Page 46 of Searching Blind

She hissed out a breath. “No, I don’t think so.”

He felt a warm wetness on the right side of the small of her back. Blood. She was bleeding, and something sharp jutted from her skin there. He ran a hand over her hip and belly, relief flooding him when he found nothing but soft, warm, unbroken skin.

Okay, so she hadn’t been impaled, but whatever was sticking out of her back was going to be a problem. To get out of this hole, she needed to be able to wear the other harness.

Overhead, he heard Zelda’s worried whine. “It’s okay, girl,” he called up to her. “Stay there. We’re okay.”

“She keeps looking through the hole,” Lucy said. “Blocking out the light.”

“Luckily, I don’t need light to get us out of here.” He tried to sound cheerful for her sake. “I’m like Batman. I do my best work in the dark.”

Lucy snorted, then winced. “I’ll just bet you do.”

He could hear her smile in those words, and it eased his worry a fraction. “I could show you if you stopped denying how dynamite we’d be together in bed.”

“Would you stop?” Her laugh echoed off the walls around them, bringing a small smile to his lips. “We’re stuck in a pit, and you’re still trying to flirt with me.”

“Hey, if Batman can save Gotham while wooing women, I think I can do the same.”

“Batman never really had time for women, though.”

“Bruce Wayne did.”

“Only to throw people off his scent so they wouldn’t suspect him of being Batman. Bruce Wayne is the real mask.”

He grinned. She really was his perfect woman. “I am so turned on right now.”

“Your humor is seriously skewed, Murphy.”

“That’s why you love me.”

There was a pause before she spoke again, this time her voice softer, more vulnerable. “Am I that transparent?”

Hope fluttered in Sawyer’s chest. “Only to me.”

“I’m not—” She seemed to struggle for words. “I can’t—go there yet with you. But I know there’s something between us and it—it scares me.”

“I know. It’s okay.” He couldn’t stop his smile. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t ready. As long as she wasn’t closing the door on him, he would patiently wait on the other side for her to step through and join him. “Why don’t we focus on getting you out of here?”

“That sounds like a good plan.”

He ran his hands carefully over her legs, feeling the hard, muscular planes of her calves and thighs, tensed with pain but thankfully whole. The only injury seemed to be the one on her back. “I need you to hold still while I check out that gash on your back.”

“Feels like I’ve been stabbed.” She hissed at his touch, and he felt her trying to squirm away from him.

“Easy,” he soothed, drawing his hand back momentarily. He gently ran his fingers down her spine again, wincing when she gasped as he nudged the shard. “I think… it’s a piece of a branch.”

“Can you take it out?”

He hesitated. “I can try, but we don’t have anything to clean the wound.”

“I’ll take my chances,” she muttered. “Just get it out. Quick.”

He nodded and reached for the shard, his heart pounding in his ears as he grasped it in his hand. With a quick jerk, he pulled it free, and Lucy cried out in pain. He quickly pressed his hand against the wound, trying to staunch the flood of blood.

“Fuck.” He fumbled at his waist, unhooking the water bottle from his belt and unscrewing the cap. He splashed some of the water on the wound, and Lucy hissed.

“Sorry,” he murmured, but his focus was on the injury. He needed to bandage it up somehow. “Hold on a second.”

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