Page 19 of Taking Savannah
A few inches. That's the distance between the bullet and his skin. Those inches and a layer of kevlar between Emilio DiAngelo's heart and a Castillo round, and I am not okay with how not okay I am about that.
"Four Castillo shooters," he says, like he's giving a weather report. "East wing service corridor. They had keycards that shouldn't exist, which means someone on the inside is stillleaking access codes. Leone and Carmelo handled two. Claudio got one in the stairwell. I got the last one outside Alexandra's office."
"Alexandra?"
"Fine. Pissed, but fine. Her office is untouched and Charlotte's with her."
"And you?" I'm looking at the cut. The blood. The mark on his vest. The blood on his knuckles that belongs to someone who is no longer breathing.
He touches the cut above his eye, looks at his fingers, seems surprised by the blood. "Scratch."
"That's not a scratch, that's a laceration. A scratch is what you get from a cat. THAT needs stitches."
"It's a scratch and I'm fine and you kept your promise." He steps closer. Close enough that I can see the cut in detail, a cut that's going to scar, and the blood is still running and he's doing nothing about it because he came to find me before he went to medical. Before he washed his hands. Before he did anything at all. He came here first.
The priority order implied in that makes my chest hurt.
I reach up and press my thumb against the cut. He flinches, but I hold the pressure.
"You need stitches," I say.
"I need a drink."
"You need stitches and a drink and to stop being a fucking hero for five minutes."
"I wasn't being a hero. I was doing my job."
"Your job is holding pads for me in the gym."
"My job is keeping you alive." His hand comes up and wraps around my wrist, not pulling my hand away, holding it there. My thumb on his wound, his blood on my skin. "And you're alive. So I did my job."
We stand there in the corridor. The compound is settling around us, soldiers moving, voices on radios, the low hum of a building that just survived an attack and is already preparing for the next one. His hand is on my wrist and my thumb is on his face and the blood is warm between us and this is the strangest, most fucked up version of intimacy I've ever experienced, standing in a hallway with a man who just killed someone and came to find me right after.
"You kissed me," I say.
"You kissed me back."
"There were guns going off."
"Multitasking."
"You're an idiot."
"You already knew that."
I pull my hand away from his face. Look at the blood on my thumb. His blood, bright red, already cooling in the air.
"Go get your stitches," I say. "I'll be here when you're done."
"Promise?"
"I already promised once tonight. Don't push your luck."
He grins. The real one. The full one. The one that splits his face open and makes him look nothing at all like the man who just walked out of a firefight. He turns and walks toward medical, and I watch him go.
I go back into my room and sit on my bed, wondering what in the fuck is happening.
The bottle cap is in my hand. I roll it once, twice, and then I press it into my palm hard enough that the edges bite into my skin and I hold it there while my heart rate comes down from whatever altitude it's been at since he kissed me.
