43. Resa

Chapter 43

Resa

S adie is waiting outside the clinic, along with three nurses in scrubs and a stretcher. Her expression is so calm I struggle to believe anyone could stay that calm in a crisis.

Blaine is out of the car, on the stretcher, and being rushed inside before I can climb out the other side. I follow with Garrison and Vaughn at a much slower pace, chewing on my lip, and forgetting to look around for white coats.

All I can think about is Blaine dying as I lean on the wall outside his room, not knowing what to do with my hands or the guilt forming in my chest.

"Resa?" Garrison has a cell phone in his hand, a sleek silver one, almost a copy of the one I launched out of my bedroom window.

Meeting his gaze is hard when he must know I'm to blame for Blaine being shot. "Yeah?"

"Vaughn is going to watch the front, and I need to make a call. Can you stay with Blaine?" he asks.

After I just got him shot? After I pointed a knife at his throat before that?

I blink at him like an idiot. " Me ?"

He nods. "You."

I hesitate, not sure Blaine would want me anywhere near him.

"He might need a friend right about now," Garrison says. "I'm not sure what happened back at the house, and we'll deal with it when we get home, but right now, I don't want either of you alone, and I need to make this call."

Just before Sadie and the nurses wheeled him down the hallway, I caught Blaine's expression.

He'd been stiff as a board. Because of the pain, I thought, until Sadie gave him a reassuring smile and said, "We'll have you out of here as soon as we can, Blaine."

Not the usual response I'd expect to hear from a doctor.

A nurse hurries past me, slipping into Blaine's room.

I look at Blaine, stretched out on the bed, face tight. I remember how desperately I did not want to be alone when Sadie did the scan. And of how Garrison squeezing my hand helped me not fall apart for the second time in one night.

Before the door can slam shut, I catch it. Garrison nods at me, then walks down the hallway with his phone clamped to his ear.

As I step into Blaine's room, Garrison's voice echoes down the hallway. This isn't the sexy rumble that turns me on. This is someone shoving a boulder down a mountain. Hard, unflinching, and coldly furious.

"No, I do not care about your schedule. No, I do not give a fuck what meeting you have to move around or what the judge is saying." He stops pacing, his back to me. "One of mine took a bullet for your trial. Only your team knew when and where we would be, and they were waiting for us. You will be at my home in the next hour to discuss the leak in your office, prosecutor."

My eyes pop.

"Resa?" Sadie's voice drags my attention back to Blaine's room.

She's standing beside his bed, gloves on, curious.

"Do you mind if I come in?" I ask. "I mean, unless?—"

Her smile is faint. "You can. Maybe stay over on that side of the room. It's not as bad as bullet wounds go, but he's going to need some stitches. We'll have him out of here before too long."

There she goes again with this talk of rushing her patient out the door. If I hadn't seen evidence she was a good doctor, all this talk would make me wonder.

I look at Blaine, wanting his read on all this.

He's on his back, staring up at the ceiling, radiating so much tension I can't help but think he's in pain.

"I'm okay," he assures me, darting a rapid glance my way.

He's not even close to being okay. If anyone knows how to fake it like the best of them, it's the girl who had two years of hiding her pain behind a fa?ade of rage.

I hover inside the room, not sure where to look or even what to do. I just stand there, awkwardly, and nearly get hit with the door when it suddenly swings open.

A nurse apologizes as my gaze latches on the silver tray she wheels in.

Silken ties secure my arms and legs to a four-poster bed as I try desperately not to notice the tray of sex toys feet away. Tools of pleasure and pain for my new buyer to use on me before he ? —

"Resa?"

A dribble of sweat slides down the back of my neck, and I shudder at the unpleasant sensation. Sadie is frowning, her gloves on and the tray of instruments she needs to stitch Blaine up beside her. I have no idea what happened to the nurse who wheeled it in.

"You can wait outside. This won't take long," Sadie assures me.

She hasn't even started yet and I'm already making a nuisance of myself.

