Page 90 of Harmless
“Seems like Devin already did that.” Torr unbuckled his belt and pulled it through the loops. I was about to make a dirty joke when he folded the strip of leather in half and stretched it out in front of my mouth. “You’re gonna want to bite down on this.”
“Fuck me,” I groaned before accepting the belt between my teeth.
“Good girl.” Torr smirked, and I rolled my eyes.
Santos returned then with Val on his heels. She carried a small, metal white box with a red cross on it. I recognized it as the kit from the field medic class we’d taken together, taught by none other than my mother.
“Alright, let’s see what we got.” My cousin knelt next to me on the blanket as she proceeded to glove up. She nodded at the vodka by Torr. “Already got the disinfectant out. Good job, Torr.”
She swiftly cut away my pant leg while I looked at Santos who was scowling and keeping his distance.
“Hnnn,” I said through the belt in my mouth and gestured for him to come closer.
He shook his head. “It’s my fault. I let this happen to you.”
Oh, fuck that. I spit out the belt and ignored Torr’s annoyed glance. “Stop it. You didn’t know what he was going to do. Nobody could have predicted this.”
“I should have been watching him.”
“You were trying to get my attention. If anything, Devin should have had a hold on him, but neither of you could have thought to restrain him.”
“Sorry to interrupt, but you need this now.” Torr shoved his belt against my mouth, and I took it again, like an obedient horse accepting a bridle.
Val wasted no time after that. She unscrewed the vodka and proceeded to dump the alcohol over the bloody mess on my leg.
The nearest hills and canyons were miles away, and my scream still made an echo. Tears sprang to my eyes and my legs flailed out to escape the sharpest pain I’d ever felt in my life. Torr restrained my legs, and my distress prompted Santos to move in closer.
My sweet Butcher sat behind me, drawing my back to his chest as his arms came around me. He was restraining my arms so I’d stop flailing, but he also provided comfort.
“Even if you don’t blame me, I’m sorry anyway,” he murmured with a kiss below my ear.
Val finished her torture and began wiping my skin with a sterile cloth while I breathed in harsh, ragged pants.
“Good news,” she announced chirpily. “You have an entry and exit wound. Looks like the bullet went through the meat of your calf muscle and didn’t hit any bone. It’s pretty clean as far as I can tell. I can close you up for now, but you’ll need an actual doctor when we get back to the safe houses.”
I spat out the belt, the leather now drenched in saliva and covered in deep teeth marks. “Fan-fucking-tastic, cuz.”
Torr fed me water and small handfuls of trail mix while Val packed and covered my wound. My whole right side was throbbing now, the adrenaline wearing off and the pain of reality settling in.
I’d never been shot before. And I still had trouble wrapping my head around the fact that it wasn’t from an enemy, nor was it an accident. Hudson saw me, pointed the gun, and fired. He knew exactly what he was doing.
Val gave me some extra-strength pain tablets, which I swallowed down with more water. After she left, I spoke in a low voice to my two men.
“So, is Devin watching him?” I asked Santos.
“Yeah.” He rubbed a palm over his short, buzzed hair. “I can’t really stand to be around him right now.”
“Don’t blame you,” Torr muttered. “We have to figure out what we’re gonna do with him.”
What to do with Hudson? Yes, that was ultimately my decision. One I should have been turning over in my mind right then, but pain and blood loss made my brain go fuzzy. I just wanted to sleep until my leg didn’t hurt anymore.
“Paloma.” Santos paused, hesitating.
He didn’t speak again until I prompted him. “Yes?”
When he finally met my eyes, his expression was full of worry. “Before he…did that, I was calling out to you. I called your name several times, and it was like you just…checked out. You didn’t respond at all until the moment before Hudson shot you.”
Torr shifted so that he was seated right in front of me. “I thought I heard him calling out to you. What happened, Ror?”
