Page 15 of The General’s Captive (The Rift #1)

Name – Riley Brooks

Appearance - Annoyingly handsome.

Intelligence – Too smart for his own good

Charisma – Too much of it.

Strength – Too many muscles to count. (Seriously, Alex, stop trying.)

Fighting Skill – Has to be a 10.

Notes - Soldier with ‘Action Man’ complex. Annoyingly optimistic. Trustworthy and reliable. Did I mention annoying? Did I mention that I might be in love with him?

T he blaring alarm continued, and I knew this would only end up drawing more creatures here. So even though my savior was injured, I knew if I didn’t shut that thing up, and soon, we would both be dead.

I scanned the entrance, knowing this was where they normally kept the fire alarm control panels.

My mom and I were evacuated from a store once and as we were walking past; I saw the manager by the front door trying to figure it out.

For some reason it just always stuck in my head and, well, now I was thankful for the random memory.

I ran over, saw it needed a key, and grabbed the first heavy thing I could find, which happened to be a meat tenderizer that was on sale.

The thing looked like a small metal mallet, and thankfully did the job as I smashed the panel open.

Then all I had to do was hit the silence button and finally, silence descended once more.

Well, at least it would make the Harpies stay away.

Although it was the other Myths I was worried about.

I ran back to see what the damage was with the army guy, and I realized just how severely injured he was.

A pang of guilt hit me, knowing that he was in this state because of me.

Because of the way he had thrown me out of the way so the Harpy got him instead.

Naturally, I instantly took back all the nasty things I had thought about him, half of which I had said out loud.

Kneeling next to him, the cooling blood surrounding him soaked my pants and moistened my skin.

His arms were badly beat up where he had tried to defend himself against the Harpy’s bite.

But that wasn’t the most worrying part. No, it was the blood I could see soaking his side, as though something had impaled him after he had fallen from the Harpy’s grasp.

“You know what we never did?” I said, wanting to keep him conscious as I dug around in my backpack for the last of my first aid supplies.

“We never actually introduced ourselves.” I smiled, lifting my eyes to meet his, trying to stay strong and unconcerned as the first touches of agony appeared on his face.

He was sweating profusely. His eyes were closed but his eyelids twitched feverishly, and tremors shook through his body. From the pain, the adrenaline, or both, I didn’t know. Maybe his body was starting to shut down from the blood loss.

Either way, I kept talking, hoping to keep him focused enough to stay awake. Praying it wasn’t that bad and he would survive without a blood transfusion.

“I’m Alexandra but most people call me Alex.

I am twenty years old because I think I had a birthday last month.

I’ve lost track of the dates, to be honest. Although, I did find a Twinkie that day, so I am classing that as birthday cake.

I’m from New York, and before you say anything, Yankees all the way.

Oh, and I think we have established by now my favorite chips are Cheetos, flamin’ hot to be precise. ” I paused when he winced, and asked,

“You… always talk… this… much?”

I laughed and teased, “Only for hot action heroes who save my life, twice.”

He smiled, even though it ended with a grit of his teeth.

“You… think… I’m hot?” he panted.

“Oh, trust that to be the part you focus on,” I groaned, making him smirk.

Realizing I didn’t have much in the way of cleaning his wound, I cursed under my breath.

Then I eyed the dead Harpy lying not even six feet away from us and almost gagged at how dirty her long taloned fingernails were.

He was definitely going to get an infection, but that was something we would have to worry about later.

Because if I didn’t try and stop the bleeding right now, it wouldn’t matter, regardless. He would be dead anyway.

“How’s… it lookin’… doc?” he wheezed out.

I laughed as I dug out my bottle of water, but it came out more nervous sounding than I intended.

“Oh, I have seen worse,” I said, lying through my teeth, because I absolutely hadn't.

“Liar,” he muttered, making me wince.

“Hold still, okay? This is going to hurt,” I said, before twisting the cap off with my teeth.