Blaine is no longer staring up at the ceiling. He's studying me, eyes creased with concern. "It's okay. You can wait outside."

I cross my arms over my chest so no one can tell my hands are shaking. "I'm fine over here."

Sadie bends her head to the task I distracted her from.

She's pulled Blaine's shirt up, but I can barely see any of his skin from my position. Vaughn must have already removed his suit jacket and the stupid bullet-proof vest that failed at the one thing someone designed it to do.

"It's not my first rodeo," Blaine says, still looking at me.

As Sadie picks up instruments from the tray one at a time, I get the sense that Garrison wanted me in here to reassure Blaine, yet Blaine is the one doing the reassuring.

I stiffen my spine and try to look less pathetic, all the while avoiding the silver tray that looks painfully similar to the one from the Asylum.

"So gunshots are a regular occurrence, then?" I ask.

"Occupational hazard," he says, straight faced.

Sadie huffs a laugh. "Tell me you're an alpha without telling me you're an alpha."

I bite back my smile.

She presses a dressing down over Blaine's wound, tapes it, and straightens. "All done."

"That's it?" I breathe.

She pulls her gloves off one by one and tosses them on the wheeled tray. "I'm a fast worker. Blaine was lucky. Just needed five stitches. The bleeding is already slowing, but I'd like to check on it in fifteen minutes. If all is well, he's good to go."

A soft knock sounds at the door.

"Doctor?" A nurse sticks her head in. "Can I borrow you for a second?"

"Sure." Sadie turns to Blaine as he sits up. "And no moving, Blaine. The longer you lie still, the sooner you can leave."

When Blaine flops to his back with a resigned sigh, Sadie nods in approval and hurries after the nurse, leaving us alone.

I look at him and envision him taking advantage of me as I slept. My imagination refuses to put that picture together.

"You don't have to wait with me," he says.

"I'm good," I assure him, keeping my eyes on him and not the tray Sadie left behind. The thing has wheels. Why she couldn't wheel the damn thing out on her way instead of leaving it to taunt me with flashbacks, I have no clue.

If I focus on Blaine, then I can pretend the tray is not there.

Blaine angles his head to the door Sadie left open. " Sadie !"

She must not have gone far, because she's back at a fast trot in seconds. Her gaze dips to his chest. "Is something wrong?"

"Do you think you could take the tray? It's a little too bloody for my liking," he says casually, without looking at me,

Blaine makes it sound like Sadie operated on him and left bloody saws behind.

She did not.

"Of course, silly me," Sadie says after a rapid glance at me. She wheels the metal tray out, flashing me an apologetic smile as she leaves. Clearly, she knows exactly why Blaine would want it gone, and it's not because he's squeamish about blood like he made it sound.

I scrutinize Blaine for a beat. "You did that because you knew it bothered me."

A statement. Not a question. Fact .

"Takes one to know one," he says.

I blink at him, curious. "I don't understand."

He gestures at the room. It's your standard white hospital room with nothing in it but a hospital bed, a medium-sized TV hanging on the wall opposite, and white blinds covering the one window.

"I'm the same way anywhere I'm in a place that resembles a hospital. You were trying not to notice the trolley. I was trying not to notice the fact we're in a clinic."

Drawn by his wry tone, I drift closer to his side. "And how has that worked out for you?"

He snorts. "Surprisingly, not that well."

My eyes dip to his chest. "Because of the pain?"

"Because of the car crash," he says quietly as his gaze settles on the ceiling.

He doesn't speak again and neither do I.

Seconds, then minutes, pass, and as I watch him, he grows more tense. He's supposed to be here for fifteen minutes and he doesn't look like he can make it to the next five. If that trolley had still been in the room with us, I would find any excuse to leave. But Blaine can't leave until Sadie confirms he's okay.

As his chest rises and falls, his left hand, the one closest to me, plucks at the pale blue sheet. Even if he could close his eyes and pretend he was elsewhere, there's no escaping the sharp bite of antiseptic in the air.

