Chapter 8

MIA

THE BRAVEST thing I had done? For starters, leaving Bryant knowing very well I put a target on my back when I did.

This...what I was doing right now wasn’t close to valiant. I was crying…hard and pathetically and that wasn’t a good look on me because the two hundred pounded man clung to my shoulders threatening to pass out again any moment.

My lips quivered; I bit my lower lip toning down the tears constricting my throat and it hurt. The snow didn’t cease but continued to yowl at us till it made sure we knew it didn’t give a shit about a bleeding man and a woman who was too wind and bones to drag said man to the cabin.

He was heavy.

Insanely heavy for a normal man.

For a moment there when he passed out, I thought he’d died and the gun shook in my hands. I hated him and I might have wished for his death at one moment of weakness but I never ever wanted him to die. Whether we both liked it or not, I needed him, he needed me and fate had deemed us inseparable.

Him dying meant I was alone in this shitty world and I had no protector. No one to turn to when Bryant showed his face here, when he found me, when he—

“Y—You shot me”, his breath hit my neck and I smiled past the lament jolting through my body.

At least he was talking, he was sober. He wasn’t dead. I wasn’t dragging his body past a land of frozen ice for nothing.

“I know and I—I was just trying to save you. I saw the wolves and I panicked and I was shooting and with my nerves disarrayed I couldn’t stop. I was scared- “

His light stubble scratched my cheek as his hand dug into my wrist for support. The other hand rested on his neck trying to stop any more blood from exuding. I stared at him hard.

He had lost a lot of blood and I might have not had any medical experience but I knew his condition was deteriorating by the minute. Losing a cupful of blood might have been a dead giveaway he wasn’t doing okay.

Add in the pale slightly frozen lips, the fire in his eyes as he tried to stay awake and the weight of his whole body crushing little ole me and I knew Alessandro was this close to dying on me.

The snow crunched beneath our feet, I held onto his arm—the one clinging to my shoulder as I looked ahead.

We hadn’t ventured that far from the cabin. A few more steps and—

“The cabin I—I see it”, I quipped with relief.

I could see it, though it wasn’t from the front but from the back and I thanked God for that.

From what I gathered; the cabin’s defenses were rigged at the front of it. The landmine I stepped on being included.

Groaning, repeating the words ‘you shot me’ like a mantra he needed to tattoo his head so that he wouldn’t forget, a few minutes later, Andro was leaning against the wall of the cabin breathing ruggedly, looking delirious but his eyes didn’t stop gazing at me like that and I didn’t blame him.

I had the gun in my hands there were literally other safe places to fire it apart from his direction but I aimed at his and I—

“Andro? The pass code? What’s the pass code?” I stared at the thingy by the door.

The same thingy on the front door that Andro had input some numbers on.

His hair lay flat against his forehead, his hand stuck to his neck, his other hand trying its best to hoist all of him up.

He shot me a look.

That look of ‘I hate you and once I got better, I would strangle you with my own bare hands’.

“I need you. I can’t save you if we don’t get in there, you can hate me later but right now—please don’t be stubborn work with me, please? What’s the pass code?”

He groaned, setting his back against the wall looking past the shelter of the cabin as if he was deep in thought.

“Elise”, came his velvety voice and my eyes for some reason blinked to wade off the incoming tears.

Elise? I turned to the thingy; it had numerical digits not alphabets. Okay focus, Mia. Elise. Your sister umm…five-digit answer. Her birthday? Could this six-foot man have cared that much about her even after she was dead to use her birthday as his password.

My eyes widening, my pupils dilating, my pulse leaping in my throat I input the digits wiping away all the memories that came along with Elise’s last birthday. The birthday she had spent with him and not me.

The birthday in which they had came up with the ridiculous idea of eloping from our dad’s island. The idea that I spilled to my father out of spite, out of jealousy, out of a crush for a nineteen-year-old boy who had a lilting Greek accent and was madly in love with my sister.

The door made a ka-ching sound signaling that it was open. Immediately, I roped my hand around Andro’s lean waist ushering him inside. He staggered inside, his body falling unconsciously on the dusty sofa.

Closing the door behind me, taking off my coat in a rush, I scurried into the kitchen looking for anything.

A knife? Needles? Warm water?

The kitchen was a mess. In contrast to the living room, the kitchen sink was dusty a clear indication it hadn’t tasted water for a long long time. the pots were rusty, scattered on different sides of the counter in the middle of the kitchen and my hopes for finding water in this mess of a place diminished.

God, what was I supposed to do now?

Tie his wound with a rag and hope the bullet didn’t splice through the remaining meat on his throat?

Was that how it worked?

Maybe because things at the moment were very far from the norm.

People who got shot in the neck whether they trained in the Marines for such things, died. People who got shot in the neck didn’t get to live to scream the words ‘you shot me’ over and over again with eyes filled with ire.

Raking through my hair, hugging my body, I tried to muffle a sob only for me to tear up hard.

“You should have never looked for him. First Elise, Carlos, Turo and now him. Mia you kill everyone who comes into close contact with you…you should have never-“

“Elise”

Andro groaned in the living room, I hugged myself tighter.

There was nothing I could do for him. All I had to do was stand in the kitchen wait for him to bleed to death and live the rest of my days here till Bryant found me.

It was a solid plan, a great plan that was disrupted by the sharp ringing of a phone into the air.

Caught unawares for a second, I stopped the sobbing pity party sauntering into the living room. I followed the sound stopping when I traced it back to one of his boots.

Of course, a phone.

He had a phone, the same phone he’d used at the airport.

I took his left boot out wiggling the damn thing until a black phone fell from it.

‘ALF’

It read on the screen.

I took the phone putting Elise’s birthday again as the password before I answered the call apprehension digging a pit into me.

