“I need to see it,” I murmured, moving to lift his hands from his side. For a split second, when his hand fell to his side, I worried that he was dead, but his moans of agony when I moved his hoodie up to reveal a gaping hole in his abdomen confirmed he was still alive.
Blood pooled on the floor beneath him and spurred me on. I looked down at what I was wearing and tore the sleeve from my shirt with a violent rip. It was freshly washed and as close to sanitary as I was going to get in the moment.
I folded it and held it, suspended above the wound for a moment, long enough to take a deep breath and steel myself for what had to be done. I covered Xavier’s mouth with one hand and pressed my sleeve to the bullet hole with the other.
His eyes went wide then rolled back in his head as a sharp wheezing sound escaped his lips. His body tensed, every muscle going stiff, then collapsed.
He’d passed out, I realized, from the pain.
It didn’t make sense. I chewed my lip and looked up at his face. He looked young but he had to be older than me to be teaching here. Our kind healed quickly, even quicker with age. Xavier was either my age or…
I swallowed hard, wanting to dispel the very idea. His body was limp and so pale it was terrifying, but I had to look now, while I had the chance.
I peeled the blood-soaked fabric from his wound and looked inside.
He was a mess of torn muscle and blood that made it impossible for me to see what needed to be seen to be believed. I needed to know if the bullet had passed straight through. I reached for his side. With a grunt, I lifted him up enough to see that there was no exit wound.
The bullet was still inside him.
I laid him down carefully and rocked in place, breathing heavy and hating what I was being forced to do, but knowing I had no choice in the matter. Either I womaned up or Xavier died.
I dipped into the gaping hole, gently pushing aside mangled muscle in the hopes of finding the bullet. Xavier’s face contorted as I probed and sounds of agony gasped out of his throat.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” I breathed, pushing in a half inch more. My hand was covered now with Xavier’s blood as it seeped from him.
My fingertip touched something solid and I held my breath. I bit down hard on my lip as I nudged it a fraction of an inch to the left, hoping I wouldn’t hit some internal organ and speed Xavier along to an untimely death.
It shifted. Ever so slightly, but still, something. Exhaling slowly as my heart thundered, I tried to move my finger alongside the bullet so I could hook the tip with my fingernail and pull it free. With each passing second I was aware another guard could show up, my finger could nick an artery, or he could die right in front of me.
The pressure felt like a vise on my chest.
I focused on what I was doing, the rise and fall of Xavier’s chest, and the fact that he’d literally thrown himself in front of a bullet for me. The very least I could do was dig the damned thing out of him so his body could heal.
Finally, my fingertip rounded the end of the bullet. I closed my eyes and let myself just feel as I slowly backed my finger out of the wound, lifting the bullet as I went.
A sucking sound filled the air as muscle and blood moved to fill the hole I’d vacated. My stomach churned at the sound and at the slick feel of blood coating my skin. When my finger lifted free, the bullet fell with a metallic pinging sound on the library floor. I opened my eyes and stared at it.
Slowly, I reached for it in the silence of the room. I’d grown up in a rural area where plenty of families hunted moose and other game for meat. I’d never judged, I was a wolf, after all, so I understood. I’d seen plenty of bullets in my life, mostly from rifles, though. This was different, because it was made for a handgun, I thought, trying to tell myself I was wrong. Wanting to be wrong, needing to be wrong, I lifted it between slick fingers and brought it to my nose.
The sharp scent of silver filled my nostrils like acid and I recoiled, dropping the bullet to the floor as I finally understood.
Xavier wasn’t healing because he’d been infected with silver and would die unless I found him an antidote.
Chapter 14
Xavier’s eyes fluttered open then closed again. I shifted my gaze to the open door, wondering if we’d have enough time to hide before more guards showed up. I couldn’t take the chance. My hand snaked out and slapped Xavier’s face before the thought had even crystallized in my mind.
His breathing caught for a moment then he gasped and opened his eyes. They shifted around the room, like a rat looking for trouble, too erratic to be conscious. When his gaze fell on the dead guard, his face turned an even paler shade of white.
“What?” He tried to lift his head but stopped when a wave of pain hit him. His face contorted with it and his breathing rushed in and out.
I pushed him back gently. “Don’t try to sit up. You were shot.”
His gaze flew to me, wide and glazed. Memory sparked in his tortured eyes. “He was going to kill you.”
I smiled down at him even as the press of time settled on me like an anvil. He deserved so much more than I had time to give him right now. I nodded and pushed a strand of hair back from his slick forehead. “You saved me,” I reassured him, giving him at least that small kindness. “Xavier.” I took a deep breath before continuing. “The bullet was silver.”
His eyes went wide.
“I managed to dig it out,” I said, rushing on, knowing it hurt him to speak. “But, the poison is already in your system. You’re not healing and you’ve lost a lot of blood.”
He was silent for a moment before nodding, the slightest shift of his head. “I’m dying.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head vehemently. “No, I won’t let you die. There has to be an antidote in the nurse’s office, I just have to get across campus to get it. And,” I added, knowing this part would be a bitch, “we have to find a place to hide you until I can get back with it. You’re going to have to move.”
While he came to terms with the excruciating pain I was asking him to willingly accept, I tried to think of a place, any place in this library that I could stash him while I apparently went all 007 and made my way across campus and back in time to save him.
One step at a time, I told myself sternly. I’d figure out my spy moves once I’d gotten Xavier to a safe place.
“The rare books room,” he wheezed out with a cough that seemed to rip him apart. I pressed my hands against his chest while he caught his breath again. When his chest rose and fell in a rhythm again, he repeated himself. “The rare books room is sealed. You need a key to access it.” His lips lifted in a tired smile. “I know where it’s kept.”
My eyebrow winged up. This was exactly what we needed. “Where?” I climbed to my feet, careful to stay away from the spreading blood, as he explained where I needed to look.
“Elena,” Xavier’s call stopped me before I could leave the room. “Take the gun.”
My gaze shot immediately to the gun that lay several feet away from the guard’s body. My stomach churned and I shook my head automatically. “No, I can’t.”
“You can,” he said insistently, lifting his arm with a grunt to point imperiously at me. “Elena, look at me.”
I did.
“You are stronger than you know. The girl that wrote that essay is fearless. You can do this.” He sounded so sure of himself that my unease faded enough for me to nod and reach for the gun.
It was cold against my palm, cold and hard. I’d held guns before but none that had been used to kill anything other than an animal. I swallowed my revulsion and lifted it to click the safety into place before tucking it into the back of my pants.