Page 25

By the time we arrived at Gramps’ old camper, tucked away on a heavily wooded private property, Dawson was not okay. Despite my efforts to keep him awake and talking, he’d passed out twenty minutes before we got there, and nothing I did could rouse him. I jumped out of the truck and ran to open his door. Hauling someone dubiously conscious and much bigger than you out of a full-size pickup was no easy feat; throw in a life-threatening amount of blood loss, and it was a goddamn trainwreck. He stumbled into me, and I struggled to stay on my feet as I steadied him, but at least he was conscious and upright-ish, so I took the win.

The door to the camper was damn near rusted shut, but I managed to muscle it open, even with Dawson’s arm slung around my shoulders and his injured body weighing me down. He faltered on the narrow steps, nearly dropping us both in the process, but I managed to keep us vertical as we careened through the doorway and into the kitchenette. Together, we crashed into the cabinets, breathing hard.

Mine was from exertion. His was from blood loss.

“We need to get you on the bed,” I said, hauling him off the countertop and over to the pull-out that ate up most of the tiny space.

“I bet you say that to all the boys,” he said, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. But the angle of it was all wrong, the expression too forced, and fear lanced my heart once again as I allowed the gravity of the situation to settle on me.

“Not sure now is the time to play the low-key jealousy card, Dawson. You’ve already won the sympathy vote. Maybe just milk that for now.”

He grunted as I half-sat, half-dropped him down on the edge of the bed, and I tried to ignore the dust that billowed off the comforter. God only knew what getting that in his wound would do, not that it would matter if I didn’t get the bleeding to stop first. I helped him back against the pillows and raised his arm up to try to slow the blood flow. His gaze drifted to his bloody sleeve as though his hotshot FBI status granted him x-ray vision.

“Help me get my shirt off,” he said as he shrugged his coat off, grimacing the entire time.

I tugged at the cuff of his sleeve, working it over his hand as gently as possible. “I bet you say that to all the girls…”

He shook his head. “Just you, Danners. Just you.”

“Ah, yes, but that’s only because you wouldn't want to show your soon-to-be conquests any sign of weakness,” I replied, easing his sleeve off as he gripped the hem with his good hand and peeled the shirt over his head, leaving him half-naked in a barely insulated and currently unheated camper. I tried to ignore how pale his torso looked in the moonlight spilling in through the uncovered window above.

“I don’t have any weaknesses,” he said, wincing as his arm lowered.

“Your pained expression says otherwise.”

“Just trying to milk that sympathy vote like you said.”

“Great. You do that while I worry about you bleeding to death in Gramps’ trailer.”

“Can you see if the bullet went straight through?” he asked, ignoring my retort as he craned his neck to assess his wound.

“Here,” I said, sliding his arm forward enough for me to sneak behind and see the back of it. Even amid all the drying blood, the exit hole was as plain as day. “Yep, it’s definitely a through-and-through.”

“Then that makes this situation a lot easier—”

“Oh, good. I’ll stop worrying now—”

“—but I’ll need you to try to sanitize and close the wound if you can.”

I pulled away from his arm and stared down at the shirtless fed. “How? With what?” I looked around the room in dramatic fashion, letting my sarcastic defense mechanism fall firmly into place, anchoring me while the imminent peril threatened to pull me out to sea. “You didn’t tell me to find sewing stuff at your friend’s house, and this isn’t exactly an infirmary, Dawson. And while I kicked ass at frog dissection in biology, I’m not a doctor.”

“Well, tonight you are,” he said, hazel eyes boring right through me with a seriousness that reminded me just how dire things were—not that that was necessary. “I need you to do this, Danners…for me.” I swallowed back the bile and panic rising in my throat and nodded my head, albeit a bit too frantically. “Do you know if Gramps left any supplies here we could use?”

I closed my eyes and tried to think, my mind racing so fast it was hard to focus. Then a memory of fishing with him when I was around ten years old popped into my head. I’d speared myself with a hook trying to dislodge my catch, and Gramps had whisked me back to the trailer and pulled out a first-aid kit. You always have to be prepared for the worst, he’d said as he rummaged through it.

Without a word, I darted to the tiny closet in the back of the camper and began ransacking it, tossing sheets and clothes throughout the room in search of the little black kit that held Dawson’s future in its proverbial hand. Without it, one of two things would happen. We’d be forced to seek medical care, and the jig would be up within minutes of walking through the door; or Dawson would get weaker from blood loss, infection, or a dubious combination of both, and we’d eventually be found anyway. Neither was acceptable to me, so I continued the search, my hands ripping through every nook and cranny of that closet until my fingertips were raw and splintered from the rough plywood shelves.

