Page 35 of Threadbound

Guilt hit Jamie right under the solar plexus.Maybe I’m the reason they came after him in the first place.

Maybe the awkwardness of their not-really-dates had been because Bran was surrounded by bigots, and they’d attacked him because they’d found out he was sort-of seeing a guy.

Maybe a lot of things.

Jamie told himself to stop speculating. He didn’t even know if Bran would be released any time soon, so there was no point in wondering about his living situation or the three attackers or anything just yet. He’d deal with it when it came up.

One day at a time, Jamie, his mother used to tell him when he was having a particularly bad week. Or month. Or childhood.

On the bed, Bran shifted slightly, a soft sound of pain drawing Jamie’s attention.

Jamie swallowed, having no idea what to say. So he gently squeezed Bran’s fingers, which was what he’d been doing all night. Those pained green eyes focused on him, a furrow between Bran’s eyebrows, his jaw clenched, and his lips pressed tightly together.

Without thinking, Jamie reached out and brushed back a lock of black hair that had fallen across Bran’s forehead. Bran blinked, but he didn’t flinch, although Jamie saw the shine of something—tears or pain or fear—shimmer in his eyes.

“Can I do anything?” Jamie asked him softly.

Bran shook his head slightly, and the distress on his delicate features made Jamie feel even worse.

“Are you sure?”

A single nod.

Jamie’s stomach growled, loudly. He hadn’t eaten dinner, he’d gone on a long run, and now he’d spent the last four hours in A&E with Bran. One of the nurses had told him a while ago that there was a cafeteria in the basement that had a few stations open all night if he got hungry or wanted a cup of tea. It would be terrible, he knew that, but it was food.

He swallowed. “Can—I mean, would it be okay if I went and grabbed something to eat? I—I can bring you back something, if you want.” Bran was probably hungry, too.

Bran’s brow furrowed deeper, his eyes wide as he bit his lip. But then he nodded, although he didn’t let go of Jamie’s hand. Jamie gently squeezed his fingers, and then Bran let go, although he hesitated.

“What would you like?” Jamie asked him.

Bran shook his head slightly.

Jamie offered a small smile. “I’ll find something, okay?”

Just those big eyes, wide and wet. And silence.

With a sigh, Jamie stood and walked out of the room, feeling even guiltier leaving Bran, even if it was only going to be for a few minutes. Fifteen, maybe, if he stopped to wash his face and hands in the bathroom.

Jamie looked down at himself and winced. What he really needed was a complete change of clothes, since Bran’s blood was all over both his shorts and his t-shirt. But he was pretty sure that he wasn’t going to be able to find a change of clothes in the hospital, because even if they had one of those weird little giftshops, it wasn’t going to be open at midnight.

Andthatthought reminded him that it wouldn’t matter if the gift shop were open because he had literally nothing on himbut a goddamn headlamp and his apartment key. No money, no cards, no phone.

Shit.

They were at Royal Infirmary Hospital, almost three miles from Jamie’s apartment, his phone, and his wallet.And this is why people buy those stupid arm things to hold their phones. He sighed. It would take him probably forty minutes to walk home, plus the same back if he didn’t get a cab—which he couldn’t really afford. And he had no phone with which to get an Uber or even call Rob or Trixie to ask them for a ride or a loan.

A midnight run was a terrible idea. Especially exhausted and without having eaten.

He was about to do it anyway. At least he had the right shoes on.

Bran tried to lie still.Moving caused pain in his side, his ribs, his shoulder, and his arm. Breathing also caused pain in most of those places, but he couldn’t very well stop doing that. He could manage the pain—he didn’tlikeit, but he could tolerate it now that the bleeding was under control and his arm had been reset.

But he had to wait for them to release him. He’d heard enough stories of how humans would drug and capture fae who tried to leave their hospitals before they were permitted to go. That, and he knew that the cast the doctor wanted to put on his arm was probably a good idea. So he didn’t try to leave.

Instead, he pleaded with Habetrot to help him heal and Dunatis to keep him safe from whatever it was the human doctors intended to do to him, now that Jamie wasn’t there to stop them.

The half-breed’s efforts to minimize Bran’s torment hadn’t gone unnoticed. As upset as Bran had been about Jamie’s insistence that he be taken to a hospital in the first place, he wasgrateful that at least Jamie was considerate enough to keep the doctors from giving him any sort of drugs or treatment besides stitching up the wound in his side and setting his arm.

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