Page 21 of Break For Me
He means he needs to touch me again.
"Go ahead."
He pulls the chair close and sits. He lifts my left hand and cradles it gently in both of his. He turns it palm-up. His hands are small compared to mine, his fingers long and pale and steady. They look like they were made for something delicate.
He begins unwinding the heavy gauze. Each layer is darker than the last. The outer white turns to pale pink, then to a deep, crusty rust color. The final layer is stuck fast to the wound. He wets it with saline from a bottle in his bag and works it free with the patience of a saint.
The wound is a neat seam. A black-threaded line running across my palm. Each knot is spaced with a machine’s perfect accuracy. This palm has broken jaws and crushed throats. Now it’s stitched together like a piece of fine upholstery.
I don't know what to do with the sight of it. I've never had anyone in my entire life put this much care and effort into fixing me.
He probes the margins of the wound. His fingertips press along the stitches, testing for excess heat. His touch is light. It’s purely clinical.
And it’s the most unbearable thing I’ve felt all night.
I can't remember the last time someone touched me without trying to harm me. The women I pay for do it with a mechanical, bored detachment. The men I fight do it with raw impact.
This is different. He’s holding my hand like it’s something worth saving. His thumbs press into the base of my thumb. Ifeel the muscle jump—a small twitch that has nothing to do with pain. His fingers are steady and gentle. It’s a foreign language my body doesn't know how to speak.
"The repair is holding. No sign of infection yet. I’ll re-wrap it."
He reaches for a fresh roll of gauze. His left sleeve rides up as he stretches across my body to grab the roll from his bag.
I see it.
A scar. A thin, white line running horizontally across the inside of his left wrist. It’s old. It’s precise. This wasn't an accident with a kitchen knife or a jagged piece of glass. This was a deliberate, surgical cut, placed with a surgeon's intimate knowledge of exactly where the radial artery lives.
He had a good aim. Someone must have found him and stopped him, because the scar is too clean, too neat. It was stitched by someone who knew what they were doing.
He catches me looking. He sees my eyes fixed on his wrist. His sleeve drops immediately. His jaw tightens, the muscle leaping under the skin. A micro-fracture appears in that perfect clinical wall. He doesn't say a word. He wraps my hand in fresh gauze, his long fingers much stiffer than they were seconds ago.
The doctor has his own damage. My scars were put on my body by other people. His was his own work. A quiet scream recorded forever in white scar tissue.
I file it away. I don't open that door. I’ve got enough of my own ghosts to deal with.
He tapes the new dressing and sets my bandaged hand back on my knee. "Done. I’ll check it again in four hours."
A sound.
An engine. The low, heavy growl of a V-8 pushing its way up the gravel road outside. Headlights sweep across the wool blanket over the window, two bright beams of white light cutting through the dawn and hitting the trees.
I’m off the cot before my brain can protest. The room spins, a nauseating, violent tilt. I grab the doorframe to stay upright, my vision swimming. Adrian is on his feet in an instant, his medical bag clutched to his chest like a shield.
"Where’s the gun?" I bark.
"Other room. On the floor where you dropped it."
I push past him into the main area. The light is a grey, watery haze. Garrett is standing by Killian’s makeshift table, his hand on his sidearm. Killian is a still, pale ghost under the sheets.
I find the Makarov on the floor. I pick it up. My left hand is a useless, throbbing weight at my side. I rack the slide with my right hand and move to the window.
The blanket is thin. Through the fabric, I can see a black Audi. It’s armored—I can tell by the extra weight in the way it sits on its suspension. It stops next to my battered truck. The lights die. The engine idles, the low frequency vibrating through the floorboards.
I press my back to the wall beside the front door. The gun is heavy in my right hand. Garrett covers the back exit. Adrian stands frozen in the bedroom doorway, his eyes wide.
The Audi door opens. One man steps out. Tall. Lean.
He moves with a precision I’d know anywhere. The measured, confident stride. The suit jacket that doesn't have a single crease even after a night like this.
