room with lots of people and you put your arm out. I did drink from you, right?”
William looked down at his guitar. “I didn’t want this to be the way it happened,” he said. “I wanted you to do it freely, to want to bind yourself to me.”
“You saved my life,” I said earnestly. “I would have died without your help.”
“I know, but,” he said, and then paused.
“But what?” I asked.
“You drank a lot of my blood,” he said. “Once I drink from you, our bond will be very strong.
“Go ahead,” I said, holding my arm out, wrist up. “Let’s finish this so we can stop worrying.”
“No,” William said. “You’re too weak. We’ll have to wait until you are better to even consider it.”
I was fully aware of the depths of his anguish. His feelings were strong inside me, almost parallel sensations to my own. I wondered if it would wear off eventually, but for now, I had another question.
“My leg,” I asked. “Will I be able to walk again?”
“That depends,” said a surly voice from the opposite corner of the room. It was Josef, walking into the room carrying a serving tray carrying a glass of water, a bowl of broth, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and two tumblers.
“Do you promise to listen to your nurses and follow their instructions?” Josef asked, setting the tray on my bedside table.
“Maybe,” I grumbled. “What do I have to do?”
“Your leg will be fine,” William said. “I asked Nadia to come over and examine it. You needed a lot of stitches. You sustained a pretty severe cut in the back of your thigh. It will heal, but you will be stiff for several days.
“What did Nadia do?” I asked, curious to know the extent of her healing powers.
“She made a salve that she rubbed over the wound. It was already healing rapidly because of my blood, but she says her salve will help keep the swelling down and prevent too much scarring.”
I ran my hands along the bandages, admiring the tightness of the wrappings. “Did you learn how to do this when you were an ambulance driver?”
“A bit,” William said. “But mostly later in the Resistance. We couldn’t be sure there would be a doctor around so we had to learn to care for our own. Being the least squeamish about blood, I learned how to stitch wounds.”
I paused for a moment, steeling my courage. “Did you have a lot of wounds to sew today?”
“It was yesterday, actually,” Josef said, finishing his bourbon in one gulp. “You’ve been asleep for almost a day.”
His words made me feel even more separated from my friends. People I’d seen last lying against a wall, covered in blood, perhaps their own, perhaps not. I had no idea who’d survived.
“You must tell me everything,” I said. “I need to know.”
William and Josef grimaced, but nodded in agreement.
“Aidan is dead,” William said. “He was killed instantly when he opened the door of the car. We left his body at the scene when we first made the jump, but Elsa went back to search for his remains. She brought back what was left.”
I buried my head in my hands, trying to banish the ghastly images William had described.
“Everyone else is alive,” Josef added, pulling me out of my thoughts. “I was burned pretty badly on one arm. Gabriel suffered a series of cuts on his face from the glass.”
“What about Elsa, and Lily?”
“Lily broke her arm,” explained Josef. “It was a compound fracture which made for a lot of blood. She is in the next room resting. She wouldn’t leave until she knew you were OK.”
“Elsa was not harmed physically,” William said. “She was the furthest away from the blasts when they happened, but…”
“But she saw the man she loved blown to pieces in front of her eyes,” I said, tears streaming down my face. William came to sit on the bed with me, holding me gently in his arms.
“Yes. She’s not said a word since it happened. She helped hold you down so I could sew your wound, gave you the shot that knocked you out, and stayed to see that you were stable. Then she left. I warned her not to go to Aidan’s house, that it might also be booby-trapped. She nodded, but left anyway.”
“Where’s Gabriel?” I asked.
“He made a call and asked a security team to meet him at his apartment,” Josef said. “He’s expected back here tomorrow morning.”