Page 85 of Hunted in the Shadows
She reached for her crutch to follow Hannah, but Cliff set his coffee aside and rose to his feet to ease her back down.
“She’s right, you shouldn’t be walking,” he grunted. “That gauze is barely holding as it is.”
She shoved him twice as hard, but his grip was unyielding. “Too rough, asshole,” Gwen grumbled, expression withering as she jerked from his touch.
“Funny, you used to beg me for that,” Cliff said under his breath.
“Until you fucked it all up!” Gwen bit out.
Shit, I thought.Here we go.
Cliff snapped his head up, lips parted in shock. “Me? You were the one who left! No note, no text.”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t do much as drop a damn text—even after you knew where I was.”
“Sweetheart, I don’t beg for scraps. You ran away. You let me think you might be dead for a full month, only to call me from a damn payphone. What did you expect me to do?”
“Follow me!” Gwen’s eyes abruptly began to shine with tears. “I wasn’t running away from you—I wanted you to choose me, dammit.” As her voice cracked, she threw me a sour look, but the venom had gone stale over the past day. She fixed her attention back on Cliff. “But you didn’t. Of course you didn't.”
Cliff went silent, realization crackling between them. He seemed frozen on one knee beside her. “Well, I didn’t know that,” he managed after a long stretch.
Gwen’s gaze dropped to the armrest, where their hands sat inches apart. Her hand trembled slightly as she brushed her fingers over the back of his, like she was afraid to fully touch him.
“We used to talk about making plans. Adventures and fuckinglifebetween hunts. Or do you not remember?” It was strange to hear Gwen’s usually harsh tone drop away into something quiet. “I got tired of waiting. It was clear to me where your true loyalties lie. You and I would always be second to saving someone else's life.”
Cliff moistened his lips, glancing around him and catching my eye for a brief moment. I watched his fingers ease between her slender ones.
“If you’d told me that, we could’ve worked it out.Allof us,” he said. Another brief glance cut to me.
Gwen balled her fist, moving her hand from his. She hung her head, anger drained as she rubbed her eyes. “Come on, Cliff. We wouldn’t have worked out shit—we were so young.”
“But not stupid,” Cliff said. A smirk lifted the corner of his mouth. “Well, maybe on occasion...”
Gwen’s eyes were still wet, nearly sharing his expression. “Don’t dwell. Let’s be honest, it turned out better this way. I should hate you right now—I should be saying goodbye to Hannah, too, because of the mess you dragged me into. But she refuses to let go.”
“Guess she’s got that on me, huh?”
“Among other things,” Gwen said, though not cruelly.
Cliff hung his head, finally giving a nod of disparaged understanding. The silence leaching into that bright, colorful room made me want to excuse myself to the car lot with Sylvia in tow. But she was the one who spoke up after a long beat, gently cutting into the heaviness.
“Gwen.” Sylvia cleared her throat when Gwen acknowledged her with severity. “Would you like me to heal your leg?”
“No,” Gwen said reflexively, and I understood entirely—Cliff and I had grappled with the same resistance. Accepting any form of magic felt like a betrayal against everything we stood for. “I’ll go to the hospital today. Soon.”
“I promise, it won't hurt.” She took to the air and pointed at Gwen’s wrapped leg. “Is it riskier to trust a non-human or be limping on one leg while that psycho is gathering support back at the outpost?”
My brows rose—as did Gwen’s. Drawing a deep breath, Gwen looked at the ceiling and worried her lip. Finally, she nodded curtly. “Fine. But if you lay a curse on me, I’m getting the flyswatter.”
“Naturally,” Sylvia said with a tight laugh. “Cliff, can you help her straighten out her leg and remove the bandages?”
Cliff dragged an ottoman over and winced in unison with Gwen as he did as Sylvia ordered, pushing up the pajama shorts and gently tugging away the layers of gauze. As the wound was revealed, it was no wonder Hannah was upset about Gwen not going to the ER. Cliff had done a decent job with the scant resources we’d had, but the skin around the bullet hole was swollen and discolored, ranging from angry red to a deep purple bruise.
As Sylvia hovered over her leg and began the healing incantation, Gwen shut her eyes to block out the view, as if it could be any worse than it already was.
Knowing that a wound like that would take a few minutes to heal thoroughly, I reached into my pocket. “Hey, Gwen—what do you make of this? Rhett was waving it around when he tried to cozy up to us.”
The sheet of paper was a little worse for wear after yesterday’s chaos, but sections were still crisp and clinical.
