The Shadows (Black Dagger Brotherhood #13) - J. R. Ward Page 0,168

stiff yet, and it seemed like a good time to remind herself of that fact.

The pair of them rushed out into the corridor and listened. The training center was otherwise silent, what with the Brothers getting their workouts in the field, and there being, fortunately, no one with injuries in the clinic rooms—

The clatter came again, and they took off, heading two doors down.

Doc Jane opened things wide.

The healer had to duck as something came flying out of the room. A tray. It was a meal tray, and it skipped along the concrete floor like the thing was really glad to be free of there—and looking to put a little extra distance in.

Inside, Luchas was out of control on the bed. Half of him appeared to be tied down, but one hand and arm were free and he was using them to destroy anything he could reach—he’d knocked over some monitoring equipment along with his IV pole, did the same duty with the rolling table that had had some sort of meal on it—and was now reaching for the back of the headboard like he wanted to tear the bed apart.

“Luchas,” Doc Jane said, with admirable calmness. “What’s going—”

“Fuck you!”

Selena recoiled. She’d been here to feed Qhuinn’s brother over the last several months, and he’d always been nothing short of a gentlemale.

“Luchas—”

“Fuck this!” He gave up on the headboard and grabbed onto the side table, shoving it so hard the thing went down, its drawers exploding out like that was its way to bleed. “Fuck you!”

Doc Jane backed out and muttered, “I’ve got to go get a sedative. Don’t go in there.”

As the doctor took off at a run, Selena stayed in the doorway.

“What are you looking at?” he screamed at her. “What the fuck do you want!”

There was a red stain on the bed. The sheeting, on one side, a little more than halfway down, was stained—he was bleeding. From some kind of wound—

“Your leg,” she breathed, well aware of the infection that had been plaguing him. “Be careful of your leg—”

“I wanted to die!” he spat. “I was trying to die!”

His face was a twisted facsimile of the features she knew well, his too-white skin stretched nearly to the breaking point over a bone structure that had no doubt been enviable before he’d been tortured by the Lessening Society.

“They took my fucking leg to save me!” He pulled the sheets off. “To save me!”

The stump was wrapped carefully in layers of surgical gauze, but underneath wasn’t doing well—blood was seeping out, everywhere.

He started to claw for what was left and that was when she had to get involved.

Marching across the room, she grabbed his flailing hands and pinned them to the bed by his head.

Luchas. Went. Wild.

Screaming, twisting, cursing at her.

All she did was shake her head and let him exhaust himself—which didn’t take long at all.

When he stopped fighting, she said, “You are so lucky. So damned lucky.”

That shut him up. Probably in a way that a direct confrontation wouldn’t have.

“What?” he stammered.

“I’m dying,” she said plainly. “And if someone could take part of my leg to save me? So I could stay here to be with the person I love? I’d do it in a heartbeat. So, yeah, I think you’re very lucky.”

He was still breathing hard, but the tension in his body left him. “Dying?”

“’Fraid so.” She released her hold and stepped back. “Don’t waste this time you have. I know you’re hurting, and I don’t doubt you’re angry at where you are. But personally, I’d trade places with you in a heartbeat.”

Doc Jane came back—and stopped when she saw that the place wasn’t on fire or something.

“I’m going to go get dressed,” Selena said as she headed for the door. “I’m cold in this gown. Do you need help cleaning up?”

Doc Jane looked back and forth between them, clearly wondering what had been said or done to turn things around. “Ah, no, let me take care of it.”

“Okay.” Selena nodded at the doctor, and then glanced back at Luchas. “Take care of yourself.”

She could feel his eyes on her as she stepped out into the corridor. Could feel them still as she went back to change.

When she reentered the tunnel, she began to get paranoid that she’d have an attack halfway back to the main house, and get stuck dying under the fluorescent lights. Or maybe if it happened on the stairwell up to the foyer … or—

Okay, she’d better stop this.

She had enough