Capturing Today (TimeShifters Book 2) (8 page)

“Not me.” I reach out to touch his blood coated side again. “You.”

“I’m not hurt.” Michael looks down. “That’s not mine. At least I don’t think …” He tentatively touches some of the stain with his fingertips. “Unless I’m in shock.” He looks over his shoulder. “It’s not me.” He swivels back toward me, his face blanched. “This man needs more medical help than I can give him in a trench.”

When Michael moves, I spot the man. Mud and fallen sandbags blocked him from my view before. He’s groaning and bleeding. A lot. I bounce my gaze to the trench wall. Watch a tangle of ants race back through a pinhole in the wall.

No matter our size, the world quakes around us all.

I glance back at the man, and recognition washes over me. I don’t know him—not personally—but he was next in line to have his feet examined. If he hadn’t been standing where he was, whatever hit him would have hit us.

Guilt rushes cold and tight through my veins.

“The stretcher runners won’t come until the exchange fire ceases. I think we should walk him back now. Will you help me?” Michael stands beside me and does that thing where he turns his head and speaks low as if he’s afraid the man might overhear. In a scenario that didn’t involve the man sustaining life-threatening injuries, the whispering would be laughable. It’s way too loud for the man to hear us.

“Of course.”

Michael kneels down and speaks with the severely wounded man. Then he motions for me to get on the man’s other side, so we can form human crutches. The soldier grits his teeth. His eyes shut so tight they look like big wrinkles on his head. Like he doesn’t even have eyes. Which is actually pretty gruesome.

I check the wall for ants again.

Eddie switches out with another man behind a machine gun. I can say this for Lark’s Pairing, the man moves like lightning. In the space of the past few minutes, he’s gotten back to his post and manned it while Michael and I were in our own world.

 “I’ll cover you.” Eddie pulls a smaller gun from his side. The smiling Hallmark man has been replaced by a broad chested superhero straight out of a summer blockbuster movie. I can’t wait to tell Lark how much I like him.

Well, if I get out of here alive.

I nod to Michael, letting him know I’m ready.

We make for the steps. The gunfire doesn’t sound as close any longer. Or perhaps I’m a pro at wishful thinking.

            Pop. Pop. Pop.

Instinctively, I tuck my chin to my chest. Which will do me a bean pile of good if someone shoots at us. Blessedly, we make it up the crumbling steps, out of the trench, and start to head away from the front lines. Eddie flags us for the first hundred meters before giving me a quick salute as he heads back to the trenches. Now that I know Eddie is here—in danger—I should have made him come with us. Lark will skin me alive if something happens to him. Not even exaggerating.

The injured man is walking reasonably well, all things considered. He has weight against me but not enough that I feel strained by it.

I peek back over my shoulder at the fighting behind us. Hoping to spot Eddie positioned behind a machine gun, safe behind the wall of sandbags. Instead, I see them.

Shades.

In No Man’s Land.

Tons of them.

My heart breaks into a gallop. Blood punches through my veins loud and hard.

A couple of Shades rise to their full height. Stare directly at me. Others crawl across the men dying out in the field. A handful of them sit as if they might spread out a picnic there.

The only positive? They make no move to follow us.

Snapping my head back around, I force Michael and the soldier to walk faster. Michael catches my eye and raises an eyebrow, but I can’t fill him in about the Shades in front of the injured but lucid man. Later.

How am I supposed to feel about the Shades now? Is Erik really the enemy? He did what he said he would. He followed through on a promise. He used his power to shift me to Michael. A guy set on evil wouldn’t have done that.

Yet the Shades creep me out. They’re out in force. Let’s think through this rationally. Okay, if the Shifters are correct that the Shades feed off human despair, then there must be a feast to be had in No Man’s Land. So that’s why they’re there. That’s all.

Breathe, Gabby.

But my stomach won’t leave the back of my throat.

They were looking at me. I know they were. Not all of them. But … enough. Beyond the despair that war brings, their presence here has to mean something terrible. I feel it. The last time I saw a Shade he grabbed a woman and sucked the life out of her. All of it.

