Page 56 of Captive Souls

I had no idea which conclusions she was coming to, and I didn’t care. Knox was sitting quietly in the chair, which was an amazing feat in itself. That he obeyed my order and wasn’t speaking, merely watching my sister and I like a predatory cat, could’ve just been typical Knox behavior. Or it could’ve been indicative of blood loss.

Horrified, I looked to see a not small puddle of blood accumulating on the floor underneath the chair, dripping from his wound.

That was when I decided I’d address Daisy and the entire situation after I attempted to save Knox’s life.

The thought struck me like a knife to the heart. Knox. Dying.

Absolutely not.

Had I imagined it in the early days? Maybe.

But logically, that wouldn’t work for us. He might be our only way out of this scenario, if my thoughts about his feelings forme were correct. But then again, if they weren’t, he could be our damnation.

Maybe letting him die was the smarter gamble.

I shook myself out of my trance—fixated on the puddle of blood—to find Knox staring squarely at me, watching, as if knowing I was deciding whether I was going to try to save him or not. Arrogant of me to think I was the one who could control whether he lived or died.

Knox was in charge of that. Beyond even what higher powers might or might not have existed—I wasn’t sold on that, given the direction of my life and general childhood trauma.

I snatched up the supplies, laying them on the table before dousing the scalpel with alcohol and getting some gauze ready.

“Take off your shirt,” I ordered Knox.

His demeanor changed. He stiffened. Clammed up. Not that you could’ve described him as relaxed in any sense of the word, but he was surprisingly calm after being shot. Yet after making my simple request, the tension in the air was thick and stifling.

“No.”

I tilted my head to regard him. “I didn’t take you for someone who worried about modesty.”

My tone was dry, but I was teasing. How quickly my disdain for his violence to my sister waned. It didn’t completely disappear, just bubbled lower, waiting, merging with all of my other complicated feelings about him.

He didn’t respond, not even a lip twitch. He stared at me for two seconds then leaned forward to grab large scissors out of the pack, grunting as he awkwardly maneuvered his body to cut his shirt to expose his skin. Well, his skin was somewhere underneath the blood. And the bullet wound.

“You bleed red,” I observed. “Who would’ve thought? I was sure it would be black and inky like tar.”

I wasn’t joking then, not entirely. But I could’ve sworn the edge of Knox’s lip moved, just a fraction.

Ignoring the small gesture and the fiery response in the cauldron of my resentment, anger and desire toward him, I unpacked a disinfecting wipe from a package, wiping the blood away. Unsurprisingly, it only elicited a barely perceptible wince from Knox as the chemicals ate at his wound.

A dark part of me felt satisfied by the pain I was responsible for, revenge for the anguish he inflicted upon my sister.

I hadn’t previously been one to preach the whole ‘eye for an eye’ thing, but I couldn’t deny it felt a little good.

Pushing past that, I looked at the wound I’d revealed.

I’d assumed it was large, gory, gaping. But it was smaller than I expected. Neater. Leaking quite a bit of blood, though.

I rushed to press the gauze against the wound, forcing my breathing to steady.

“You’re really going to try to treat him?” Daisy scoffed from behind me. She’d been silent longer than I’d expected. If I was honest, I’d almost forgotten she was there, which was unthinkable yet true.

Guilt coated me like oil as I struggled to get myself out of the tangle I’d found myself in with Knox.

“We should leave. Now,” she urged.

I sighed, still pressing the gauze against the wound.

“We’re not leaving,” I told my sister, not looking at her. I wasn’t brave enough.

---