Blood. Not hers.
Alistair.
She went back to Ben and checked his pillow, careful not to wake him. It was wet. The wound at the back of his head was bleeding again. It could mean anything, she thought. Maybe he broke open the wound in his sleep, or maybe more fluids in his body meant more fluids leaking out. Or brain swelling, or internal bleeding, or—
Stop.
She whispered, “Ben?”
Alistair.
He didn’t answer. She didn’t want him to, really. She wanted him to sleep. Heal. Wake up better. But a thousand bad things could happen at any moment and her chronicle of his ailments was probably incomplete, definitely uninformed. If she was honest, the list was nothing more than a way to keep them both calm in the face of a grave situation that neither of them could remedy.
Fire. She could do fire
