Page 6 of Martyr
Why does she fit so perfectly?
With her head against my shoulder, her wet hair strewn across her face, I just want to scream. At myself, mainly.
I run back to the trauma center. Banging through the doors, I’m met with shocked faces. And then, an eternity later, Dr. Hawthorne appears.
She takes one look at me and Artemis, soaked to the bone, and her face goes white.
“With me,” she barks.
I follow without comment. My heart slams my ribs, and I hold her tighter. I’ve lost feeling in my fingers and toes, but I refuse to let her fall. Water streams off us. Her hair, our clothes. We leave a trail. My shoes—those blasted, stupid fucking shoes—squeak on the tile.
We get to the small medical wing, where a nurse quickly directs me where to put her. Except I can’t uncurl my fingers. I can’t seem to release her at all.
When the nurse approaches, I growl at her.
Like a wild dog. The sound just pours out of me, and I keep Artemis to my chest.
“It’s okay, Saint,” Dr. Hawthorne says.
We’ve had a few sessions.
I’ve only been here for two weeks.
I’m not ready for this.
The rapport she probably needs time to build, to get me to trust her, just isn’t there. I want to snap at her, too, but she circles around the bed so she can face me. With the nurse at her side.
“We need to get you both looked at, all right? We need to warm both of you up. The faster we can do that, the better.”
It makes sense in my head, but my body refuses to obey. Not until the nurse and Dr. Hawthorne make me. They carefully peel away my hands and tug her body from my grasp. She slides fully onto the bed, limp.
With a gasp, I stagger backward.
“Sit,” Dr. Hawthorne orders, pointing to a chair beside the bed Artemis now lies on.
I drop into it without question.
The nurse must’ve paged someone, because three others come sprinting into the medical wing. One splits off and comes to me, dragging the curtain closed between Artemis and me.With her out of my sight, it’s simultaneously more painful and easier to breathe.
“Undress,” she says.
Wordlessly, I strip down to my briefs. They’re wet, too, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to flash some strangers. I don’t know what they’re doing to Artemis on the other side of the curtain, and it’s fucking killing me. It isn’t until she procures new clothes—identical to the sweats and white t-shirt I shed—and turns her back that I strip the last bit of fabric from my body. I change fast and clear my throat when I’m done.
The nurse turns back around and puts a heated blanket around my shoulders. She checks me over and eventually gives me a clean bill of health.
Guilt gnaws at me, and my gaze keeps going to the curtain separating me fromher.
“Saint?”
I jerk.
Dr. Hawthorne rounds the curtain. “Can you tell me what happened?”
My throat closes. “It’s my fault. She slipped and fell in…”
I don’t blame the coat for being too fucking heavy. I don’t blame her for trying to reach me.
I blame myself.
