Page 103 of Marked by the Demigod

Faster than he should be able to, he whips around, pulling her to him and clutching her against his chest, smearing blood between them. His arms shaking, he holds her there, as if doing anything else is too hard. "Aimes," he starts, but he's trembling too hard to do anything else. "Aimes, how..."

"I don't know," and for a split second she lets herself close her eyes and lean against him. "I don't know, but now they can't...they can't. Right?"

He takes a shuddering breath. "I don't think so."

She leans against him for one pounding heartbeat, then pushes away, her hand sticky. "We need to --"

"Katya, yes." He mutters, a hand twisting in her shirt, as if unwilling to let her go. "Hospital?"

"Yes." She agrees, her words hollow in her ears. "Where even are we?"

He shifts away from her and grunts with the pain. "Romania?"

* * *

He takesthem to a glistening beautiful hospital somewhere clearly in the U.S, stays only long enough to call Miri to let her know which hospital and text Trixie that she's safe, then, as he starts slumping over in the waiting room, she prods him and he whirls away to her apartment.

Once there, she spends way too much time trying to get all the blood out from underneath her fingernails in the shower, and he crashes on her bed hard, fast asleep. By the time she's out of the shower, his shoulder is back in the socket and the wheezing is gone from his breath.

She spends a long time staring at him, before eventually crawling into bed and attempting to close her eyes.

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