Chapter Forty-Four

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

“Oh, Luna,” Reed Taylor said and squatted down beside me. I was too dazed to move. I noticed the blood running from my face and soaking into the porous stone steps. Nice color, good body. I wasn’t as iron deficient as I had told the counselor.

“Sorry,” I tried to say, but the word came out funny.

Reed Taylor cupped my face gently, turning it tenderly this way and that. I closed my eyes.

“I haven’t seen you attacked on the street like this before,” he said finally. I missed his hands when he pulled them away.

“They usually don’t . . . ” I stopped talking, tried to touch my mouth. The mere thought of my own searching fingers made me cringe, and I blinked tears out of my eyes.

Reed Taylor stood up. “You need to go to the hospital. Is Seth home? I’ll give him a call, tell him to pick you up.”

“Can’t . . . you take me?”

My words were slurred. I suddenly felt very tired and cold. I shivered, and Reed Taylor looked away.

“I can’t,” he said. “And I can’t have an amb