Page 11 of Entangled

There’s a very good chance that most all the people I care about are going to die out there in those woods.

Those trees might be grave markers.

And there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

Whatever words Jasper left Lucky with can’t have been any kinder than Dom’s words to me. Ever since they left, he’s had a solemn set to his mouth and a knit to his brows that’s made me check a dozen times I had his meds right. But even if, by rights, Lucky should have been giggling showtunes on that kind of high, he’s barely said one word.

Maybe there’s nothing to say.

I just need them to come back to me.

Sighing, I abandon the final window and pick up the empty fifteen-gallon water container. We haven’t had running water since the explosion messed up our water system, and making four trips a day to the cave river to cover our basic water needs is getting old fast. And to add to the joy that is my life right now, the last three days of working outside tells me thatapparentlydoctoring pipes ain’t as easy as stitching up bullet wounds.

After rinsing off in the river and filling up the canister, it takes me twenty minutes to haul the damn thing back to Bristlebrook, and I’m surly and sweating again by the time I get it inside. A quick look at the clock tells me I’m overdue to give Lucky his meds, and I make my way to the med bay... only to grit my teeth at the head I see pushing through the door.

“If you don’t get back in bed right now, you weasel, I’m going to shoot you.”

Lucky teeters and has to catch himself against the doorframe to his room, then flinches in pain. Concern spikes through my gut, but when I approach, Lucky shoots me a filthy glare.

And filthy is mighty literal at this point.

His long blond hair is a knotted mess, even in the mom-bun he forced it into yesterday. His once neatly trimmed beard is now scraggly—and apparently itchy, given he’s scratching at it like he has fleas.

“I’m going to get her,” he says, his jaw squared stubbornly.

“You’re going to get knocked on your ass in a minute,” I reply, rubbing my chest, but my heart’s not in the threat. No, my heart is swollen painfully, pressing against my ribcage and oozing barely contained panic, just like it’s been doing all week. If I thought for one second Lucky was strong enough to handle it, I’d strap him to my back and we’d be off in minutes to help the others get our girl safely home.

“Something’s wrong, Beau, I know it.” His eyes are bruises in his pale face. “We have to help.”

My chest squeezes more liquid panic through my veins, my lungs. His fear ignites my own.

“It’s only been a week,” I start, and Lucky’s mouth curls in disgust, but I steamroll over the arguments I can see coming. “One week since she was taken. They left five days ago. Even going as fast as they can, they have days’ worth of ground to cover—and then they have to get back. Even if everything went well, even if they got her as soon as they caught up, they couldn’t be home yet. We’ve...” I falter. “We’ve got to trust them, Lucky.”

“How can you be socalm?” He has a white-knuckled grip on the doorframe. “Damn it, no. I’m going. Youwillhave to shoot me to keep me here.”

I scrub a hand over my unshaven face. I’m too tired for this, and I’m struggling hard enough to deal with my own shit without piling his on top of it.

I get it, I do. It’s a thing with soldiers, common as anything—they try to push their recovery so they can get back in the field, struggling with all that misplaced guilt for not being out there and helping their team.

But usually? It just ends up with them injuring themselves, and I am not about to let him do that—and not just because Jasper would string me up by my ankles and peel off my toenails one by one.

Lucky steps forward on wobbly legs, his mouth compressing on a wince he tries to hide, and alarm shoots through me.

“Nope. That’s enough!” I swoop in, scoop him up under his legs and, gently as I can, swing him bridal style into my arms and take him back to his bed. Briefly, painfully, it reminds me of the way I carried Eden when we first met her, and the soft, gorgeous armful that she was.

Lucky isn’t soft—he’s bony and awkward.

And I don’t find him beautiful—even though he does have real pretty hair when it’s clean.

But he’s in pain, same as Eden was then.Worsethan Eden was then. I might not have my subbie here, but I do haveasub, and he needs me right now.

Funny enough, thinking of him as a stubborn, hurting submissive rather than a belligerent patient actually does soothe some of my frustration.

Lucky bats at me as I set him down on the bed, but in the state he’s in, Eden could do more damage.

He was shot three times. He took a glancing hit across his bicep and another, deeper laceration across the trapezius that bled more than I liked. It’s the third wound that worries me, though, and it isn’t even technically a bullet wound—shrapnel pierced his chest, right through the apex of his lung, causing a pneumothorax.

Dom’s quick work with the occlusive dressing probably saved Lucky’s life, but I’d still needed to perform a needle aspiration to re-inflate his lung. And even though the bullets miraculously hadn’t hit his aorta or any blood vessels that would have ended his life instantly, he’s in a bad way. He lost a lot of blood and infection can kill quickly. Even all going well, he’s looking at weeks, if not months, of recovery.

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