nina cried power [SPENCER REID]

eighteen.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
BY YOUR LOVER'S HAND

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Spencer flinches away at the sound of the gun, even shuts his eyes as if that will protect him from the noise and the inevitable pain he expects to blast through him -- but there comes no blinding agony. No violent throb of a bullet tearing through his stomach. Instead, a lot of things happen at once: beneath him, Nina inhales sharply as the gunshot echoes down the empty street; the gun comes free in his hands. Silence cracks down upon them.

"Nina," he inhales the word, and gun in both of his hands, knees either side of her hips, he looks down at her. Behind him, her legs have stopped kicking. She's perfectly still. Her face is tilted down, eyes focusing almost on the spot where their bodies are joined, mouth open.

Rasping for breath already, she moves her red blazer out of the way, revealing an oozing wound in the right side of her lower abdomen. In the dim light, he can see the lump of the bullet, the skin around it shredded from such a close shot; pus oozes, the lace of her lingerie is already infecting the wound, and blood bubbles up and up and up.

Her eyes look up to his. "You shot me," she manages.

The shock had frozen him as he'd took in her face and her injury, but her voice seems to wake him up. He lodges the gun in his own belt, against his spine like she had done, and then his hands press into her hips, trying to contain the blood.

"Hey, hey, hey," he rushes out, heart pounding. "Don't panic. You're gonna be fine, Nina, you're gonna be fine."

But, weakly, and with slippery red hands, she takes his wrists in her hands, squeezing as best as she can. "No. No, you need to finish it."

He looks up. "Wh-what?"

Her head tilts, and when the moon glimpses across her at a certain angle he can see that she's starting to cry. "I don't wanna go to prison, Spencer." She whimpers; he's already starting to protest. "You know what those guards do to women in the dark. Please. You have to finish it."

Frantically he shakes his head, and getting her blood everywhere, he strips himself of his waistcoat, undoing the buttons as fast as his shaking hands can allow. "No, no, you're gonna be fine," he stammers. "I'm not letting you die out here." Moving her hands out of the way, he uses the silky material as best as he can to stop the blood.

But, taking his upper arms in her hold with one hand, the other holding her hip, Nina struggles but manages to sit up. Her lips are already startlingly red; or maybe it's just the rest of her that is terrifyingly white. "Spencer-"