him, but I could wait. I felt like I was swimming through Jell-O. Or maybe floating in Jell-O, since my limbs wouldn’t have had the strength to swim even if I’d been drowning.
I had been drowning, but Calder had come for me. And then our family had come for both of us, and pulled us out of the water before we could sink out of sight.
Speaking of. “Water?” I husked.
