PS02 - Without Regret (44 page)

This couldn’t be happening. He’d been talking with her not even five minutes ago. He was fine. It was a mistake, he was fine,

she kept telling herself as she listened to them carry Chris out of the water.

“Shit, I dropped my flashlight and backpack when he jumped me. I can’t help him if I can’t see.”

Before her brain registered what he said, she was on her hands and knees, searching frantically for the flashlight. Seconds later

she found what felt like a large plastic object. She picked it up, cradling it against her chest as she frantically searched for the

power button.

When she found it, she wasted no time in turning it on and immediately felt her stomach drop as she caught her first glimpse of

Chris. He was soaking wet with blood dribbling from his blue lips.

“Keep the light right there, Izzy,” Joshua said, sounding a hell of a lot calmer than she felt, but then again this was his job,

wasn’t it?

“I’m going to need a hand here, Dad,” Joshua said as he pulled a small knife out of his pocket and sliced Chris’

shirt off, revealing large ugly bruises covering the left side of his chest. Ephraim leaned over Chris and inhaled deeply.

Oh, god…………

Had she done that when she shoved him earlier?

“Fuck,” Joshua muttered as he looked over Chris’ chest.

“His lung is punctured and filled with blood,” Ephraim said, moving out of the way when Joshua gestured to her. “Is she

pregnant?”

“Why the hell does that matter?” she demanded, coming closer so that she could kneel by Chris and take his cold hand into

hers. “Just fix him, please!”

“I’m doing my best,” Joshua said through clenched teeth as he ripped open his bag, his eyes never leaving Chris’ face. He

looked in control, but his eyes………they told a different story. He was struggling to keep it together for his brother.

“If you can’t save him, I need to know, Joshua,”

Ephraim said, the glow of his red eyes intensifying.

“I can fix him, Dad. If she’s pregnant,” he explained, tearing his eyes away from Chris’ face to focus his attention on Chris’

chest. When he started cutting into Chris’ side, she forced herself to keep her eyes on Chris’

face when everything in her screamed to stop Joshua from hurting him. It was insane and ridiculous, but she couldn’t help

herself. She knew he was helping Chris, but she couldn’t stand to watch him get hurt even if it meant he’d get better.

“Give me your hand, Isabella,” Ephraim said, already reaching out to take her hand.

She didn’t spare him a glance as she watched Chris, praying he’d wake up and be his cranky self. What she wouldn’t give to

hear him bitch at the moment. She felt Ephraim warm breath fan her cool skin before he gently released her hand.

“Okay, he’s breathing, but just barely,” Joshua announced and she felt her entire body slump in relief.

“I need to get this rib the fuck out of the way.”

“She’s pregnant. A baby girl,” he said with a touch of sadness that she couldn’t even begin to understand at the moment. All

that mattered was Chris taking a deep breath so that she could yell at him for scaring the hell out of her.

“Good,” Joshua said, sounding truly relieved. “Can you set up a line between them? The sooner I get some of her blood into

him the faster that rib will pull back and his lung will be back to working order.”

With a stiff nod, Ephraim reached into Joshua’s backpack and pulled out a small clear plastic bag. He ripped the bag open,

revealing a clear IV line and two small catheters.

“I need your arm again, Isabella,” Ephraim said, already reaching for her hand.

“How is my blood supposed to help him?” she demanded, wondering for the first time if they even knew what the hell they

were doing.

“Normally his blood would be enough to heal his wounds, but this is pretty serious,” Joshua explained while he worked, on

what, she wasn’t sure because she refused to take her eyes off of Chris. His lips were pretty blue still and she wasn’t sure in

this dim light, but his skin looked pale as well. “He needs a transfusion from another Sentinel to speed up his healing and give

him a chance to recover, but right now that wouldn’t be enough.”

“I thought I was a Sentinel. If my blood’s not enough for him then we need to get him to a hospital,” she said, fighting back the

hysteria that threatened to take her over.

“They can’t help him right now, Izzy. We wouldn’t be able to get him there fast enough and his lung has been torn to shreds

from the look of it. I need your blood because you’re pregnant. As long as you’re pregnant your body will heal ten to twenty

times faster, depending on the injury.”

“Why?” she asked, wincing when she felt the needle slide into her arm at the elbow, but never took her eyes away from Chris.

“The pregnancy triggers a survival instinct in your body. It will heal whatever it has to in order to make sure that the baby is

not deprived of anything. Since your pregnancy will be short your body is going to acclimate itself by increasing your

metabolism and your healing abilities so that it can keep up with the baby’s increasing demands.”

“So, the baby will save his life.” The same baby he didn’t want, she thought sadly as she squeezed Chris’

hand.

“Exactly.”

“All set, blood’s flowing,” Ephraim announced, releasing her hand to take his jacket off and lay it over her shoulders.

“Thank you,” she murmured absently.

“No, thank you,” Ephraim said quietly, before turning his attention back to Chris.

“How long until we know if it’s working?” she asked, shoving all her doubts away. She was going to trust these two men that

they knew what they were talking about. They loved Chris too and would never let anything happen to him, at least she hoped

they wouldn’t. Maybe she should just”Shit, it’s closing up faster than I expected,” Joshua said, sounding so excited that she

looked over before she could stop herself. She saw him sliding a very long, bloody tube out of Chris’ body and saw what she

imagined was his lung and parts of a rib through a large gash over his rib cage.

