Page 132 of Fires of the Forsaken
The Púca stood over Cheriour, its head lowered.
“No! Uh-uh.” I ran toward them, whipping my clothes through the air to make a loudwhoosh-snap. “Shoo! He’s a friend! Not food!Shoo!”
The Púca backed up, shook its head, and made a beeline for the trees.
I dropped to Cheriour’s side again, touching his shoulders. “Shit, sorry. It didn’t—did it bite you? I’msosorry. I mean, the horse has no interest in hurting me. For some reason. But I wasn’tthinking.Ofcourseit would wanna take a bite outta you. That’s what they do, right? Cheriour?” My eyes flew to his face. He was out cold. “Oh no.” I ran my trembling fingers over his torso. Okay…still breathing. Stillalive. But had the Púca bitten him? I couldn’t tell. There wasso much blood…
My gut lurched.
I threw myself to the side, a safe distance from his prone body, and upchucked.
“Heh. That’s an improvement. Last time I got puke on your shoes, remember?” I wiped the bile off my lips. “This time I aimed.”
He didn’t stir.
“Cheriour?” I touched his forehead. His cheeks. And carefully combed blood and (bleh) chunks of flesh out of his beard.
He had freckles on his nose. Lots of ‘em. How had I never noticed before? “I’m gonna patch you up.” Why did my voice sound so squeaky? “And you’ll be okay. Okay? You’re a tough guy. Little cuts like these won’t bring you down.”
I kept talking. Because annoying rambles were my specialty.
“So,” I tore my shirt (the old shirt.Notthe badass blue/pink one.) into strips, “you wanted to know my origin story, right? I left a lot of details out the other night. But, well, since you ain’t going anywhere fast right now, you might as well buckle up and listen.”
And I told himeverything. The good, bad, ugly, and the downright macabre. The people who’d cared for me, and the ones who hadn’t. And the ones who’d hurt me the most.
“Freddie Hawkins,” I said while I pressed on Cheriour’s stomach wound to stem the bleeding. Was skin supposed to squish like that?Yeesh.“Let me tell ya about that sonuvabitch. I was thirteen. He and his wife fit the unhappy suburbia type to a‘T.’Y’know: ‘Marriage isn’t going well. Sex life is drier than a prune. So, let’s get a kid!’Word of advice: if you ever decide to strap into a relationship, and it starts sinking, having a kid won’t save that ship. It never does.”
I’d turned down a dangerous road with that last bit. Because now I wondered what Cheriour would be like in a relationship.
Infuriating. Oh my God, yes. When you asked,“what do you want for dinner?”he’d likely be the type to respond with a droning,“whatever.”It drove me up afucking wallwhen guys did that. He was also a slob. Honest to a fault; he’d have no qualms telling someone their outfit made them look fat. And then he’d probably be too freaking dense to understand why his partner stormed off. Domestic arguments with him would bemaddening. Because he was almosttoolevel-headed. But his composure would help quiet the disagreement before it blew out of proportion.
His calmness had always helped me. How many times had he pulled me back from the brink of a meltdown?
Tears stung my eyes.
I had to get off this topic. “Anyway,” I cleared my throat, “Freddy Fucking Hawkins…most people don’t get teenagers to fix their marriage. But it didn’t take me long to figure out why they’d chosen an older child. Or why his poor wife was so sexually frustrated. Freddie…well…at thirteen, I was right in his G-spot. Ha,G-spot.Get it?”
Cheriour remained still. Unresponsive.Even as I prodded and poked his wounds.
It was getting harder and harder to fight back the tears. Snot dribbled from my nose. I kept talking, though. The conversation wasn’t doing jack squat for him, but it helped me. As long as I was talking, I was breathing. As long as I was breathing, I kept moving.
“There,” I tied the dirty strips of fabric around his torso, “you’re all bandaged up now. Don’t you dare bleed out on me.”
There’d been barely enough material to cover all his wounds. And the big gash by his ribs still oozed, even though I’d pulled that binding tighter than a corset.
I muttered more nonsense as I shakily yanked my breeches and boots on. “That had been myonlybra. And my boobs ain’t small—oh my God, youjerk!” I squealed at him when I pulled the pink/blue shirt over my head. “You’ve been making me wear wool clothes when I coulda had something likethisall along?” The hem of the shirt came down to mid-thigh, and the top was a smidge tight around my bust, even with the laces loose. But, otherwise, it fit perfectly.
And it was so freaking comfortable. Smoother and softer than silk.
In comparison, my breeches felt like sandpaper.
“You better stop bleeding,” I said. “I amnotusing this shirt as a bandage. No way.”
I kept talking as I hauled a Wraith out of the clearing. “Holy cow,” I groaned. “What are these guys made of?” It was like trying to move a box of cinderblocks! I got the body to the trees before the (thankfully shallow) wound on my side started throbbing. My head also hurt. And my muscles were both jittery and rubbery. So…nah, I wasn’t in the mood to finish the body clean-up.
But sitting idly by, watching as the sun sank and inky pools of shadows spilled across the ground, was also torture.
Because I couldn’t stop thinking about Cheriour, and whether he’d be okay. Or I wondered how I’d managed to crash-land in the heart of that fire and walk out unscathed.
