Page 75 of Break For Me
"Now the magazine."
I pick up the magazine with my left hand. My fourth and fifth fingers brace against the base plate. The grip is ugly, asymmetric. I bring the magazine to the mag well.
Miss. The magazine hits the base of the grip and skates off. My hand spasms. The magazine clatters on the mat.
"Again."
Miss. Drop. Clatter.
"Again."
I pick it up. I guide it toward the mag well. My jaw is locked. My breathing is deliberate—the same controlled rhythm I use in a fight. The magazine slides into the well. The catch engages.
Click.
I stare at the gun. Loaded. Racked. Functional. Assembled with one working hand and one that's fighting its way back from the dead.
I set the gun down.
I turn.
I put my fist through the heavy bag.
The bag swings. My right fist is buried in the leather. I hit it again. Right cross. The impact echoes off the basement walls.
"I got your sister killed," I say between strikes.
"Elena is alive."
"Elena is being watched. Because I took you." Thud. "Because I broke your door down and dragged you into this." Thud. "Because the first person I care about—" Thud. "I put a target on."
"You didn't put a target on Elena. Dmitri did. The target existed before you broke my door down. It's the mechanism that kept me compliant for two years. You didn't create the leverage. You disrupted it."
"I disrupted it into a seventy-two-hour death threat."
I hit the bag again. The chain rattles. My knuckles are splitting. I don't care. The pain in my right hand is a pain I can use.
"Stop hitting the bag," he says.
"No."
"You're damaging your right hand. If you break your third metacarpal, you lose your only working grip. We go from a man with one bad hand to a man with two."
I hit the bag. Harder.
"You are not useless." His voice is louder than I've heard it. The acoustics of the basement amplify it. "You are injured. There's a difference. You loaded that weapon. You racked the slide. You squeezed the putty and moved your fourth finger. If you break your right fist on that bag because you're too busy performing your own funeral to notice that you're healing, I will sedate you and put both hands in casts."
I stop. My fist rests against the leather. My chest heaves. Sweat runs down my temple. I turn my head and look at him.
"If I can't be the hammer," I say. My voice breaks. "What am I?"
He closes the distance. Three steps across the mat. He grabs the front of my tank top with both hands—the same gesture I used in the motel. He pulls me down to his height. His face is inches from mine. His breath is hot.
"You're the shield. You don't have to break things to protect people. You stand between the threat and the person you're protecting, and you absorb what comes. That's what you've been doing since the cabin. That's what you did in the container. You don't need a working left hand to put your body in front of mine."
I stare at him. My mouth opens. He doesn't let me speak.
He kisses me. Hard. His hands pull my face down to his. The anger transfers between us like a current. His rage. My frustration. The shared terror of Elena's photograph and the countdown and the gun I loaded with hands that are healing but not healed.