“Flames sorry not sorry but you’ll have to find the water the hard way- “

“H-Hello? Alf? Flames he—he’s unconscious. There were wolves, I followed him…he gave me a gun and I—I didn’t know how to use it, I told him that! Now he’s dying and it’s all my fault. I-it’s all my fault. He isn’t awake anymore—I think he-oh God, I think I killed him! “I whispered my voice breaking.

“Whoa whoa darlin’, calm down. Tell me what happened? Do you see his chest moving?” Alf asked though he sounded more like the guy with the blonde hair at B&A. The happy one. Jacob umm—

“You can trust me. Jason, remember me? We met a few days ago and if you really want to help Flames, you need to talk to me. How is it looking?”

“It’s looking BAD. He was talking a while ago but now—his chest is moving but he’s still losing a lot of blood, what do I do?”

“Stay on the line. I’ll get Snakes and hey don’t worry he’s not gonna die. Flames’ built differently than the rest of us, he’ll make it”

The line went dead for a few seconds before another rough voice soared through.

“I need to have a look at what we are talking about, is that okay with you?”

“O-Okay”, I paled kneeling on the rug. Slowly taking his bloody hand from his neck, I moved Andro’s head to the side glancing at the wound.

Blood oozed from it, pink flesh stared at me and the dried blood around said wound made it worse. I flinched. I felt like throwing up.

Switching the call to face time, Snakes’ face, the guy from B&A who’d tried to treat me once upon a time, filled the phone’s screen.

He forced a smile.

I tried to smile but failed at it.

“You are doing great”, he clipped.

“I shot him”

“We’ve all shot someone in the neck unintentionally”

“Did they live when you shot them?”

“No”

Then how the fuck was that supposed to make me feel better?

“Mia? The wound please?”

I pointed the phone’s camera near Andro’s neck.

“Ok, that’s enough”

I pulled the phone away.

“That’s a big graze wound but we can manage it. We’ll need a few disinfectants, needles to stitch, water. Warm water—I might have used all the water the last time I was there—shit, Jason. Okay, alcohol will do then. Are you with me, Mia?”

“Yes…I-I think. Graze wound?” I asked.

“Lucky for us, you didn’t actually shoot him. We have to get to work Mia”

Fifteen minutes later, the bottle cap of whiskey trembled along with my hands.

“Anytime now, Mia”, Snakes urged next to my knees.

I poured the bottle of vodka down on Andro’s neck knowing very well it would sting like the Dickens.

The minute the liquid trickled down hi bloody neck to his naked shoulders, Andro rose like the way Dracula did from his eternal sleep in a coffin.

I nearly screamed as he shot his eyes at me yanking the bottle from my hands.

“God fucking damn it!” he roared weakly dunking the contents of the bottle in his mouth like a caveman who’d been left in the Kalahari Desert for years.

“H-he’s awake”, I stuttered watching him sink into the sofa bottle on his lips, eyes staring into the air like a lost soul.

Snakes laughed.

“That’s how we know the vodka’s strong enough to disinfect the wound. Ready for step two?”

I gazed at the first aid kit next to me, the one I had to dig out from the supplies in the attic.

“H-I can’t stitch with him awake”

“Do it”, Andro spoke not really sparing me a glance.

Swallowing past the nervousness, the guilt, I picked the vodka-soaked bandages wiping the dried blood. His jaw ticked, the muscles on his shoulders flexed. Tossing the bloody bandages in a nearby basin, I picked the needles shaking far more than a kid riding a rollercoaster for the first time.

“You can do it”, Came Snakes’ voice.

Andro didn’t utter a single thing as he doused himself in the vodka.

I pierced his skin gritting my teeth as if I could feel the pain.

Every stitch, the contact of the sterilized steel digging into his skin, by the time the whole procedure was done I was the one kneeling near the toilet bowl the urge of throwing up ten times greater.

Three hours later, Andro was out of danger and I was trying to do my due diligence. Clean the kitchen up, bring down the unexpired canned food from the attic to the kitchen. Cook something to calm my growling stomach and change into something that didn’t smell like ammonia, vodka and maybe blood?

“Hang on! Damn it, Elise don’t do this. Hang on”

“Andro?”

I rushed into the living room. He was shaking. Goosebumps peppered his skin and it was like watching a horror movie where the victim shook for a bit before he started levitating in the air.

“It’s a dream. Andro, it’s a dream”, I touched his chest, the coldness from the touch evoking fear in me. I went back to the attic bringing a loose comforter to cover him.

He was still cold. I thought of starting a fire but the fireplace was frozen cold. No wood.

I dialed Jason’s number but no one picked the damn phone.

“Elise, don’t do this”

“Elise’s not here. Can you hear me? You are—having a nightmare”

He couldn’t hear me, of course he couldn’t. I rested the back of my palm on his forehead again.

God he was freezing.

There was no water to boil, no fire to stoke, Jason wasn’t picking up the phone…

A dreadful thought crossed my mind and although I tried to shove it away it festered.

It worked in movies. He was cold, he needed…warmth.

He wouldn’t like this one bit.

I didn’t like this.

I didn’t want to do this but it’s the least I could do after landing him in this situation.

Without hesitation, I was stripping.

Taking my clothes off one by one. My blouse, my bra, my jeans, my panties.

Carefully, slowly, I climbed on top of him, moving to the side just enough to be close enough to him and to generate as much body heat as I could.

He stilled. He stopped mumbling. I shivered at the sudden contact of his chest with my boobs.

I didn’t get to adjust myself on the very very uncomfortable couch when his huge hands palmed my waist drawing me to him.

My face landed on his chest. His chin settled above my head. One hand drifted and it grabbed my left butt cheek possessively.

Shit!