Page 12 of Break For Me
The edges are ragged and uneven. He grabbed the blade. He closed his fist around the steel and let it tear him open.
I probe the margin of the wound with my fingertip. His hand spasms in my grip. A sound escapes his throat—a low, guttural noise, bitten off before it can become a groan. The muscles in his forearm cord and release under my touch.
"The tendon is intact," I say. "The sheath is nicked, but the function should remain."
"Lucky me," he wheezes.
I pack the wound with hemostatic gauze. I press the material deep into the tear to force the clotting. His hand twitches with every shove. I can feel the sheer density of the tissue beneath my fingertips.
His forearm is thicker than my thigh. A faded prison tattoo—Roman numerals—shifts as the tendons flex.
"Hold this." I press his thumb against the packing.
He obeys. The compliance is jarring. A man this violent following my lead with the docility of a patient in a ward. But that is the nature of pain. It is the only thing that strips away rank and leaves the animal behind.
I wrap the hand in gauze. I use a figure-eight pattern around the wrist, pulling it tight to maintain the pressure. I check the nail beds for capillary refill. Sluggish, but the color returns.
The forearm is next. I push the sleeve of his henley up.
The slash runs from wrist to elbow. It’s a shallow trough through the fat, weeping steadily from several small branches. It isn't a killer on its own, but combined with the palm, it’s a death sentence by a thousand leaks.
I clean the edges with antiseptic. His skin is hot. Not feverish, but radiant.
The heat coming off his arm is like pressing my hand against a running engine. I can feel his pulse through the skin, a heavy, insistent thud that vibrates against my bones. His body is red-lining, every system screaming to stay upright.
I dress the arm. Wrap it. Tape it. My fingers move through the protocol without a tremor. For thirty seconds, this truck is my OR and this man is my patient. The fact that he abducted me is an irrelevant clinical history.
I finish and pull my hands away. They are covered in his blood.
I click off the penlight. The darkness rushes back, thick and cold.
"Drive," I say.
He puts the truck in gear. We move out, slower now. Fifty. Fifty-five.
I watch the landscape change through the window. The city is letting go. The industrial sprawl fades into suburban glow, then the trees close in. The headlights are the only thing left in the world.
My hands are in my lap. His blood is drying in the creases of my skin, under my nails. I should feel a sense of revulsion.
I have had the blood of a hundred men on my hands. It is the reality of the work. But this feels different.
It feels heavier. Hotter. As though the violence that spilled it left a residue that soap cannot reach.
He hasn't spoken since the pulloff. His breathing is deeper now, more stable. The packing is buying him time.
His color is still grey, but his grip on the wheel is steady. He is functioning on reserves that most men don't possess. He has more blood volume, more physical stubbornness, more sheer refusal to stop.
He is, physiologically, a marvel. Most men would be in a shock ward by now. He is driving a Ford through the Hudson Valley with nothing but willpower and a field dressing.
I don't admire him. Admiration requires an emotional connection I severed years ago. I simply observe. I file the data beside the heat of his skin and the sound of his breathing.
The truck turns onto a gravel road. Branches claw at the roof. The headlights bounce off a forest so thick it looks like a wall. We climb for a mile, the truck bouncing over deep ruts, until we reach a clearing.
A safehouse.
It has a stone foundation and a porch that sags. No lights. A single black SUV is parked out front, caked in mud.
He kills the engine. The silence is a physical weight. No sirens. No city hum. Just the wind in the pines and my own heart, which I can hear now because there is nothing else.
