"That just confirms to me that he's watching." I cut him off before he could mention all that I used to do where he was concerned. "How else would he know the people closest to me?"
"Is it possible that it's not your father at all? Maybe he's a brother that you didn't know you had?"
"Why do you think that?"
"I think it's possible to look like your father, but an exact replica? I don't see how that could happen with you having some of your mother's genetic makeup as well."
"Hmm." I thought about it for a moment. "I guess that makes sense, but."
Caleb crashed into me and sent me skidding across the concrete. His body covered mine and when we came to a stop, I smelled blood. A lot of it. I looked up to ask Caleb what was going on, but blood spilled out of his mouth steadily. His mouth was moving, but nothing was coming out.
Glass shattered close by and tiny pieces of it rained down all around us. I heard a gunshot and it ended in a thwap, as if it'd hit a nearby tree. In a matter of moments, there was a wall of team members around us, returning fire.
I rolled Caleb off me so that I could examine him. His soft, blue shirt was stained a deep crimson, and I ripped it open to find there was a massive hole right in the middle of his chest. Xander crawled toward us, yelling something, but the gunfire was so loud and continuous that I couldn't hear a word.
I tugged on Xander's shirt and pointed toward the doors. "Move him inside!"
Xander and I grabbed Caleb under each arm and dragged him through the doors to the safety of the concrete reinforced walls. Xander was crying, trying to get Caleb to look at him.
Caleb coughed and blood, thick and foamy, bubbled from his lips. He looked at me and grabbed my shirt. "Told you I'd die before I let anything happen to you."
"I know, Caleb, but you're not going to die."
I slit my arm open and let my blood run into his wounds. I watched, waited, but nothing happened. Finally, I grabbed Xander's arm and bled him, hoping that maybe his blood would kick-start the healing.
But it didn't.
Caleb moaned and tried to touch the wound. "It burns. It's like fire."
Lucien, Nikolas, Sabaan, Daniel, and Cecil all came running down the hallway. Lucien skidded to a stop when he saw that I was okay and that Caleb was the one down and bleeding. Cecil knelt beside us and felt around the wound, then rubbed his fingers together.
"Whatever they shot him with contained a high level of silver. His blood's coagulating, and he won't heal unless we get it out of him."
Xander was shaking so hard that I grabbed Caleb up myself. "Go, Cecil, I'm right behind you. Xander, come on, baby. He'll be okay, just walk."
Xander ran ahead, opening doors and moving people out of the way to clear a path. Once down in the treatment room, I laid Caleb on the table and took one of his hands. His eyes were closed and that scared the hell out of me.
"Open your eyes, Caleb." Xander patted his cheek and shook his shoulders, but Caleb just moaned in response. "Come on, baby, stay with us."
"Everyone out," Cecil ordered.
"We ain't going anywhere," I said. "Just get started."
For nearly an hour, Cecil cleaned and cut away at Caleb's wounds. Once he was satisfied that he'd gotten rid of all of the silver, he hooked up an IV and began to pump bag after bag full of blood into Caleb.
Caleb's wound began to heal almost instantly, and it was odd to watch everything knit back together at such a rapid pace. Caleb's eyes opened after a short time and he smiled at Xander.
"Hey."
"Hey, yourself," Xander responded. "You feeling better?"
"Am now." Caleb nodded and looked up at me. "I heard the safety click and all I could see was some asshole shooting you. Couldn't let that happen."
"You could have just told us to drop to the ground."
"That wouldn't have been as dramatic." He groaned and shook his head. "I'm sorry."
"What the hell for? You just saved my life." I petted his hair, smoothing those unruly curls back. "Thank you, Caleb."
"I caused a scene and."
"Shh, baby, just rest." Xander put a finger to Caleb's lips and met my gaze. "He's sorry for everything, Peter."
"Everything?"
"Xander&" Caleb tugged on Xander's hand. "No&"
"He doesn't want to inconvenience anyone," Xander said softly. "And having you here at his side instead of upstairs with Lucien right now? Well, he sees that as an inconvenience to you."
That was unacceptable.