Page 16 of Lawless (Dauntless Island #2)

“Will,” I said. “My brother. He’s cut his hand, and it looks bad. Can you go up to the lighthouse and tell Red Joe we need him?”

“Is he conscious and breathing?” Dominic asked.

“Yeah. I think he’s okay? There’s a lot of blood though, and it won’t stop.”

“Okay,” Dominic said. And then, instead of running up to the lighthouse like he was supposed to do, he hurried towards the back fence instead.

Jesus. Nobody was doing what they were fucking told tonight, were they? I hurried after him.

“Hey,” he said to Will as he strode into our kitchen. “I’m Dominic, remember? Can I have a look?” And, over his shoulder to me: “Natty, grab some more tea towels or something, please.”

He sounded really calm. Maybe he’d seen more blood than I had. I mean, he probably had, in his job, right? Enough that he didn’t have to look away when he peeled the tea towel back and saw the blood still pumping out of Will’s hand.

“Right,” he said. “That looks pretty deep.” He held out his hand for a fresh tea towel and folded it. Put it on Will’s hand. “I need you to elevate it, and put as much pressure on that as you can, okay?”

Will nodded. He was even more pale than before.

“Natty,” Dominic said. “Come here and sit with him. You can help keep the pressure on.”

“Yeah, he’ll be good at that,” Will muttered, and Dominic’s mouth twitched. Will put his elbow on the table, holding the tea towel to his injured hand. I sat beside him and clasped his hand like we were about to an arm wrestle.

“Okay,” Dominic said, “You two sit tight, and I’ll be right back with Red Joe. Keep the pressure on, okay?” He said that last thing to me, and I nodded and he left.

A few moments later, I heard the splutter and roar of his dirt bike starting up, and then the sound fading as he sped away.

“How’d you do it?” I asked, because Will was blinking slowly, as though his eyelids were heavy, and I knew he had to stay awake.

“I don’...” His chin dropped to his chest before he jerked it up again. “I don’t fucking know. I jus’ slipped. Stupid.” He sounded tired. “Where’s Mum?”

“In bed.”

“Go and see if she’s asleep,” he said. “Don’t... don’t let her come in here.”

“Dominic said I had to stay with you.”

“ Dominic .”

“Yeah, he has a fucking name , Will!” He tried to pull away from me, but I didn’t let him. “Mum won’t notice you’re hurt anyway.”

“Yeah.” He huffed out a shaky breath. “Course she bloody won’t.”

My stomach twisted again, and I bit the inside of my cheek. “That’s not fair.”

His head lolled again. His fingers were shaking underneath mine now. “Has it stopped bleeding?”

“No.”

“Fuck.”

Yeah, that about summed it up.

It couldn’t have been longer than fifteen minutes before I heard the sound of the bike again, but every one of them felt as long as a century.

Will was flagging, the tea towel soaked in blood, and I was barely staving off panic when Dominic and Red Joe arrived.

Red Joe had his big first aid kit with him.

“Shit,” he said when he took a look at Will’s hand. “That’s deep.”

“Yeah.” Will managed to crack a smile. “Got myself good.”

“Chopper’s on the way,” Red Joe said.

“Chopper? Joe!”

“It’s deep, Will,” Red Joe said, and then set about binding the wound tightly. “It’s going to need stitches, at least.”

“The Adeline can’t be down a hand,” Will said, and cut a sharp look at me. “Don’t you say a word, Natty. You’re not going out in my place.”

Typical. Will would rather lose a day fishing than give me a chance to work on his boat.

I drew a breath. “But?—”

“I’ll go out,” Red Joe said gruffly, and my protest died in my throat. “I still know my way around a boat. Eddie can do my rounds for a few days.”

Will let out a shaky breath. “Thanks, Joe.”

Fuck them both.

I stomped out of the kitchen into the back yard, only to run into Mavis Coldwell, who was stepping over the side fence. She was wearing her nightie, her gum boots, and clutching a torch.

“I heard his bike,” she said, nodding her head at Dominic’s house. “Saw him heading up to the lighthouse driving like the devil was after him, then coming back down again with Red Joe on the back. What’s going on?”

“Will got hurt,” I said. “Chopper’s coming from the mainland.”

“Righto,” Mavis said. “I’ll get more torches.”

The thing I loved most about Dauntless, even when I hated it, wasn’t just that everyone knew everyone’s business—it was that everyone thought that because they knew your business it must have been their business as well, and they dived right in.

