Page 70 of Make Me A Sinner
Fighting the panic clawing at my throat, I meet his eyes. He has to know it’s me. “Set, please.” I press, begging him to remember me.
For a moment, he doesn’t move, just breathes, like a predator deciding whether or not to strike.
His hand lifts and I’m suddenly out of air, the world around us seems to freeze.
He doesn’t stop until his fingers gently brush the side of my head. It takes me a second to realize what he’s doing, but then it registers. That’s where I hit my head earlier.
His hand pulls back, and my own goes straight to the place he touched. Blood coats my fingertips. I’m bleeding.
He snarls again, louder this time.
“I’m okay. I’m okay,” I murmur... but then I see it.
He’s not. He’s been shot.
Ignoring any kind of danger, I close the distance between us and start checking his body for wounds. And what I find is something straight out of a nightmare. At least a few dozen bullet holes in his chest, his flesh torn, his body bleeding. The damage is unreal—almost impossible. Yet he’s still breathing.
I don’t have time to start freaking out before he lifts a hand, gesturing for me to wait.
I trust him enough to do it, just to notice one of the wounds slowly starting to close. The skin knits together right in front of me, pushing the bullet out. I don’t have time to process how fucked up this really is, or how unreal it might be watching someone heal like that.
I’ll just have a conversation with myself later, about this, and my poor general judgment that at one point I decided I could outrun a demon, or devil, or whatever the hell Set is.
But for now, I just exhale with relief. He’s still breathing.
“We have to get you out of here,” I whisper, between tears, trying to help him up. Not that I can support his weight. But he moves anyway, fights with himself to walk out with the kind of willpower that defies physics.
We need to leave—now.
I look around me as we step out of the apartment, and I realize it’s right next to a sushi diner. Set’s car is only a few feet away. So I leave him leaning against the wall, pull the car, right next to the entry, then help him inside. A few people see us, but by this time, his body’s started to shift back to normal, so he no longer looks like a WWE wrestler.
I just hope it’s dark enough so that no one spots the blood. Not that anyone gives a damn here anyway. It’s Vegas, shit like this happens here all the time. We’re probably not even the first freak show they’ve seen tonight.
I immediately drive straight to the Sphinx’s underground parking lot, then get him into the elevator, taking us up to the penthouse. Set’s still healing, but by the time the elevator doors slide open, there’s a pool of blood at our feet.
He’s bleeding everywhere. And that freaks the hell out of me.
The second he steps inside the penthouse, he collapses to the floor, the effort too much for him to bear.
“Set,” I drop beside him, shaking him, trying to pull him back to consciousness. And it takes him a couple of minutes before he regains focus.
“I’m healing too slow,” he says, his voice hoarse and strained. “Get the forceps from the bathroom. Take out some of the bullets.”
I rush to the bathroom, realizing this probably isn’t the first time this happened. Because who keeps forceps in the bathroom?
I’m back so fast that I scrape my knees plunging to the floor, already pulling out a few bullets from his arms like he asked. I’m terrified of causing him pain, but even more terrified of what’ll happen if I don’t.
Ripping open his shirt, I start pulling bullets from his chest with the forceps. I know he feels every bit of it because his beautiful face shifts each time I drive the metal into a wound. But as I take a moment, I see his flesh knitting itself together, just like it did before. Taking them out speeds up the healing more than letting his body fight to expel them. So I hurry, checking every wound, every inch of his skin. His muscles are a map of perfection, even smeared with his blood, and the shape of his face is almost back to normal—not that I mind the extra sharp jawline and extra defined cheekbones. Who could ever mind that, anyway?
Only the darkness in his eyes remains. He still looks at me as if he’s weighing whether or not to kill anyone in front of him.
By the time I’m down to the last bullet, the first wounds I attended are completely healed, but I can see he’s losing his strength. The raw sounds he makes whenever I draw the forceps in a wound are beginning to falter. He’s weakened, still, I can’t leave him lying in the middle of the living room. Planting my feet to the ground, I help him up, then struggle to drag him to the couch, because there’s no way we’re making it to the bedroom. He seems lighter now, but he’s still built like a tank. And it’s too much for my body to handle.
He needs rest. There’s nothing else I can do for him now but let him recover and pray he’ll make it through. Strange thing to pray to God for the devil’s son. But I do it anyway. I need him to get through this.
It’s almost afternoon, and he still shows no signs of waking up. I’ve cleaned most of the blood off him, so I decide to take a shower to rinse the blood from my hair, then try to grab an hour of sleep. There’s not enough room for both of us on the couch. At least not without risking making him uncomfortable or even causing him pain.
After checking on him once more when I get out of the shower, I head to his bedroom and almost crash on the bed. I didn’t even realize how exhausted I was, but now, it feels like I can’t keep my eyes open for a second longer.
