He stopped, his feet sliding in the soft mud at the river’s edge. “You touch her with that blade, and there will be blood. I’ll make all of you bleed.” He made eye contact with every goddamned one of them. Even the man who took her. Xander paused. In the morning light the man looked…fucking familiar.
The man nodded at him as if they’d just reached a private agreement. “Save her!” he yelled and then tackled the knife guy.
What the… He didn’t have time to question. Needed to save Isleen, and he’d just been given the perfect opportunity.
Every ounce of worry, guilt, terror, and anger distilled into one primal emotion—rage. A white sheen slid over his vision. An electric zing slid from the top of his head down to the tips of his big toes. His skin prickled and twitched—the Bastard in His Brain. This time Xander didn’t fight him. Instead, he unclipped the leash.
Go and destroy.
One moment Xander was on the bank, and the next he was in the river drawing back his arm. Fist connected with nose. Cartilage crunched. Blood gushed. The man screamed a sissy-girl sound and flew back into the water.
Xander felt a malicious smile twist his lips. That had felt fucking fine.
One down.
He turned on the next man. The pussy raised his hand to block his face.
“Lotta good that’s going to do.” Xander served a thumper into the man’s stomach so hard his knuckles brushed spine. The man’s mouth formed a wide-open O, but he didn’t make a sound.
Two down.
The last man let go of Isleen. Xander grabbed her limp body, pressing her against his side with one hand and keeping his other hand free. A quick jolt of cool healing passed from his body into hers.
The man clasped his hands in front of him as if in prayer. “Lord protect me.”
“The Lord ain’t here, asshole.” Xander lunged forward and kicked. His foot slammed into the man’s exposed testicles. The soft give of flesh and the soprano scream satisfied something in Xander’s soul. It was gonna take a surgeon to remove the man’s stones from his ass cavity.
In the shallows, the two other men continued to fight over the knife. Let ’em fucking kill each other.
Not ten seconds had passed from the moment he’d hit the water to the moment he emerged with Isleen. Pale blue tinged her skin and lips. She’d lost weight, her bones protruding nearly as sharply as they had when he’d found her at the torture trailer. “I’ve got you. Everything’s going to be all right.”
He laid Isleen on the bank, just as Kent, Matt, and Dad ran up. Xander didn’t give two shits about anything except her.
He bent close, placing his ear against her chest. Nothing. No. Couldn’t be nothing. She had to be alive. He was alive. She had to be alive. That was the rule, right? And then he heard her heart and lungs—so quiet they were like the whisper of butterfly wings. “Come on, baby. Wake up for me.”
He placed one hand over her heart and cupped her cheek with the other one. A soothing coolness began where his palms touched her and spread up his hand, arm, shoulder, and then throughout his body. The sensation began to sting and itch—so weirdly satisfying and pleasant. He was healing her.
“Xan—” Dad crouched down next to him. “Will you let me check her over? Do what I can for her? It might help in some way.”
“Okay.” It was the only word he could manage. The sensations in his body overwhelmed his speech center.
Dad picked up her wrist to try for a pulse, but froze. “This arm is broken.” His tone was graveyard somber. “I need to immobilize it.”
Xander felt like he was falling, flopping, and flailing through an endless abyss. He couldn’t get air into his lungs; he couldn’t feel his heart beating. A part of himself was dying. Seeing her like this, knowing that those men had kept her locked in a box and broken her arm.
He ripped his shirt over his head, tossed it to Dad, then placed his hands back on her. “Do something about her arm.”
Dad made a crude but stable splint using the material and a few sticks.
“Baby, come on. Wake up for me. You’re safe now. I’ve got you.” He kept talking, going over and over some version of the same words. She was breathing more normally, her color better, but she hadn’t awakened. Yet.
“Xander.” Matt laid a hand on Xander’s back. “I think you need to let the experts take over.”
“She needs me.” He didn’t have the energy to explain—again—the connection he and Isleen shared.
“It’s been thirty minutes.”
Matt’s words were a stop sign smacked upside Xander’s head. He froze. Lifted his gaze, looked around for the first time. “What?” It seemed only minutes had passed. Cops were everywhere. The naked men all lay on their stomachs, hands cuffed behind their backs. Two paramedics stood off to the side, a gurney next to them.
“Xan—let them have her.” His uncle’s voice was filled with compassion. “They’ll take care of her. You can even ride with her to the hospital.”