Chapter 11

Drake showed up in the morning and he was hurt. He woke them as he stumbled into their camp. Lana yelled at Erik who was meant to be the awake one on the lookout, but had fallen asleep from exhaustion that Alessia really couldn’t blame him.

Drake was covered in bruises and dried blood. The most prominent spot of wound came from a spot of deep red in his back where something had clearly inflicted quite the wound against him. He stumbled over the small batch of firewood they’d set up to keep the flames going into the night—though Lana insisted it was dangerous, Erik argued with her that they were nons and couldn’t exactly form their own warmth.

“Drake,” Alessia sighed out and rushed to him while Erik and Lana were both on guard at the sounds of being disturbed.

“Alessia,” he breathed out and it might have been the first time she heard her name falling from his lips.

She crashed into him, feeling bad for the sounds of pain he made, but that didn’t stop her from holding him incredibly tight and not wanting to let go. He smelled of smoke and blood and sweat and dirt and several other things but she didn’t care because each smell meant that he was alive and well, and in her arms. He slumped forward, putting as much as she could take onto her and she held fast.

“Are you okay?” she whispered into his ear, not knowing what else to ask.

He’d always seemed like the strong one, the silent professor with the constantly crossed arms and the loud, disapproving sighs. Now he was a crumbled mess in her arms and she was the only thing keeping him on his two feet.

“I’ve been better,” he laughed and then she felt him wince when he immediately regretted it.

She led him over to the spot she’d used to sleep. It wasn’t comfortable and it wasn’t what he needed, but it was all she had to offer him at the moment. He gently lowered himself to the ground and gave her a grateful, if very tight, smile. She didn’t move away as soon as his back gently hit the ground. She hovered over him, pushing some wayward hair from his forehead. He’d always kept his hair rather short but their time in the cell had caused it to grow almost into his eyes.

“You need a haircut,” she giggled, just a bit.

“Are you offering?”

She smiled and Lana scoffed. “Really? Right now? Where are the others, Tekkin?” Lana asked, coming over with a lot more force and a lot less kindness.

“We were separated,” he said, his somewhat good mood disappearing quickly.

“I can vouch for that,” Erik said, coming over. “We got outside, we got betrayed, and then we basically scattered.”

“Just what I like, having no fucking clue what’s going on,” Lana said, stalking off to pace angrily somewhere else while Alessia turned all her attention back to Drake.

“Where are you hurt? What can I do?” she asked and his face turned unfortunately serious.

“We don’t really have the tools to deal with the help I need,” he said in a grave voice and she knew he was giving into the worst-case scenario. She rolled her eyes. He was a drama queen sometimes. “I mean it. The bullet is still lodged in my back.”

Okay, that would be a bit of an issue for her. She cringed, without meaning to. He sat up and pulled his shirt off without preamble at all and Alessia completely forgot that they weren’t alone in this little campground as she gawked openly at the ripple of muscles that had been hiding under his shirt. She was no stranger to his bare skin, but it had been so long since she’d seen it and somehow, the additions of blood and sweat made it that much more tantalizing to stare at.

So now she was caught in a strange state of being attracted to an injured man, one from whom she needed to pull a lodged bullet. She didn’t understand how this was some kind of turn on; maybe it was the manliness of being shot? She didn’t know and she wanted to banish those feelings because she felt more than a little bit gross over the situation.

“Okay,” she said. “So… how do we do this?”

“You sure you want to get involved here, princess?” Lana asked. “It’s gritty stuff.”

“I can handle some blood,” she snapped back.

“Can you handle digging your fingers into a bullet hole to pull out the debris?”

Okay, maybe she couldn’t quite handle that. She tried not to gag at the imagery of that. It was more than a little bit disgusting. She wouldn’t show her weakness, not now that Lana had issued her such a challenge.

“I’ll do what I need to do,” Alessia said with a huff and walked around behind Drake.

A deep red spot had bloomed out over his shirt and had been there long enough that it turned brown with age and air. She could smell the metallic, salty air around the wound. If they didn’t get to work healing it soon, it would fester and then a whole new world of smells would come from the flesh on his back.

She took a breath and placed her hands on the shirt. She felt the muscles under her fingertips for the first time and tried not to shiver too obviously. The last time she’d touched him so closely they’d been alone in her apartment with the world outside, no barriers between them. He’d held her while they shared a cell together but this was something different. She looked over his shirt, working to remove it. If it wasn’t for the pairs of eyes on her from the others at their campsite, she would be sure to feel this as an incredibly intimate moment.

He groaned as he maneuvered to help her get the shirt off his back. It stuck tightly to the parts of his skin that surrounded the wound. He winced as she pulled the fabric free, watching his skin pull with it until it was finally willing to separate from the shirt. He was bare in front of her once more. His muscles cut shadows, even in the dim light. His skin was covered in a sheen of grime and sweat that honestly shouldn’t be as attractive as it was but there was very little she could do about that right now.

The picture-perfect muscles, however, gave way to a rather unsightly wound in Drake’s back. The skin around the puckered spot was red and irritated, only getting darker and coarser the closer to the wound it got. The hole itself was dark and weeping blood and it took all of Alessia’s energy not to vomit on sight. She’d only seen things like this in TV shows and movies. But now a real, bleeding bullet wound stared back at her in the middle of a forest in Northern California and she just had it out with someone over how much she totally could one hundred percent handle digging this bullet out of the back of her friend—well, lover. Somehow that made this all the more complicated.

“Whenever you want to go for it, there girl,” Lana said from across the way and Alessia didn’t even have to look at her to know she was smirking.

She had no idea how to do this. The wound looked so small. Was she supposed to just take her fingers and… Nope, can’t do it.

She backed away, not caring about her pride. She couldn’t bring herself to shove her hand into the open wound of anyone, not even Drake. She put her hands in the air in defeat and moved away from him.

“Thought so.”

Lana came forward and took her vacated spot behind Drake. She kneeled down and put the flat of her left hand against the plane of his back while she readied her left hand for the expedition. Alessia decided to make herself useful by moving around to Drake’s front and taking his hands in hers. His face was already pained and he gave a tight smile that sent wrinkles all over his face. She let one hand cup his cheek just in time for him to let out a yell.

Alessia pressed her forehead against Drake’s so he wouldn’t see her closing her eyes to avoid seeing what Lana was doing behind him. Her imagination was probably far worse but she didn’t need to add visuals to it, something she could never unsee. He continued to groan and yell as she moved around, trying to get a hold of the bullet. He panted and panted and let out the loudest yell just as Lana whooped in triumph and moved away with a hand covered in dark red stains.

“See? Easy as pie,” she said and tossed the item to Alessia who dodged it as if it were a bug. Lana snorted and moved back to the fire while Drake struggled to regain his breathing.

“Are you okay?” Alessia asked quietly, feeling useless with the question but trying to do her best all the same.

“I will be,” he said with a tight smile and she moved to take his shirt and press it against the wound at his back which was now bleeding freely from the manipulation on it.

She let him lean back into her and she held him close while they sat and waited for their next move.