Her head became a little fuzzy as she watched the bone shift and the skin pull together, appearing as though it was chasing the

tube being pulled out. She really wished she hadn’t looked over. She’d never been good with this kind of thing. When she had

to dissect a frog in biology class in the ninth grade she passed out with the…the um…….um…..first cut, she remembered

dazedly as black spots competed with the pitch black night.

“Izzy?” Joshua said, his words echoing hollowly in her head as she swayed. “Shit. Dad?” he said, shifting his eyes from her

back to that hole that was getting smaller and smaller right before her eyes.

“I’m on it,” Ephraim said as her body began leaning towards the cold ground. She needed to lie down, just for a few minutes,

she thought closing her eyes and giving Chris’ hand a small squeeze. He was going to be fine, she thought when she felt him

give her hand a weak squeeze in return.

********

He’d been doing shit like this since he was a seventeen year old kid and not once had he’d ever been this scared out of his

fucking mind. Then again this was the first time he’d been responsible for saving someone in his family.

When he realized how fucked up Chris’ situation was he was momentarily stunned and all he could think about was that tragic

night all those years ago, sitting on his father’s lap as he watched the helicopter medic race to save Chris’ life. For about a

minute he’d felt like a helpless kid once again until his father’s fear practically knocked him on his ass. Then he got his ass in

gear and did what he had to do in order to save his brother, but he’d know thirty seconds into working on Chris that there

would be no saving him without a miracle. His lung was punctured in multiple places and the damn tissue was torn to shreds.

If it hadn’t been for his unborn niece, Chris would be circling the drain at this moment and he wouldn’t have a clue on how to

deal with that. He loved his brother, always had, probably from the first moment Chris came into his life.

He still remembered the first time he met Chris. It was the day before Thanksgiving and his biological mother had promised to

take him to the grocery store to pick up all the last minute items his grandmother needed to make Thanksgiving dinner for

everyone, including eleven boarders. At first his grandmother had refused to hand over the money and trust Candy, and for

good reason, but when it became obvious that she had no other choice she gave in and asked him to go with Candy to make sure

that she stuck to the list.

Candy hadn’t wanted him to tag along anymore than he wanted to go with her. He’d hated her, always had.

She’d always been a cruel, selfish person and he hated the way she’d treated his sisters, but he loved his grandmother and she

needed his help so he reluctantly went.

His grandmother naively gave his mother an additional thirty dollars to take him out for dinner. She was always doing things

like that, trying to make up for his mother’s lack of caring and bullshit and trying to make them think that their mother cared

when they all knew that she couldn’t have given a flying fuck if they lived or died.

So when she pocketed the thirty bucks and dropped him off at the grocery store and told him that he had a half hour to move his

ass and get everything his grandmother needed or he’d have to walk home he hadn’t been all that surprised. Of course she

announced this in front of a group of young thugs in their late teens/early twenties.

The moment his mother rounded the corner the three guys came over and started hassling him for his money.

He tried to run, but he didn’t get far. When one of the thugs shoved him into the alleyway and pushed him to the ground he tried

to kick and scream, but they wouldn’t back off. When they grabbed his money and walked away he’d been afraid of what

Candy would do to him. Not that he thought she’d be pissed because he wouldn’t be able to buy the groceries that Grandma

needed, but because she knew Grandma would blame her and she’d take out on him.

That’s when Chris came into his life, saving his ass for the first time. When he confronted the much older men they tried to

shove him aside the same way they’d done to him, except Chris hadn’t been a little kid or afraid of anyone. He beat the shit out

of all three of them, receiving a couple of good blows in the process, but he hadn’t seemed to care.

While the last one was scurrying away Chris was handing the money over to him and taking his hand and leading him out of the

alleyway. It embarrassed him to have to explain that his mother had dropped him off so that she could go hit the bar, but Chris

simply shrugged it off as he took the list from him and spent the next forty minutes helping him find everything in the

overcrowded store.

When they were done he wasn’t too surprised to discover that Candy hadn’t waited around for him. It was snowing, the

sidewalks were covered in rough ice and he dreaded trying to walk the two miles home while trying to figure out how to carry

four bags of groceries.

He would have called his sister and grandmother, but he knew they were busy cooking and cleaning and Ephraim had been

called out of town so he knew he didn’t have a choice.

He didn’t get far before Chris had him by the arm and was dragging him towards the bar. At first he was afraid that Chris was

going to confront Candy and get him into trouble for bothering her, but instead Chris brought him over to the cabs that hung out

in front of the bar. When the man tried to tell Chris that he was off duty, Chris told him that it was too fucking bad because he

was taking Joshua home.

It shocked him when the man actually backed down from a kid, but then again Chris had been large even then. He placed the

bags in the trunk and helped buckle Joshua in. When he tried to tell Chris that he didn’t have any money, Chris waved off his

concern and dug into his own pockets and pulled out every cent that he had and gave it to the man.

Chris had even gone with him to make sure the driver didn’t pull any crap and brought him straight home.

When they got to the house, Chris grabbed the bags and walked him to the door. As soon as the last bag was on the porch Chris

butted fists with Josh and left, walking away without another word.

His brother was always doing stuff like that, putting everyone in the family before himself. Hell, he couldn’t even remember the

last time his brother did something for himself or anything that he enjoyed. He was always living for the job or them.

What he wouldn’t give to have his easy going smartass brother back, even for a minute, he thought as his eyes landed on

Isabella. He watched his brother’s eyes flicker open and search around almost frantically until they landed on her. His

expression softened and before Joshua could stop him, he reached out ignoring the agonizing pain that he must be in as his ribs

fused back together and grabbed Isabella from their father’s arms and pulled her tight against him, resting his head on her