Helpless (Steel Demons MC #5) - Crystal Ash Page 0,66
reply. I wondered if she felt as Mariposa did when we first took her, or if she already knew she wouldn’t be harmed.
“I’ll get these out of you tonight.” Mari’s hand glided over my back, and I realized just how closely she was sitting.
Her leg pressed against mine, with one hand on my arm and the other gently prodding the pierced area of my back. If I focused on how ragged and shitty my body felt, I could ignore her breast pressing against my arm.
Mari’s mention of the arrows did succeed in drawing attention to how tight and seized up my back felt. Sleeping would be a bitch, if I managed to sleep at all.
“Grudge.”
The man sitting in front of me turned and looked over his shoulder.
“Thank you, brother.”
He nodded his chin down sharply. “Hm.”
Dyno took the Hummer off the road for another hour before we finally stopped for the night. My legs felt stiff too, as we piled out of the car.
“Girls can sleep in the car,” T-Bone said, walking around to the trunk. “We ain’t got much else for shelter. I’ll try to hunt us some dinner. Y’all get a fire going and watch your fucking backs. If anything moves that’s not one of us, shoot it.”
He took what he needed and headed out into the wilderness, while the others started up a fire. Mari led me to sit on a fallen log and had me turn away from the fire so she could see my back.
“I can’t do much with limited supplies,” she grumbled, rummaging through her bag. “But I can get those out and close you up until we get back.”
“I trust you,” I said, bracing my hands on my knees and staring into the dark woods. I could just make out T-Bone creeping low and silently.
“Thank you.” Mari squeezed my arm and got to work. Her scissors snipped away at my shirt and I heard her soft laugh. “This is the second time I’ve had to cut your shirt off of you. Maybe you should just stop wearing them.”
“You don’t want that,” I grunted, helping her pull the fabric away and down my shoulders. “I’m not much to look at.”
She was quiet for a moment, then I heard gloves snapping and her rummaging through her items again.
“That’s not true, Shadow.”
I didn’t know how to answer. Was this…flirting? If so, I was completely out of my element and better off not saying anything. I just sat still as she gently prodded around my wounds.
“These are definitely barbed and they’ve torn like hell through your muscle tissue already,” she reported. “I’m going to have to make a few small incisions—”
My eye caught the glint of a metal blade, a sharp edge in her hand coming to slice me again.
“No!”
I jumped up from the log, spinning to face her as I backed away. What was I thinking? I never exposed my back to anyone. My heart drummed in my ears, while my chest and throat closed up. I was suffocating, sweaty, small, and weak. The floor was coated in my dried blood.
“Shadow! What’s wrong?”
“Don’t come near me!”
I backed up against a tree trunk. No, a cold brick wall. Mari’s face looked concerned, and then morphed into the face of the woman who haunted me since my first memories formed. She was sitting right there, taunting me as she painted her face in my blood. She dragged one bloody finger into her mouth and moaned with her lips around it.
I shut my eyes, feet kicking out in front of me to scoot further away, but I was trapped. I was always trapped.
“No more cutting, please…” My head shook from side to side, as if that would make the grotesque vision go away. “Don’t cut me anymore. I didn’t do anything…”
“Shadow, listen to my voice.” A pair of hands held the sides of my face, keeping my head still. “You’re a member of the Steel Demons MC. You’re among friends right now and you’re not in any danger. No one is going to hurt you.”
“Don’t cut me.” It was Mari’s voice I heard, but I couldn’t trust my eyes to open and show me it was really her there. “Don’t cut me, please.”
“I want to help you, Shadow. I want to make you better.”
“Okay, just no blades. No cutting, please.”
“Shadow, I need you to trust—”
“I do. I can’t explain it, but I can’t…just please don’t cut into me. Don’t cut my skin, don’t make me bleed. Just, please…”