I can still see her lifeless body falling to the ground.

When Michael and I finish helping this man, we’ll talk about it. Michael will have ideas. He probably knows down to the day what historically happened in each battle. Perhaps our side is going to experience a massive set-back today. That would explain the Shades.

Which means they aren’t following us.

I square my shoulders.               

We’re almost back to the infirmary when Michael starts coughing. Not polite little sneezes. The coughs wrack his body. He stops walking, and most of the soldier’s weight slumps onto me. I can barely keep my feet under the man’s weight. Michael must have had him angled to lean mostly against him. It figures. The obstinate rat.

Michael sounds like he’s close to choking. Bracing his hands on his knees, he almost falls. I start to reach to steady him but can’t do it without letting go of the soldier.

“Are you okay?” Panic squeezes my voice out louder than natural. What a stupid thing to ask. Of course he’s not okay. Worry tends to do that though. Mush one’s brain.

He sets his jaw and slowly straightens back to his full height. “Just had to catch my breath.”

Or struggle not to cough out an entire lung.

He takes his place again, and we press on into the building. By the time we get the soldier onto a table and another doctor steps up to look him over, Michael is wheezing and his face has gone pale. There’s clearly more going on than him being winded.

I grab his arm. “We need to get you back to your tent.”

“I should stay.” But all the fight is gone from his words.

“No. We’re going.” I pull on his arm. Gently. I swear. But it’s enough force to send him off balance. It happens fast, but his knees buckle. I brace myself, hook my wrists under his armpits, and do my best to catch him. His chest thuds against mine, and air whooshes from his lungs onto my shoulder.

And the coughing starts again. Shredding my heart into a thousand, tiny
I’m sorrys
.

My arms go around him. Tight. Pressing him to me. We’re in plain sight of most of the men in cots, and I don’t care. Michael is hurting, and I don’t care what they think of me. Or us. Or what is proper for this time period.

When he catches his breath again, I turn him, wrap my arm around his waist, and walk us back outside. Michael follows my lead without question. Which scares me more than anything. Each step appears to be more difficult for him, as if he’s trudging through solidifying concrete. By the time we reach his tent, Michael’s gasping for air, and his whole body is trembling.

Mine too.

What’s wrong with him? My mind races through possibilities. Was he shot, and we didn’t realize it? Was the food last night poisoned? Pure exhaustion?

He drops onto the cot. His head droops.

My eyes burn with tears of frustration. Not with Michael. With myself. I don’t know what to do. How to help. I’m useless to him. Why didn’t I realize something was wrong sooner? I should have made him stay on the cot all day. I should’ve never let him go to the front. I should not have allowed him to shoulder the weight of that man when I knew he was already so run down. I should …

But
should
won’t help Michael.

In the history of mankind,
should have
has never solved anything.

Move.

I cross the small space and kneel in front of him, placing my hands on his knees so I don’t startle him. He’s still covered in blood. “We need to get you out of these clothes.”

I pull up his foot and prop it on my thigh. Unlace his boot, ease his foot out, and then remove his sock. No black, rotting skin. Thankfully. I do the same with his other boot. His feet are clammy. I rub one between my hands. A firefighter used the same method to bring a kitten back to life in a YouTube video I saw once.

Let’s not tell Michael I made that comparison.

Michael’s eyes slide open. “My feet are gross.”

“Gross feet are the least of your problems.” I set his foot back down, grab for the end of his shirt, and help him pull it over his head. Waves of heat roll off his body. Ugly purplish blue marks parade up the right side of his ribcage. I tentatively lift his arm. There’s a bruise there too. That explains why he winced last night when he rolled onto his side.

I extend my fingers to touch the marks but stop before making contact. “Good grief, Michael. What happened to you?”

“A guy with shell shock had an episode. Knocked me down. Started kicking me before they could pull him off.” The corner of his lips twitch, almost like it wants to become a smile. But that would be too much effort. “At least he only got me in the head once or twice.”