Then I poured the water over the wounds on his arms, making him wince and moan.

The water mixed with the blood, washing it away, allowing me to see the extent of the damage.

I then lifted up his T-shirt, ignoring the very obvious six pack abs, and instead washed the blood from his wound so I could see it better.

When more blood poured out, I grabbed one of my spare T-shirts from my bag and pressed it tight against the wound.

His groan of pain made me feel guilty enough to say, “We have to keep the pressure on it.”

He nodded, keeping his eyes closed as he worked through the discomfort.

“Hey, keep talking to me, okay…? What’s your name?” I asked, trying to ignore the way his face contorted briefly as I held the T-shirt in place with my forearm so my hands were free and I could get what I needed.

“Come now, no need to be shy,” I said when he didn’t respond, and finally, he opened his eyes.

“Riley, my name… is Riley.”

I don’t know why I was surprised to hear that his name suited him so well.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Riley.”

“I would say… the same but well… this happened,” he joked, making me laugh.

“Well, lucky for you, I’m not completely useless in this department.” I winked at him as I was tearing into a packet of bandages, knowing I would have to use this to pack the wound.

“Okay, so assess the situation, check, determine the location and severity of the bleeding. Double check,” I said, talking through my check list in an attempt to keep him conscious.

“What are… you… doing?” he forced out.

“My check list,” I told him, making his eyes widen.

“Oh dear god, help me,” he muttered, making me give him a wry look.

“Now you wouldn’t want me missing an important step, would you?” I said as I worked. “Prepare materials… and lucky for you, I don’t carry light,” I said, shaking another bandage from my little med kit that I had already fished out of my bag. “Apply direct pressure…”

“Check,” he groaned.

“See, now you’re getting it.” I grinned, taking his unimpressed raised brow as a good sign.

“Right, we have washed away the blood and now comes the hard part.”

“Which is?” he asked, the trepidation easy to hear.

“I have to pack the wound to stop the bleeding and well, I am not gonna lie…”

“It’s gonna fucking hurt, yeah yeah, I know… just do it!” he snapped, making me take a deep breath and do just that.

This time, the sound of his pain echoed around the large building. But I had to be sure that I stuffed the entire wound cavity, making sure to apply consistent pressure as I did. Something that looked, and sounded, like pure agony for him.

“And we are just going to maintain that pressure for a few minutes,” I said, letting him know we were nearly done before he bit straight through his bottom lip that he was currently holding prisoner.

“Do we have to?” he said through gritted teeth.

“Okay, this isn’t a long-term solution, so I hope that wherever it is you come from, they have someone there that can…”

“We have a doctor,” he told me and, again, this was good news and only making me want to go with him even more.

I waited to see if the bleeding slowed, before then taking another roll of bandages and taping one end to his stomach before wrapping it around him.

Something that wasn’t easy and, most likely, one of the most painful parts because I had to help his heavy body to sit.

“Well, someone has been getting his protein,” I joked because I swear this guy was all muscle. “There, finished. Now let’s sort out your arms,” I said once the other end was secure, keeping the pressure as tight as I could wrap it.

Now as for his arms, I knew at some point they would need stitches… and quite a few of them at that.

“You seem to know… what you’re… doing,” he wheezed out, and I wished I could have helped him with the pain.

But first I needed to wrap his arms before seeing if there was anything still left in the pharmacy section of the store.

Although I doubted it, because medicine had been some of the first stuff ransacked.

Blood continued to pour from the wounds and parts of them looked so deep that I hoped there was no permanent damage.

I cleaned them off, once again, but knowing there wasn’t much I could do other than try and stop the bleeding, I applied the gauze I had.

When it instantly turned red, I swapped it out, doing the same on both arms. It pretty much used up most of my resources but finally it started to slow so I could bandage those up too.

“I think it’s time to tell me where your home planet is,” I joked, and he gave me a wry look.

