He stopped trying to escape whatever monster was eating at him and to his surprise, the pain eased.
He wanted to ask what had happened, what was wrong. But he couldn’t open his eyes and before he even realized it, he was sliding back down into unconsciousness.
***
Marin had been settling down with a book when the news had come on.
Somebody had caught the entire nightmare on his phone and uploaded it onto Youtube, so now the entire world knew—and had seen the entire bloody attack. Had seen Sebastien as he was roughly shoved away from the woman he’d been talking to, had seen as he fought to keep her behind him.
The woman was quickly identified as Monica Duprè.
Marin’s heart ached as she thought about what had happened after.
Sebastien was going to be devastated. Hell, she was devastated and she didn’t even . . .
“Stop,” she whispered to herself, even as those awful moments played out in her mind over and over.
The knife slashing out, blood blooming . . .
Sebastien fighting like a man possessed, first to get Monica away, then to disarm the man she’d chosen over him.
Hanson Smith had looked more like a monster than a man, splattered in blood, his lips peeled back from his teeth as he went for Sebastien. They had looked like two behemoths out there: Smith a little over six foot five, bigger than even Sebastien and armed with a knife. But Sebastien had trapped the weapon hand and started to drive a series of hard blows to the man’s ribs, looking even more powerful than some of the heroes he’d played.
The video feed had gotten shaky and out of focus then, and what she saw next was Sebastien on the ground, rolling away and leaping to his feet. His face was a mask of blood, but that hadn’t stopped him from ramming into Smith.
Smith might have been in his fifties, but he was in prime condition. People called him Mount Hanson behind his back, and not just because he was a formidable man to deal with. If Smith hadn’t been able to hold on to the blade, it would have ended much, much sooner. But he’d kept the weapon.
It seemed to go into Sebastien like butter.
Marin closed her eyes, the memories flickering through her mind in an endless reel, no matter what.
She hadn’t been able to watch anything else after that—just seeing Sebastien stabbed had almost made her pass out. But then she’d had to hear the media recount every last gory detail.
Smith had pulled away—laughing. People who had been standing around just staring reported that they heard him laughing. Then he pulled out a gun.
Sebastien, still bleeding, had ripped the knife from his side and rushed him.
When it was over, mere seconds—somebody had timed it at seventy seconds—Hanson Smith and Monica Dupré were both dead. Sebastien had collapsed next to his former girlfriend, his hand on her cheek.
“Marin?”
She looked up as Denise and Ron Barnes appeared in the doorway.
“Oh, thank God,” she whispered, rushing for them.
In a moment, she was enfolded in an embrace more familiar than that of her own parents.
***
Hours ticked by.
Another bag of blood drained into him. She’d donated earlier, although the staff had told her that they wouldn’t have hers tested in time to use for him. There were always shortages, though. She’d gone through with it for one reason: Sebastien was alive because somebody else had donated blood. She could do the same thing.
She was still queasy about it. Marin hated needles.
Hated them with a passion. She had a horrible phobia, but because others had done it for him, she’d gone through it. Now she stared at him instead of watching as some stranger’s blood was slowly fed into his veins.
She couldn’t stand the sight of blood, either.
She’d slowly managed to conquer her problem with the stage blood used in some of the movies she’d starred in, but real blood? That was a different story.
“He’ll be okay,” Denise said quietly.
“Of course he will,” Marin said, her voice wobbling.
“He will.” The words were firm as Denise looked at him, her blue-green eyes solemn. “I know my boy. He’s too stubborn to go down like this, because some jealous son of a bitch came at him like that on the street. He’s not going to die.”
“Mom?”
Marin all but leaped from her seat at the sound of that voice. “Zach.”
She would have rushed for him, but he was already on his knees in front of his mother, so she went to Abby instead.
“Thanks for being here with him,” Abby whispered, her voice thick and choked. “We got here as quick as we could.”
“Of course I’m here. He’s . . .” Marin hesitated.
“He’s family,” Abby finished as she drew back.
“Yeah.” She smiled. The smile was exactly as it needed to be and her tone was perfect.
But it was a lie.
She didn’t think family when it came to Sebastien, and she hadn’t for a long time. She thought family when it came to Zach and Abby and Zane and the twins and their parents. But Sebastien?
No.