“He kicked your head?” I can’t hold myself back any longer. Stepping close, I cradle his head to my stomach. Let one of my hands drift down to rub back and forth over his shoulder blades. Every cell in my body zings out of control. They scream at me to wrap my arms around this man and protect him from all hurt. He’s been through too much already. Why this too?

Michael’s hands press into the small of my back. My palm rises and falls against his deep efforts to take in air.

He needs me to take care of him. Not steal some self-gratifying comfort.

I ease out of his arms and go back onto my knees so I can better examine him for injuries. There’s a scar that looks like a swoosh under the right side of his ribcage. It’s faded. Old. How did he get that one?

I crawl to the trunk at the end of his bed and find some clean socks. Digging, I locate Michael’s Keleusma backpack, which is bulging.

“How much junk did you cram into your Mary Poppins’ bag of wonder?”

 The zipper takes some effort to work open because the bag is so stuffed full. A flashlight, drops to make clean water, a bottle, a baggie full of things that look like jump drives, and a healthy stash of beef jerky. Deep in the bottom, there are also two sets of clean clothes.

Well, by clean I mean, they aren’t covered in blood. They smell like he tried to wash them at some point and tucked them back into the bag before they were dry.

A shudder works itself through Michael’s body.

“Sorry.” I’m on my feet, finding water. I soak a pair of the socks in a bowl and head back to the cot. “This is going to make you colder, but I don’t want to leave the blood on you.” I slip my hand into one of the socks.

He yelps and arches away when I touch his side.

“I’m trying to help you.”

“I know.” He grumbles.         

I wash down his chest. His side. His arms. When I get to his back, I freeze. The scar from the Wall Street explosion takes up sixty percent of his back. I did that to him.

I bite my lip and blink rapidly. Scrub off the dirt and blood as fast as I can.

In the process of washing his torso, the sock has turned deep gray. I peel it off and grab the second one from the bowl of water. I don’t slip it on. Instead, I use it to wipe his face softly and run it near his hairline.

“Mmm. That feels nice.” He smiles sleepily.

After helping him into a clean shirt and socks, I fiddle with the jeans I found in his backpack. Heat blasts across my cheeks.

“Michael?” Why does my voice have to squeak like that?

“Hmm?” He raises his eyebrows but doesn’t open his eyes.

“Are you … do you think you’re strong enough to change your pants … without my help?”

Give me a break. The man deserves his dignity.

His eyes slide open, just barely, and he chuckles. The welcome sound gives way to a fit of coughing so hard I stand and grasp his shoulders because for some reason I feel like that will help.

He holds up a hand and sucks in a deep breath. “Go ahead and turn around.”

I catch the movement of him rising in the mirror that hangs on the wall, so I train my eyes on the ground until he grunts, “All’s clear.”

When I turn around, he’s already lying on the cot. I balance on the edge and touch my hand to his forehead. Hot. My fingers slide to the side of his face. With effort, Michael lifts a hand to cover mine. We sit there staring at each other for what feels like minutes.

“You
will
be okay.” I command him because Michael’s always been good at following rules. If I tell him he has to get better, he’ll try his best.

“I just need some sleep.” There’s a tender look in his eyes that momentarily robs me of the ability to breathe.

I finally locate my voice. “How long have you been sick?”

Breaking eye contact, he focuses on the ceiling above me. “At first, I thought I was tired. But today I realized … it’s more than that.” His eyes drift to the side of the tent, and his hand drops from mine. “I feel worse today. Even worse than an hour ago.” Suddenly his eyes narrow as if he’s thinking hard. “You shouldn’t be near me. I don’t want you to catch something.”

Considering we spent the night on the same cot, it’s probably too late to worry about sharing germs. “Do you know what it is?”

“I think so.” He turns in the bed, away from me. “I wasn’t paying attention. I got caught up doing everything else. I’m so stupid.”

Just answer the question. I want to shake him. “What is it?”

“I’d forgotten. The Spanish flu kills more people this year than the entire war.”