“The base isn’t far from here,” he told me, making my heart hammer faster. A base, like an actual base. One that suggested somewhere safe to sleep and for once not feeling like a rat rummaging for food.

“And I can assume you didn’t fly,” I said, making him huff which ended with a wince.

“I have a car.” Well, wasn’t that exciting, I thought with a smile.

“Right, well Mr. Army Man Riley, here is what we are going to do…”

“We?” he said, interrupting me.

“Alright, so mainly me. I am going to go back there to the pharmacy and see if, by some miracle, they have some antibiotics, pain meds, and more supplies in case you start bleeding again,” I told him.

“Great, sounds peachy,” he said, sighing as he let his head fall back and closed his eyes.

“Please try not to pass out on me. I will be right back,” I said, making him crack one eye open and say,

“Try to stay out of trouble this time.”

I winked and said, “I make no promises.”

Then I left toward the back of the store.

I grabbed a new rucksack from one of the aisles, thinking of stocking up while I had the chance.

I then barged through the door into the pharmacy, glad to see that it had already been broken into.

Surprisingly, it was still relatively neat and didn’t look like it had been raided by too many people.

But then again, if four Harpies had been hanging around, then I wasn’t too shocked.

Pulling open drawers and looking through cupboards, I pretty much started to stock up on everything. Because I was hoping that after not only saving Riley’s life, but also showing up with something useful, then they would feel more inclined to let me stay.

So, I started pouring in the meds I knew would be the most useful.

Antibiotics, the more powerful pain relief that were opioids, such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, and morphine.

I grabbed handfuls of syringes, and I even grabbed some metformin in case anyone had diabetes.

Then as I was going back down the aisles, I grabbed a shit ton of Tylenol and ibuprofen, as well as more sterile gauzes, bandages and sterilizing fluid, along with some gloves.

And well, seeing as I didn’t have time to clean myself up, I grabbed a packet of baby wipes too, because my hands were covered in dried blood.

I purposely let the bag drop next to him to wake him up, happy when I saw him jerk.

“Hey, Riley, I need you to stay awake for me, yeah? Can you do that?”

He hummed a faint, “Sure, Cute Girl.”

I had to smile before telling him, “I brought you some pain relief, so this should help.”

“Careful, you keep being so helpful and I might have to keep you around, after all,” he said, making me grin even bigger.

“You’re just happy I brought you drugs.”

“Sure am.”

I laughed before handing him some pills, as well as some precautionary antibiotics, before the rest of the water to swallow them down with.

“Do you think you will be able to walk?” I asked, making him wince before admitting,

“Is it too late to tell you, I think I broke my ankle.”

My eyes widened before my eyes shot to his legs.

“Riley! Jesus, you should have said!” I scolded.

“I thought we had bigger problems to solve,” he admitted, making me roll my eyes before inspecting his foot. I unlaced his boot and pulled back his sock to look down to see if it was swelling, which it was.

“You know, removing the boot would likely help with the examination.”

I gave him another wry look before telling him, “If I remove it, I risk making it worse and besides, this boot is keeping it immobilized… I believe you said you have a doctor at this base?”

He looked momentarily surprised by this knowledge, or maybe it was the fact that I knew it and I wasn’t as useless as he first thought.

“Yeah, the Doc,” he stated.

“That’s what I said, a doctor,” I repeated, making him roll his eyes.

“No, I mean that’s what we call him.”

“Wow, original,” I muttered.

He scowled at me but there was no real malice behind it. I could see his lips twitching as he fought off giving me the full force of that devastating grin of his.

“Well, I guess there is only one thing for it then,” I said, after looking toward the parking lot and then back to his broken ankle.

“Yeah, and what’s that, Cute Girl?”

I tried not to blush because, clearly, this was his new nickname for me.

Instead, I did what I always did by masking it with humor, telling him…

“Time to get your ass in a shopping cart.”