Chapter 26: Chapter 26: Bleeding Out

ALLISON

As Carter slowly sank into a sit on the curb, staring down at his stomach in shock, he pressed both hands to his midriff. Warm red blood flowed around his fingers. He needed that blood. Without blood he would not continue to live, and she needed him to live.

Allison fired a mental echo that would locate and all additional aggressors for fifty paces in all directions. She found several close beings and scanned each in turn. All were harmless. Tommy was the only being close enough to attack them, which suggested his compatriot had not waited here to attack.

That was small comfort. She had acted too late.

She should have sensed the aggressor coming. She should never have turned her natural alertness down to the degree she had simply to enjoy this flood of human emotions. This had all seemed so special a moment ago—their first date, their first night out with others, another unforgettable experience together—but she had allowed herself to grow greedy.

Now, Carter would pay the price for her selfish decision to indulge herself.

“Damn, this sucks,” Carter rasped. “Guess I’ll have a story tomorrow.”

Having now verified no threats remained and with full knowledge Tommy would not recover consciousness for several minutes, they had to vacate this area at once. Both her mind blast and aggressive scan afterward would light a beacon on any Tharon mental map. Every hunter anywhere for miles around would have felt her actions, and they would come at once.

If the Tharons discovered Tommy and scanned him, they might be able to get a mental image of both her current configuration and Carter. That would spell disaster, but their now unconscious attacker had literally tumbled all the way to the woods. Getting down that hill, wiping his recent memories, and getting back up it again would take time they did not have.

Not to mention wiping a human’s mind without their consent went against every moral cell in her being. Even when that human was as aggressive and malicious as this one. Finally... she simply didn’t have time to worry about Tommy any longer.

If the Tharons caught her tonight, she could not help Carter. If they snatched her and stuffed her into a pod, he would die. While they would not actively harm humans who were not involved in alien matters, they also would not intervene in human affairs or a human conflict. Carter would bleed to death on the street.

A plan formed in her head in a moment. Get him to the car. Drive him to the hospital. Keep him from bleeding out until they arrived. The rest would all come later.

Allison had studied human anatomy intently while she traveled to Earth, memorizing every detail of the human skeleton, organs, and physiology so that she could shape herself into an attractive human female... at least by her own standards. She knew exactly how easy it was to puncture fragile human organs and exactly how much blood one could lose before death.

She marched to Carter and slid an arm beneath his shoulders as she simultaneously reconfigured her entire upper body for increased strength. He yelped in surprise as she lifted him to his feet with one arm. She balanced him and supported him.

“We must get you to the hospital.” She walked him rapidly to the car.

“No.” Carter kept his feet and walked alongside her, though she knew from the way he was breathing that he was in great pain. “No hospitals, Allie.”

“You have internal bleeding. You could die.”

“It’s just a couple of stab wounds.” Carter coughed once and then firmed his pace. “It hurts, but I’ve got a first aid kit at my place. You can bandage me up there.”

A glance at him as they walked confirmed her worst fears. “I cannot. You are already losing too much blood. Stop.” She halted their movement at the car and then pressed her hand firmly to his stomach. She closed her eyes and ground her teeth.

Though the effort was as painful as tearing her own skin off, she transferred a paper thin layer of herself onto his stomach that sealed his surface wounds. That would halt his external blood loss long enough for her to drive him to the hospital, but there was still the internal bleeding to deal with. She could not stop that without...

Not yet. They were not quite that desperate, yet. She pulled the passenger door open with a loud crack and only then realized she had forgotten to unlock it first.

She would apologize for breaking his door lock later. “Get in.”

Carter said nothing as she helped him into the passenger seat, at least until she snapped on his seat belt. “Wait. Allie.”

“You have taught me to drive,” she assured him firmly. “Do not move. Do not complicate this.” She thrust out one hand. “Give me your keys now.”

He looked like he wanted to protest, but her stern and concerned glare stopped him in mid-sentence. He settled back in his seat, reached for his pocket, and grimaced as his wounds likely stung. Even so, he fished out his keys and handed them over.

Her now hyper-alert senses told her other sapients were approaching from Red’s, and while she sensed only curiosity as to what had caused her to shout, she could not remain here any longer. They would see her and Carter and could give details to any police who arrived, or worse, to Tharon hunters posing as police. She unlocked the driver’s side door, slipped in, and started the vehicle just as Carter taught her earlier today in the parking light.

