The Winter brothers looked at each other, but said nothing aloud.
Farrow continued as she moved closer to the sofa. “I didn’t even know she could do that. That must have been terrifying for her.” She wanted to reach out and touch the poor girl who had just suffered through so much, but Creed tensed, and glared daggers at her.
Farrow stepped back, surprised by her fellow soldier’s reaction.
“I’m not going to hurt her, Creed.” Farrow whispered softly across the distance she maintained. “I care about her, too.”
Creed forced himself to relax his shoulders. He knew Farrow had changed and was even a friend of Meg’s now, but something inside him couldn’t back down off the overwhelming need to protect her.
“I’m going to get some cotton swabs and peroxide. We need to clean her cuts so they heal faster.” Evan left the room without waiting for a response and returned with the supplies in hand.
Creed hadn’t moved. Evan frowned at the angle of his sister’s face mostly buried into Creed’s chest. “I cannot treat her unless you move her face away from you.”
“I’ll do it,” Creed offered a large hand. He still wasn’t able to let her go.
Evan looked into Creed’s earnest blue eyes and appreciated the concern he saw there. “Sure,” he said with a nod, handing the man holding his sister the peroxide soaked cotton balls.
Creed started with the first gashes he could reach without moving her. He dabbed each carefully and blew on the bubbling cuts to help ease the sting he imagined she felt.
Evan moved away from his sister but kept watch over her from the corner of his eye. He smiled to himself at the tenderness Creed showed. The soldier might not remember his time with Meg, but the connection they had was still very much there—maybe even stronger than before, Evan mused.
The youngest brother pushed his hands into his pockets and wandered toward the other metas in the room.
Chapter 38 Critical
Alik slowly pressed “end call” on the touch screen of his cell phone.
Everyone in the room heard his side of the conversation and was trying to digest the news. Cole was in critical condition. His heart had stopped beating twice en route to the hospital but the Care Flight paramedics were able to bring him back.
He had suffered major head and neck trauma when he hit the windshield. He wasn’t wearing his seat belt, and worse, there was alcohol found in the car. They were checking his blood-alcohol levels.
The fact that Cole’s blood was about to be exposed to the humans was a whole other level of worry for everyone, but at this point, their friend was draped across death’s door. There were more important things to worry about.
Evan got right to work collecting units of blood from Alik, Creed and Gavil to take to the hospital, as their mother requested. He worked with steady hands, completely in his element now that he was back to medical tasks.
Alik, Farrow, Gavil, Slider and Evan took the van and drove to the hospital in silence, the bags of meta blood hidden in Farrow’s large purse.
Creed stayed at the house with Meg.
The doors to the emergency room swooshed open as the metahumans walked in a tight pack unfazed by the glaring white lights and sterile lobby.
The charge nurse happened to glance from her paperwork to see the four muscular young men and one beautiful girl walk into her emergency room. Her first thought was that they were the most strikingly handsome group she had ever seen outside a magazine advertisement. The second thought was that they had an intensity about the way they carried themselves. They moved with confidence and grace. She watched the pretty middle-aged woman leap from her plastic waiting room chair and rush to them.
Oh, the nurse thought. It makes sense that these beautiful people would belong to the patient in room 1A. She looked away as the tears started to spill, wanting to give them their moment without her intrusive eyes. So the nurse didn’t notice the beautiful young girl pass her purse to the woman. Nor did she think anything of the big consoling hug the woman gave one of the young men and she certainly didn’t catch her slip Alik the four vials of Theo’s human blood into his large fist.
She did see the woman hurrying back to room 1A with a large purse draped over her shoulder, but thought nothing of it. This sort of thing happened daily in her hospital.
The charge nurse got called to another patient’s room and by the time she returned, she only saw three of the original five young adults sitting uncomfortably in the orange chairs, flipping through year-old magazines.