She waved, and then rushed back the way she came, her legs moving a thousand miles per hour. I shut the closet door behind me, and pulled the first outfit I touched off its hanger. When I walked out into the bedroom, I froze in my tracks.
Jared stood in the center of my room, covered in dirt, blood, and his was face scraped and blotchy.
“Oh my…oh my God!” I yelled, rushing over to him. “What happened?”
Kim walked in behind Jared, untouched. “I told him not to go without me, but he’s faster than I am.”
I touched Jared’s face. “What did you do?”
He grimaced. “The book was in my hand. I had it.”
“Where were you?” I said, helping him pull off his jacket. He was stiff, and cringed with pain.
Kim’s usually stoic expression twisted as she watched me pull his t-shirt up and over his head. “Warwick,” she said. “We got the book, but Donovan was there.”
Six raw, bloody and swollen bullet holes dotted different areas of Jared’s torso, accompanied by a large gash along his shoulder blade.
“Jared!” I screamed.
Bex left without a word.
“Where are you going?” I called after him.
“He’s going to find something to pull the fragments out.”
I helped him to the bed, and then took a deep breath. It didn’t help. Tears welled up in my eyes. “You’re going to be okay, right?”
Jared managed a smile. “Yes. I’ll be good as new this time tomorrow.”
Bex returned with a towel full of different items. “Isaac too much for you, huh?”
“Isaac.” Jared scoffed, rolling his eyes. Donovan and his Glock. And I plowed through approximately eighty demons before I got to them.”
“If you would have waited for me to catch up with you, you wouldn’t have had to waste your time with them,” Kim snapped. She looked to me, “The second he learned the location of the book, he took off. I was twenty minutes behind him.”
I glared at Jared. “That’s not like you to be so impulsive and reckless. What were you thinking?”
Jared sighed. “That I wanted this to end.”
Jared cringed, and then I heard a plink from behind him as Bex dropped bullet remnants into a bowl.
“I can’t watch,” I said, covering my eyes.
“You can’t go anywhere until we’re finished here. Then I’ll take you to work,” Bex said, pulling out another bullet.
“Watch the blood. Don’t get any on her sheets,” Jared said, cringing again.
“I’ll get new sheets,” I moaned. I took Jared’s hand in both of mine.
“It’s okay,” he said. “We’ll try again.”
“And hopefully not be so stupid about it this time,” Kim said from the door way.
“Do you think I care about that? I don’t want you near that book ever again!” I said, my voice higher with each word.
“Okay…okay,” Jared said. “Don’t get upset.”
“Why would I be upset? My boyfriend comes home looking like he just escaped from a horror movie.” I took one of the wet cloths Bex had brought upstairs and used it to wipe a deep cut above his eye. “Tell me everything.”
“The details aren’t important,” Kim said.
“The bottom line is, I failed,” Jared said, his teeth clinched.
Kim shrugged. “We know who’s guarding it, what they’re capable of, and every angle of their defense, Jared. I wouldn’t call that failure.”
“So what’s Isaac like?” Bex said, dropping more fragments into the plate.
“He’s highly trained,” Jared answered.
“And psychotic,” Kim said. “You should have seen them. It was like a scene from Rambo. Neither of them would quit, and they’re both Hybrids, so it was like a never-ending fight scene. One punch here, knife wound there, elbow, face punch, and then one of them goes flying across the room. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.”
“That’s enough,” Jared said.
My stomach wrenched at her words. “Please don’t go back. Not until Bex or Claire can go with you.”
Jared looked away. “It’s not that I couldn’t handle it on my own, Nina.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I whispered.
He frowned, apology in his eyes. “I know. I’m sorry,” he said with a sigh. “Kim’s right. We did learn a lot last night. The problem is, Claire’s not here, and Bex has to stay with you.”
“What about someone else? Another Hybrid?” I asked.
Bex laughed once. “If it comes down to it, we’ll have to take Donovan down. No one is going to help us down another Hybrid without good reason.”
I looked down at Jared’s bloodied hands, and then back to his stormy blue-grey eyes. “And saving me isn’t good enough for them.”
Jared nodded. “We have to persuade them that something big is coming, and to do that we need the book.”
Kim knocked on the door jamb. “Now that’s irony. C’mon, Nigh. I’ll take you to work.”
“Is that okay?” I asked Jared.
“I’d rather you wait,” he said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kim said. She pulled up her shirt, revealing a handgun stuffed half-way into her jeans. “I’m packin’, demons run when they see me coming, and as Donovan learned last night…my right hook is wicked accurate.”
The glance Jared and I traded turned into involuntary smiles.