She checked her mirrors once and then smoothly pulled out onto the street. At any moment she expected multiple vehicles to roll out and block her way or worse, the appearance of a Tharon hunter as they mentally disabled this vehicle and moved in to take her into custody. Neither happened. Cars continued to flow as people shadows appeared beside the road.

Not long after they were moving with normal traffic. Despite the fact that every single synapse in her frightened human mind was screaming at her to speed for the hospital, her rational alien mind held back the tide. She followed every driving rule and obeyed every sign.

She knew where the hospital was. She had made a mental note of its location and the location of other important buildings when she first arrived in this small town, long before she decided to partner with Ryan. In this vehicle, they could reach it in twenty minutes at legal speeds. Now that she had sealed Carter’s external wounds, he would live that long and more.

“If you take me to the hospital, Allie, they’ll figure out who I am.” Carter spoke calmly as they continued to drive in that direction... which was also the direction of his apartment. “They’ll give Pennsylvania PD a call, and then they’ll question me. Handcuff me. Probably toss me in a cell and keep me there until a judge decides if they should extradite or not.”

“You will still live,” Allison said. “I intend to see you live.”

“I won’t die regardless,” he assured her, without anything close to the extensive knowledge of human anatomy she possessed. “We’ll just disinfect the cuts and wrap them up. I won’t be doing any sit ups anytime soon, but it’ll still be easy for me to bounce you on my lap.”

“The only reason you have not already passed out from blood loss is because I have placed a temporary barrier across your wounds,” Allison said grimly. “Knife wounds are very serious, particularly in a human’s midsection. I am certain the aggressor punctured your intestine, and he could also have damaged additional organs. Internal bleeding is present.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

“It is.” This time, she put real anger into her voice. “It is bad, Carter. You could die, and it will be very painful as you die.”

“Even that wouldn’t be as bad as losing you. If they haul me off to jail, I won’t ever see you again. I know you’ll be okay, but... I’m not sure I will be.”

How could he say that? It did not matter that his heart-wrenching statement mirrored her own feelings in this moment. Her feelings were not the priority here.

Ensuring he continued to draw breath, to laugh and to enjoy ice cream, was now the singular goal that drove her continued journey to the hospital. Could she perhaps bring him into the hospital, let their doctors stabilize him, and then make those involved forget?

No. Setting aside her moral scruples, even at full strength she was not powerful enough to make everyone who might interact with Carter at a crowded hospital forget he was there. She also could not maintain that illusion for the progressive days Carter might need to stay.

He was right about one thing. If she took him the hospital, he could be arrested. He almost certainly would be. Even so, he would be alive.

And he would not be with her.

“Allie?” he asked softly. “There has to be a way we can help me without going to the hospital. What about a drug store? Could we... I don’t know, rob one? I have bandages and disinfectant and all that other stuff, and we can get whatever else you need.”

“I am not a doctor,” Allison reminded him firmly. “And your wounds are far beyond what a simple first aid kit can fix.” They continued to drive.

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“But I’d bet you know a lot about human anatomy,” Carter said. “Given you made yourself one. I bet you could figure out exactly how to fix me if you looked.”

The fact that he was so insightful was just one part of why she cared so deeply for him, and it was also a trait that annoyed her in this particular situation. The problem was, she did not know if he was right. She did not know how much she could actually fix... safely.

“How about you look into my mind,” he offered.

She barely kept her eyes on the road. “This is not the time for that.”

“It is, Allie, because I need you to know just how much I want to be with you. You told me to wait until tomorrow to make sure I was sure about you, about us, but I’m sure now. I want to partner with you. I even want to run away with you, if we have to.”

“You simply believe that now because I have seduced you. Your human brain is flooded with dopamine and other chemicals that make our partnership seem impossibly appealing.”

“That’s not it. I know I want to be with you because there’s now a real chance I can’t. If you take me the hospital, we’re done. Not because I want that, but because that’s just how life tends to go. I can’t accept that. Look into my mind and see what I see.”

“Carter, I—”

“I consent to you being in my mind, Allie. Any time you like. I want you in there.”

To her, to a shapeshifting telepathic being for whom mental communication was both the simplest and most intimate of actions, those words—no matter the language in which they were spoken—were as simultaneously thrilling, dirty, and intimate as all their prior sex. While she knew Carter did not fully appreciate what he was offering, she did know he meant it.

She also knew he wasn’t anywhere remotely near ready for that yet.

