Page 12 of Shattered Love

“What happened out there? I can’t remember anything after Rainer shot those guards.”

Aiden ignored my question, still in doctor mode. “How do your wounds feel?”

Now that the blanket was gone, I looked to my thighs for the first time since I had woken up. The dark red tracks were no more, the skin around the two wounds tender and pink. The stitches had been removed at some point and the excruciating pain was gone. They still ached, as I was sure they would for a while, but for the first time since they had been inflicted, I didn’t struggle.

“My legs feel fine,” I responded to Aiden, pinning him with a stubborn glare. “Now, someone needs to tell me what’s going on.”

Aiden opened his mouth to respond, but it wasn’t his voice that carried through the room.

“You were dying.” Rainer’s voice was harsh, so rough, and yet another piece of worry I carried settled, knowing he was alright. “We made a deal to get access to the medication you needed.”

“What kind of deal?” I spun toward Rainer, who leaned against the door, his eyes scanning me from head to toe.

“It was bad Lessy, we couldn’t get you to keep your eyes open for more than a few minutes at a time. We couldn’t take the chance that there would be antibiotics here. We had to try to find a hospital,” Aiden said as he led me back down to the couch, sitting beside me.

I couldn’t hold in my gasp. A hospital? That meant they had been searching around town, the very place that guards would have been searching. “You could have been killed,” I whispered.

“And you were dying,” Rainer reiterated, walking closer until he was standing above me. “We’re all alive. We found a hospital and doctor over here,” he threw a thumb toward Aiden, “administered fluids and antibiotics through an IV. After that, we got the hell out of dodge.”

“And no one was in the hospital? They hadn’t raided the place for medicine?” I found that hard to believe. Based on the fact someone had stitched me up in the camp, I knew they had medical supplies.

“Not quite. A group of people were there, blockading the entrance. We made a trade,” Aiden answered for me.

“What kind of trade?” I asked, looking toward Rainer. Besides some water and food, we had nothing of value on us.

However, before Rainer even spoke, I knew what the answer was going to be. I watched him carefully, noting the way his hand twitched toward the back of his pants, where I knew he always had his gun.

“Our food and weapon for your medicine,” he said flatly.

For the first time since I had met him, Rainer looked uneasy in his own skin. It was like the gun was an extension of himself and without it, he wasn’t whole.

“It was an easy decision. You’re alive and that’s all that matters,” Murphy added, coming to sit at my other side and entwining his fingers with mine.

Rainer took one more glance at me before turning on his heel and walking back outside. “Doesn’t seem like he agrees,” I muttered.

Murphy squeezed my hand, my gaze turning to meet his. “Don’t worry about him too much. Now let’s get you some food and water.”

Murphy and Aiden both hopped up from the couch, moving toward the small kitchen. I heard the pop of cans opening and hushed whispers between the two of them, too quiet for me to overhear. The crackle of wood echoed throughout the room, the running stove heating up the small space.

No more than ten minutes later, a warm bowl of soup was in my lap, Aiden urging me to take small mouthfuls while Murphy gazed at me with a lazy smile. And as I sat between the two of them, I wondered if Murphy realized how impossible his statement was. Because no matter what I did, it was impossible to not worry about every single one of them.

Chapter Seven

Afew days went by in a blur as no one allowed me to do anything. Our entire group had made it safely to the cottage, although the three of us had given them a worry when we showed up three days late.

“You can’t keep me on this couch forever,” I called out to whoever would listen, pacing the small area between the television and the couch.

As if on cue, a pair of hands landed on my shoulders and pushed me back to sitting. Glaring up at Murphy, he simply grinned, plopping down beside me. Mina took my other side and I looked between the two, exasperated.

“I don’t have a fever. I’ve been keeping food and water down. Why must I keep lying here?” I asked the two of them, hoping for a different answer than the one I’d been fed the past few days.

“Because we want to make sure you’re able to keep doing those things,” Aiden called from the kitchen.

Glancing over the back of the couch, I spotted him and Emmanuel prepping some fish they had caught earlier this morning. Frowning at the sight, I wanted to pout that fishing was a part of my job.

But I held my tongue for two reasons. One because I didn’t want to sound like a pouting toddler, although Aiden seemed to bring that out in me, and mainly because we all knew I wasn’t the one bringing in the fish.

Elizabeth and the twins were upstairs, which I learned held two bedrooms. Rainer and Sasha were outside, collecting more firewood for the stove. And who knew where the hell Warner was. If I thought his wandering habits were bad in the woods, they had nothing on here. Since I had woken, I had maybe seen him one or two times. And when I asked where he was, no one seemed to have a concrete answer.

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