As the contents emptied, my chest seized with fear until I grazed a smooth plastic surface. Even in the dark of the trailer, I could make out its shape—a small toolbox of sorts with a metallic red cross on top.

“Got it!” I shouted to Dawson as I shot up.

My feet tangled in the mess of fabric strewn about the floor, and I nearly tripped in my hurry to reach him, his lack of response making my adrenaline surge. I looked up to see his head resting back against the pillows, his arm lowered to his side and his eyes closed. Blood trickled down his chest and torso, painting a macabre scene, and the panic I’d managed to tamp down long enough to survive finally breached my defenses. Tears pricked the backs of my eyes and blurred my vision as I raced to his side.

“Dawson!” I shouted at him again, the break in my voice too harsh to ignore, as was the shake of my hands as I reached out to rouse him. “You need to wake up.” I jostled him as hard as I dared, and his eyelids fluttered open. “Stay with me, Dawson,” I said, choking back a sob. “You have to stay with me…”

His sleepy eyes locked on mine and he forced a weak smile. “No place I’d rather be.”

I barked out a laugh, a strange combination of fear and relief tainting it, then released him so I could assess our supplies. Hydrogen peroxide, rubbing alcohol, Betadine, and various bandages and gauze were easily seen at first glance; and after some digging around, I found a sewing kit, along with butterfly strips and a tube of antibacterial ointment. “You might rethink that statement once I douse your wound with alcohol.”

“Do what you have to do,” he said, placing his arm back on the mountain of pillows at his side.

And that was exactly what I did. After splashing the rubbing alcohol on my hands to sanitize them, I made quick work of ripping open the gauze and bandage wrappers until I had what I thought I needed to clean him up. I soaked a gauze pad with the alcohol, then placed it over the entry wound. Dawson’s eyes shot wide open as he sucked in a breath through his teeth, but I kept my attention focused on his wound. I showed no mercy as I cleaned his arm, working my way around to the exit wound. The bleeding had slowed, but it was still leaking. Once I had him sewn shut, he’d need fluids, food, and rest to recuperate, and I wasn’t sure we had enough of any of those to help him. But that was a problem for later.

I reached for the sewing kit and unraveled a spool of black thread, dragging both it and the needle through a clean piece of alcohol-soaked gauze to sterilize them as best I could. Threading the needle in the darkened space was a royal pain in the ass, especially with my adrenaline jitters, but I finally managed the task and fished one of the burner phones Wilson had given us out of Dawson’s pocket.

“Here,” I said, turning on the flashlight before handing it to him. “Whatever you do, keep this thing aimed at what I’m doing.”

Once again, his lack of reply made me uneasy, but he did as I asked, which meant he was still conscious and coherent—for the time being.

I had no idea how to do a surgical stitch, but a whipstitch I could handle, so that was what he got: an ugly looping of thread through flesh, tying the two sides of the wound together. Was it ideal? No . Was it better than nothing? I damn well hoped so.

By the time I moved his arm to sew the exit wound, Dawson’s pale status had downgraded to ghostly, and I could see sweat beading on his forehead.

“Just hang on, okay? I’m almost done. Then we can wrap you up and pack you so full of chips and sugar that you’ll heal in no time.”

“Not sure that’s how that works, Danners—”

“They’re the fuel of champions, Dawson. I should know.”

“Guess I’ll take your word for it.”

The flashlight bobbed, and I slapped him on the thigh to startle him awake. “Unless you want your arm sewn to your side, you’d best keep that thing aimed over here.”

“You’ll make a good captain one day,” he murmured as his eyelids began to droop. “You’re bossy as hell.”

“No shit, I will. Now stay awake, or I’ll kick your ass.” With time running out, I quickly stitched the wound closed, then applied the ointment generously to both sides of his arm before covering and wrapping it up with sterile bindings. I darted out to the borrowed vehicle and grabbed the bag of stuff I’d procured from his friend’s house. By the time I was back inside, Dawson was already asleep. “You need water,” I said, sitting down hard next to him to shake the bed. “Please, just drink some. You lost a lot of blood.” I held the water bottle to his mouth and he obliged me, though it looked like it took more out of him to do so than I liked.

“I’ll be okay,” he said softly, nestling back against the cushions. “I just need to rest for a bit.” I grabbed a blanket stored in a sealed plastic bag off the floor and pulled it out. It was surprisingly soft and didn’t smell like dust and mildew, so I laid it on top of Dawson and tucked it in around him, careful not to bump his arm in the process. “You should get some rest too, Danners.”