Watching him, I do something I didn't do back at the house. I use my brain.

I also take his hand.

His eyes fly to mine.

He doesn't like to be touched, Resa. What the fuck are you doing?

I immediately drop his hand. "Sorry. I?—"

"No," he says in a rush before I can run out of the room. "It's okay."

We study each other for a beat.

Something brushes the back of my right thumb, and I look down. Blaine has moved his hand closer to mine. He's no longer plucking at the sheets, just resting it on the bed, palm side up.

"It's okay. It helps."

After a moment, I take his hand again, and this time, he's the one who closes it lightly around mine.

I look out of the window. "Thanks for last night."

There's a reason I couldn't bring myself to stab Blaine. My subconscious must have put together the pieces before I did.

No man who built me a nest, or made himself uncomfortable by giving me self-defense lessons when they don't like to be touched, and agreed to be my bodyguard after I nearly stabbed him would sneak into my room to hurt me.

"I'm not sure I know what you mean," he says.

I keep my eyes on the patch of grass just outside the window. "Sometimes I have nightmares and I rarely ever remember them. The ones I do remember are so bad that I know the others must be worse. I think I was having a bad one last night. When I woke up, there was an empty glass beside my bed and someone had covered me with a comforter. It was you. Wasn't it?"

"Yes."

I meet his gaze. "What did you say?"

"Not much. Just that you were safe." He pauses, his fingers briefly flexing. "I stroked your cheek. If you think that's creepy or?—"

"It wasn't creepy," I interrupt, trying to imagine his touch. Honestly, I should find it creepy. "What else did you do?"

"Brushed your hair back. And I purred. It seemed to help."

It would. An alpha's purr can comfort a hurting omega. "What did I do?"

He hesitates for a beat. "You seemed to like it."

He's my scent match. We're physically drawn to each other, biologically and scent compatible. Of course I would like his touch. It's probably why he can handle me touching him more than he would anyone else.

"And you were just going to let me stab you?" I stare at him in disbelief, a sick churn in my gut that I could have done something I wouldn't have been able to take back.

Vaughn told me that if there was one thing Blaine would never do, it was hurt me.

I didn't believe him, and I should have.

"It was omega territory. I shouldn't have?—"

"It's okay. You were trying to help. Hardly a stabbing situation." Though I nearly made it one.

His eyebrow rises. "A stabbing situation?"

I shake my head. "Nothing. Did I say anything in my sleep?"

He doesn't immediately respond. Which is not a good sign.

"That bad, huh?" My nerves are a ball of spiky weight in my belly.

"You were crying out. Telling someone to stop. No, you said, please stop." He speaks so reluctantly it's clear he didn't want to tell me at all.

I refocus on the window.

I'd known it would be bad. But this level of bad…

I gulp, trying not to think through all those nights I woke with dried tears on my cheeks, bathed in a cold sweat, and no memory of what had caused it.

So many nights.

No wonder I could never remember. My mind was protecting me from reliving the same hell I've lived over the last two years.

"Kidney punches," Blaine says suddenly.

My eyes fly to his. "What?"

"I owe you another self-defense lesson. Vaughn will agree."

"I think he might have a problem with that," I say. Then I remember how excited he was about me kicking him in the knee. "He ditched our last lesson."

"He'll be there for this one," Blaine assures me.

"You're hurt."

"This tiny scratch?" he drawls.

I nearly smile, then I nod. "Okay. I'd like that."

It's a self-defense lesson. I'll literally be learning how to punch someone in the kidney, yet it sounds like I'm agreeing to go on a date.

Maybe because we're holding hands?

If someone told me I'd be holding hands with an alpha like this, I'd have laughed in their face until I fell over.

He smiles faintly. "And I've been meaning to get Vaughn back for the last one."

"Is it hard?"

"Not hard. Like most things, it's just about practice. First you have to…"