But on nights like this it was a good thing.

Because Mavis turned up, and so did Fisher Harry Finch and his sons, and Julie Dinsmore, and Big Johnny and Aunt Susan and Addy.

Which was more than enough of them to head out of the village with a bunch of lamps and flares, and make sure there were no goats on the landing site so the chopper could come in.

When the chopper was coming in low over the island, Dominic and Red Joe walked Will to the landing site. Will swayed like a drunk, but he was still on his feet when the chopper landed. The paramedics got him loaded in, and then they were gone again, swooping west towards the mainland.

“He’ll be fine,” Big Johnny said, and slapped me on the back.

I nodded, and looked around for Dominic. He was over by one the burning flares, talking with Red Joe. I jammed my hands in my pockets and walked home, listening to the fading sounds of the chopper.

The kitchen was a mess. I put Red Joe’s first aid kit aside—lighter a few bandages now—and picked up the plastic wrappers from the floor.

Then I dumped the bloody tea towels in cold water in the laundry sink.

I didn’t know if all that blood would come out or not.

I wiped down the kitchen table with bleach, and then mopped the floor.

“You okay?”

I almost jumped out of my skin. “Dominic.”

He leaned in the outside doorway. “Hey.”

“I’m okay,” I said, but I didn’t think I was.

I should have been, because Will was with the paramedics on his way to hospital now, and he’d be fine.

I knew that, but somehow my body didn’t.

It felt weird and shaky, as though it was trying to alert me that something was horribly wrong and my conscious mind just wasn’t getting the message.

I mean, most of the time I didn’t like Will, but he was still my brother.

I didn’t hate him enough to want him to die or anything.

But I was still angry at him too, because he didn’t trust me to go out on the Adeline .

It was bullshit how he was still treating me like a little kid after all this time.

“No, you’re not,” he said. He folded his arms over his chest and raised his eyebrows.

Heat prickled the back of my neck and I leaned the mop against the wall. “It’s fine.”

He hummed. “Okay then.”

I darted a look at him. “What?”

He shrugged. “Okay. If you say you’re fine, then okay.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Okay.”

“I mean...” His mouth quirked. “I don’t believe it for a second. Your face.” He unfolded his arms and made a gesture I couldn’t read. “You look very angry. Like you’re about to tear my throat out just for asking. But, you said you’re fine, so you’re fine.”

“I am fine.”

“Okay.” His smile grew. “So, since you’re okay, which we’ve definitely established, then I guess we can talk about that show you put on for me this afternoon?”

My body went hot and cold at the same time, and all the working parts of my brain jammed to a stop. “I—what? No. Ha....” I was going for a sarcastic sort of ‘ha ha,’ but it came out like an asthmatic wheeze instead.

Dominic was still smiling, the bastard. “Do you know what I wanted to do when I saw you this afternoon, Natty?”

“Um... arrest me?”

“No. This .” He strode into the kitchen, crowded me up against the sink, and kissed me. The first press of his mouth was firm, warm, perfect. Then he pulled back and said, “Are you okay with this?”

I nodded, wide-eyed as a possum.

He grinned, which made the second press of his mouth feel wrong, until he got that grin under control, and then showed me exactly how to kiss.

And yeah, he’d done this before, that was for sure.

He sucked on my bottom lip, and nipped it with his teeth, and the neurons in my brain exploded like fireworks.

I clung to his shoulders, and, when I realised his foot was between mine, I think I sort of humped his thigh like a dog.

I honestly had no idea what the rest of my body was doing, because I was utterly consumed by this kiss.

And when Dominic’s tongue touched mine, it was electric.

I shuddered like someone had put a couple of thousand volts through me, and?—

“Oh, shit.” I panted against Dominic’s throat. “I just?—”

I bit the words off, but Dominic wasn’t an idiot. Pretty sure we could both smell my cum.

“Mmm.” He pressed a gentle kiss to my temple, and his hands traced circles on the small of my back. “You’re so hot.”

I should have been embarrassed, but I laughed silently instead.

He wasn’t making fun of how fast I’d come, and if he didn’t care, why should I?

And he thought I was hot . There was no way I could feel bad after hearing that.

And, when I finally leaned back and saw him smiling at me, his expression warm and open, I knew there was no way we wouldn’t be doing this again, for just as long as we could get away with it.