“I’ll try.” Turning, I fixed the stranger with a firm stare. He gazed back, eyes hooded. “What is your relation to this man, Mr....?”
“Archer. Ben Archer. And we’re not related.” He nodded to the body on the table. “Nathan and I... I worked for him. He’s a friend.”
“All right, Mr. Archer. Not to be rude, but you can either help me or get out. I can’t be tripping over you every time I turn around. If you think you can take direction and do exactly as I tell you, you’re welcome to stay.”
He nodded. I pointed to the counter behind us. “Get some gloves on, then. This is going to be messy.”
He turned, and I blinked. Blood covered one side of his shirt, and the fabric was torn, sticking to the skin. Several deep gashes were raked across his shoulder blade, still raw and bloody, though he didn’t seem to notice them.
“What happened to your back, Mr. Archer?”
He jerked up, wincing. “Ah,” he muttered, not meeting my gaze. “Nathan was attacked and...I got it when I went to help. It’s nothing, not that deep. Please, help him first.”
“I intend to, but as soon as we’re done here, you need to let me take care of that. And you are going to tell me what happened when we’re done, Mr. Archer.”
He nodded, and we worked in tense, determined silence, broken only by me barking orders, directing my helper to hold this or fetch that. I didn’t mince words or attempt civility; my focus was on saving this man’s life. But my impromptu assistant took all direction without comment until the task was complete.
“There.” I pulled the final stitch shut, tying it off with a short jerk. The man lay on the table, disinfected, bandaged and sewn up the best I could manage with such limited supplies. “That’s it. We’ll just have to keep an eye on him, now.”
Ben Archer stood behind me. I could feel his hooded gaze on the table in front of us. “Will he make it?”
“He’s lost a lot of blood,” I said, turning around. “He needs a transfusion, but there’s no way we can do that now. The wounds haven’t gone septic, but I’m mostly worried about his fever.” The man’s face fell, and I offered a kind lie out of habit. “We’ll have to wait and see if he survives the night, but I think he has a chance of pulling through.”
“Thank you,” he murmured. He seemed relieved but shifted restlessly at the edge of the counter, as if he expected something to come lunging through the operating room doors any second. “I didn’t get your name, Doctor...?”
“Just call me Kylie.” I really looked at him for the first time, seeing the stubble on his chin, the haunted look in his dark brown eyes. His shoulders were broad, his arms muscular under his shirt, as if he was used to hard labor.
“Miss Kylie.” He shot a glance at the tiny window, at the late-afternoon sun slanting in through the glass. “I’m grateful for your help. But we have to go. Now.”
“Excuse me?”
“We have to leave,” he repeated to my astonishment. “We can’t stay here. I’m sorry, but we have to go.”
I scowled at him. “You’re not going anywhere, Mr. Archer. Your friend is still badly hurt, and you don’t look so good yourself. What you’re going to do is sit down, let me take care of those lacerations on your back, and tell me what the hell happened to your friend.”
He flinched, one hand going to his shoulder, but shook his head. “No,” he whispered, and the guilt on his face was overwhelming. “We can’t stay here,” he protested in a stronger voice. “We have to leave the city.” His gaze flicked to mine, intense. “You should come with us. Everyone should—everyone who can still walk needs to go. It...isn’t safe out there anymore.”
“When was it ever safe?” I murmured. He took a breath to argue again, but my voice grew sharp. “Move him now, and your friend will die,” I stated bluntly. “With that fever and those wounds, he’ll be dead by morning. You leave, you kill him. It’s as simple as that.”
He slumped, the fight going out of him. I gestured to the stool, and he sank down, his posture defeated. “If you would take your shirt off, Mr. Archer,” I urged, trying to remain businesslike as I fished a needle and thread from my coat pockets. He blinked, pulling back a little, and I sighed. “I don’t have the time or patience for modesty, Mr. Archer. And we ran out of hospital gowns the first week we were here. So, please.” I gestured with the needle. “Take off your shirt.”
Wearily, he complied, pulling the garment over his head without so much as a wince. I kept my expression professional, but my gaze roamed over the tanned, powerful shoulders and sculpted chest as he dropped his shirt to the floor. Things were bleak, but I wasn’t blind. Ben Archer was gorgeous; you didn’t need a Ph.D. to see that.
He didn’t move as I walked up behind him, examining the five deep lacerations that ran from his shoulder nearly to the center of his back. They looked like...claw marks. I shivered. Something was very wrong here.
“What happened to you and your friend?” I began, dabbing the wounds gently with an alcohol wipe. He didn’t flinch, though the lacerations were quite deep, and I knew the alcohol stung. “Did you hear me, Mr. Archer?”
“Ben. Just Ben.”
“All right, Ben.” I wiped the last of the blood away and reached for the needle and thread. “You still haven’t answered my question. Those bite wounds on your friend, they aren’t normal. What happened?”
I felt him hesitate. My voice grew a little harder. “Don’t lie to me, Mr. Archer. If I’m going to help him, I need to know exactly what happened. Any information you withhold could end up killing him, or my other patients. Now—last time—tell me what happened.”
“We...” Ben paused, as if fighting himself, struggling to get the words out. “Nathan and I...we were attacked,” he finally admitted.
“Yes, that I gathered,” I said, gently touching his shoulder. His skin was warm, and he finally flinched at my touch. “I’m going to start stitching now, so brace yourself.”
He nodded.
“So, something attacked you,” I continued, sinking the needle into the smooth, tanned skin, talking quickly to keep him distracted. “What was it?”
“I...I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” I frowned as I pulled a stitch closed, seeing him grit his teeth. “Something obviously savaged your friend and tore the hell out of your shoulder. What was it?”
“I didn’t see it very clearly,” Ben muttered. “It was dark, and the thing moved so fast.” He shrugged, then grunted in pain as the motion pulled at the stitches. “I thought it was human, but...” He trailed off again, and I frowned over his shoulder.
“Ben, your friend was bitten by something with canines at least an inch long. Humans don’t have teeth like that.”
He raised his head just as I looked up at him, and for a second, our faces were inches apart. Guilt, horror and fear lay open on his face; he had the look of a soldier who had seen far too much and would be eternally haunted by it.
“You should leave,” he whispered once more, his voice like a ragged, open wound. And my stomach flip-flopped at the look in his eyes. “Don’t ask questions, Kylie, just trust me. Get out of here as soon as you can. Go home, leave this place, and don’t look back.”
I took a deep, steadying breath.
“I can’t leave,” I told him firmly. “I won’t leave my patients, so that’s out of the question. Besides, I don’t have a home to go back to.” He looked away, and I wished I could turn his head back, force him to meet my gaze. “You’re not telling me everything,”