Page 174 of Fractured Loyalties
He shifts slightly, sucking in a sharp breath when the wound drags against the seatback. I reach for him, but he turns his head away.
It’s not rejection. It’s restraint.
“You’re not helping anyone by pretending that doesn’t hurt,” I say quietly.
He says nothing.
I press two fingers beneath his jaw—check his pulse. It's faster than it should be.
“Lydia,” I call up. “Emergency kit?”
Without looking, she jerks her thumb toward the floor behind her seat.
I pull it free and unzip it with numb fingers.
“I’m not fragile,” Elias says, low.
“No. But you’re bleeding through a ten-thousand-dollar coat, so shut up and let me fix you.”
He watches me. That stillness again. Like he’s waiting to see what I’ll do with him now that the adrenaline is fading and only rawness remains.
I peel back the fabric around the wound. The gash is deeper than I thought. Dark red and angry, the edges slightly swollen. I pour antiseptic across it, and Elias hisses. A sharp, involuntary sound that makes me wince.
“That’s good,” I say, forcing calm. “It means you're still human.”
“I’ve never claimed that.”
I tape the gauze in place with tight, practiced fingers.
“You could’ve died in there.”
“You say that like it would’ve surprised me.”
I don’t respond.
I just sit back. My hands are sticky with his blood. The taste of smoke still clings to my teeth.
And outside the window, the forest gives way to open road.
For the first time, I’m not sure which side of the fire we made it out on.
The further we get from the facility, the quieter Elias becomes.
The ride stretches on in silence, the kind that doesn’t soothe but scrapes. I keep glancing at him, waiting for some sign of unraveling, some clue that what we’ve been through has touched him beneath the surface. But there’s nothing. Just the familiar stillness he wears like armor.
Kinley says something to Lydia up front, a terse exchange about a fuel station or a safe marker—I don’t catch the words, only the tension behind them. He’s bleeding from a gash on hisleft hand, probably from the climb out, but he hasn’t so much as glanced at it.
We’re all bleeding in places we’re pretending don’t matter.
Elias exhales, a quiet, precise breath that draws my attention back. His head is leaned back against the seat, eyes half-lidded. Pale. Sweating now. The adrenaline is gone, and with it, some of the fire he’d been clinging to.
“You’re fading,” I murmur.
His lips twitch. “Not yet.”
“You lost too much.”
“Enough to be angry about it, not enough to stop me.”