His apartment was still a ten minute drive from here. The hospital would be another fifteen. They were now far enough away from the location where she had unleashed her mind blast that the Tharons would likely be unable to track them. They had a moment.

She needed Carter to live. She did not want to lose him. These two goals were not necessarily impossible to reconcile, if they were lucky.

She could examine his wounds in detail now. If he was injured as badly as she feared, she could still drive him to the hospital. Then, when she arrived, she would have a better understanding of how just how injured he was. There was benefit to further examination.

And she so desperately wanted to go on another date.

It took a moment to find a suitable spot to pull the car over. This street was abandoned and dark. She pulled well off onto the shoulder and flipped off the lights.

“I am going to further examine your injuries,” Allison said calmly. “It will feel strange, but I need you to do all you can not to move.”

“So is this some kind of mental X-Ray?”

“No. This will be physical. There is no non-clinical way to explain this. I will be creating and inserting investigative tendrils inside your body to examine the extent of your injuries first hand. If you wiggle or move, I could injure you further.”

Carter nodded. “I get it, Allie. I won’t move.”

Using transformative energy, she increased the light perception of her eyes until she could see him perfectly in the near darkness inside the car. While her skin graft held firm against his midsection, blood had still soaked his shirt. It would not come off easily.

“I will need to cut off your shirt now. I need you to remain very still.”

“With, like… scissors?”

“Just close your eyes.”

Carter leaned back and closed his eyes. He breathed and even visually relaxed. She sensed no worry she would hurt him. The fact that he trusted her so intensely was almost overwhelming, but she focused on her goal.

The only worries she felt from him, right now, were that she would leave him. Even with her mental barriers raised and her firm desire not to intrude, she sensed how much he cared for her. How much he wanted to be with her. It was heady feeling even now, after she had allowed him to be stabbed.

It took but a moment to lengthen the thumbnails on her index fingers and narrow them to razor sharp points. She then carefully cut the front of Carter’s shirt off his upper body. She saw him grimace, likely from stomach pain, but he made no other noise.

Carefully, she peeled the shirt away from his upper chest, ignoring how utterly great his carved muscles looked in the dusky light, and worked down until she reached her skin graft. Hand flat, she reattached a million tiny pathways to seize active control of the mass she had used to wrap Carter’s wounds. Once active again, she passed the rest of his shirt through it.

With him now fully shirtless, she looked up. “This may feel a bit odd.”

He smiled with his eyes closed. “Remind me to use that line on you later tonight.”

While she would otherwise have complained about the timing of his joke, it was clear he was simply trying to relax her. Here he was, bleeding in a car with her about to insert a dozen tendrils inside him, and he was trying to comfort her. Thoughtful even when stabbed.

She focused on her skin and then mentally expanded inquisitive examination tendrils that, in human terms, were only a hair thick. Carter sucked in his breath but made no other noises. Allison’s tendrils multiplied and wove through his body tissue, gathering data.

She soon determined the full extent of his injuries, and she unleashed an audible sigh of relief. Two stabs had nicked his intestines, just as she had suspected, but the last had only cut into muscle and fatty tissue. Perhaps the reactive tensing of his abdominal muscles, when he was stabbed, had altered the direction of the blade. They had been exceedingly lucky.

She could safely patch these injuries. Working silently and efficiently, she reconfigured her searching tendrils into thin, round seals and applied those to the wounds. She tore those parts of herself off inside him, sealing the cuts in his organs so no blood could escape.

He would heal naturally now, and while her seals would not dissolve naturally, she could reclaim them once he healed. She breathed deep. “I have good news.”

“You’re going to cut the rest of my clothes off when we get home?”

She resisted the urge to smack his arm as she had witnessed Izzy smack Rick many times earlier tonight. “I was able to mitigate the damage. You will live. We can skip the hospital.”

“I knew you could do it, Allie.”

“Do not overestimate my capabilities. While you will no longer bleed to death internally, we will still need to bandage your surface cuts at your apartment. We will need to change those bandages frequently and wash your cuts to avoid infection. All of this will hurt as you naturally heal, and this will not be a quick process. You have weeks of discomfort ahead.”

“Yeah, but we’ll still be together.” He gently touched her hand. “Think about what you just did. You literally saved my life. How’s that for a hot end to a first date?”

She huffed. “After our next date, I would prefer we simply drive home and fuck.”

He grinned and breathed. “But you did say there’s going to be a next date.”

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