“I will,” I lied, knowing I was far too hopped up on fight-or-flight to sleep for the next week. “I’m just going to see if I can find some canned soup or freeze-dried food stashed away in here, and maybe a mini propane tank. You’re going to need to eat some real food when you wake up.”

Before my emotions could get the best of me, I stood and made my way over to the pantry, hoping Gramps had something more edible than Dawson’s friend had. The search was easy, given how barren the cupboard was. I found a can of soup that had expired the previous year and a package of dehydrated mashed potatoes. I clutched them to my chest like a life preserver and bent down to see if there was indeed a propane tank hidden away that I could hook to the little stove. The food in my hands wouldn’t be worth much without one.

Joy surged through me when I found a dark green canister, but the moment I pulled it out, it was clear that it was empty. My only hope was a lighter or matches for a campfire.

I wiped the tears forming at the corners of my eyes and rummaged through the drawers none-too-quietly until I found a full matchbook. Relief washed over me, and I hurried over to the bed to check on Dawson, whose slow, shallow breaths made me anxious. Did people breathe like that when they slept, or was it a sign of him slowly slipping away? I had no idea, but my overdriven nervous system was hardly capable of rationalization at that moment, so I defaulted to the latter.

“Dawson,” I said, sitting gently on the edge of the bed, “I have to go find firewood so I can cook you something to eat—and before you start in on me, yes, I know how to start a proper fire. You don’t have to supervise the project to make sure I don’t singe my eyebrows off.” His lack of reaction, though understandable, made my heart sink. “But you can if you want to. You can micromanage every step of the process until I threaten to use you as kindling if you don't shut up,” I said with a sniffle. “It would be just like old times…”

But Dawson, deep in the throes of his fight to survive, didn’t take the bait. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. And it was that complete, eerie stillness that sent me over the edge.

Tears streamed down my cheeks, my head fell into my hands, and I wept beside him, terrified that he might never wake up—and that even if he did, it wouldn’t ensure our survival. We were cut off from everyone and everything that could help us, with no obvious way out. There was no cavalry coming. No army to fight the forces of darkness. It was Dawson and me against a corrupt, unstoppable force with cops and feds in his back pocket, and the AD was done batting us around for sport; done playing with his food. His knives were sharpened and ready for slaughter.

My body shook as I tried to withhold the terror and sadness swelling inside me, and I clapped my hand over my mouth to keep my sobs from escaping, but it seemed to be of little help. My meltdown born of desperation and hopelessness would not be denied. I stood quickly to leave the camper, figuring I could at least be productive and find firewood while my mind shattered into pieces. But something stopped me.

A hand clasped around my wrist, accompanied by a faint voice. “ Danners… ”

Startled, I tried to pull myself together for both our sakes, but that task was nearly as impossible as our situation, and I failed miserably. I turned to him, my face a mess of tears and mascara and the fear I felt for us both.

He tugged gently on my arm, then patted the bed beside him with his good arm. “Lie down with me.”

I sniffled hard, then dragged my sleeve across my face. “I need to go get stuff for the fire.”

“You need to lie down and talk to me.”

“But you should be resting—”

“And you should be listening to me, but we both know how that usually goes.” He patted the bed again with a bit more force this time, and I let out a breath before conceding to his demand. Crawling over him as carefully as the squeaky mattress would allow, I settled in at his side, careful to leave some space between us. “Well, look at that,” he said, a hint of amusement in his weak voice, “she can follow directions.”

I tried to laugh, but it was quickly overtaken by a sob. Before I could even attempt to stop it, he burrowed his left arm underneath my shoulders and rolled me closer until my head rested against his blanket-covered chest.

“Shhh,” he murmured into my hair, ruffling it ever so slightly as his hand played weakly with a stray strand. “We’re safe for now, thanks to you.”

“But your arm—”

“Is going to be fine— I’m going to be fine. I promise.”

“Don’t do that,” I said, pushing up to face him eye to eye. “You said you’d never lie to me, and I’m sorry, but you don’t know that you’re going to be okay, so don’t placate me like a scared child!” My fear-driven anger was rearing its ugly head once again, and I was helpless to stop it. “I’m your partner, dammit, so act like it. Tell me how bad things are! You’ve never coddled me before—now isn’t the time.” I was crying and shouting, a loathsome combination that only made my rage burn brighter because it made me feel weak and small. Everything I hated.

“You’re right,” he said, those hazel eyes narrowing and piercing right through me. “I don’t know that I’m going to be okay, or that we’re going to get out of this mess alive. But what I do know is that I hate seeing you cry as much as you hate me seeing you cry.”

“Well…maybe try a different approach next time,” I said, the fight slowly leaving my body.

The hand of his wounded arm slowly drifted toward my face, and my gaze shot to the white bandage wrapped tightly around his bicep, worried it would stain red with the movement. It wasn’t until his palm cupped my cheek that my attention snapped back to his face and those intense eyes staring at me.

“How about the truth?” he asked, his thumb stroking the tears away from my face.

The gentleness of his touch squashed what was left of my rage in a heartbeat. “ Yes ,” I replied, though the word barely escaped. Every muscle in my body had gone tight, including my chest and throat, as he leaned closer, sharp eyes firmly fixed on me.

“Then maybe it’s time I tell you that I’ve never met anyone like you, Kylene Danners. You’re as smart as you are infuriating. As compassionate as you are tough—a grizzled, disenchanted cop wrapped up in a bright-eyed, rookie package. You’re a walking contradiction, a complex puzzle of principles that I shouldn’t understand on any level, but I do—so completely that it makes me question everything I’ve ever known to be true. And though I thought I absolutely hated you from the moment we met, I realize now how wrong I was. I never hated you—I hated that you shone a light on my own flaws and shortcomings.” He hesitated for a second, his face mere inches from mine. “You’ve made me a better cop, Danners—a better human—and I need you to know that.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but I couldn’t force anything out. Instead, I just sat there, slack-jawed and staring at the young fed whose existence I’d once cursed. The one I’d slowly grown to trust, then respect, then like . The one I’d wanted to prove wrong, then secretly sought approval from until we’d become partners, equals in our search for the AD. But maybe it had become something even more than that; something I’d only just begun to fully realize or admit. Because even in the face of death, Dawson was holding my face, staring me down, and nothing—not even the Grim Reaper himself—could have pulled me away.

“I never in a million years thought I’d feel the way I feel about you.” His hand glided along my face, then wrapped around the back of my neck to pull me closer—so close that our noses nearly brushed. “I didn’t want to,” he said in a low, raspy voice. “Hell, I fought forever not to, but…just in case things do go wrong and I never get this chance again, I need to say this to you.” His lips brushed lightly against mine, and I swore my heart stopped cold. “You’re a force of nature that even I can’t seem to overcome, Kylene Danners. And I don’t think I want to any more.”

Without further hesitation, those soft, full lips pressed against mine, gently at first, as though waiting to see what I would do. If I’d pull away or run or punch him square in the nose. For a moment—the fraction of a second it took for my brain to catch up—I did nothing but drown in the flood of warmth coursing through my body. But the instant my mind caught up, my body leaned in closer to him and my hand drifted up to run through his hair. His fingertips flexed against my neck, digging against the sensitive flesh ever so slightly, his unflappable restraint slowly eroding as his tongue slipped past my lips to intertwine with mine.

The kiss was slow and controlled, though the current of urgency flowing just beneath the surface was palpable. It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced; not the hungry foreplay of a boy trying to get into my pants. There was no desperation. No rushing. It was long and slow and deep, and it almost made me forget why we'd engaged in it in the first place—until I remembered.

It was a potential farewell kiss.

Fear ripped through my blissful haze and the Grim Reaper poked his head in, his silent laughter shaking me to the bone. My hands fisted in Dawson’s hair, and I pulled myself so close that our bodies pressed together as tightly as our mouths. A guttural, frustrated sound escaped him, the low tone vibrating between us as he pulled away and rested his forehead against mine, his breaths coming fast and shallow.

“We need to get some rest,” he said. His thumb brushed along the soft skin beneath my ear, and I thought I might combust.

“I hear words coming out of your mouth, but you’re not really selling me on what you’re saying.”

He pulled away just enough to look me in the eyes. His hand slowly fell away, and he couldn’t hide the grimace that twisted his mouth as his bad arm straightened at his side.

“We need to get some rest,” he repeated, lying back against the pillows. “Was that more convincing?”

And it was. Pink blossomed on his bandage, and his skin looked paler than before.

“Yes,” I said softly as I pulled the blanket up around him. “I’m just going to go get some firewood first.”

The second the bed shifted as I tried to climb off, his good arm looped around me and pulled me back down to his side. With a fair amount of finagling, he managed to maneuver me beneath the blanket with him, my head resting against his chest once more.

“Stay with me,” he whispered, his consciousness quickly fading.

Tears welled in my eyes. “ Always .” I burrowed in as close as I could, and with a deep breath, some of the tension in my muscles abated. I felt the deep tug of sleep, urging me to rest. And as much as I hated to admit it, I needed it. For myself. And for Dawson.

He needed me more than ever before.

And there was no way I was going to let him down.