“Never forget it,” he said.
“How’d you know where I was, where to find me?”
I’d been deep inside that day, when the fire broke out. In the inner sanctum. Harvey’s office. The one place we weren’t supposed to go.
He shrugged. “How do the worker bees know where to find their queen?”
I laughed. “You’re drunk.”
He smiled, and knelt down beside me. “Lady,youmade me drink.”
It was true. “Maybe I did. But it’syourmouth.”
I lay there, with Armin kneeling by the bed, and I listened to the rain thrum against the cabin roof. He watched me, my breathing, honed in on the rise and fall of the blanket. Waiting to see if my lung was punctured, I supposed.
“Are you okay?” He asked.
“I’ve been better,” I said. “And I’ve been worse. You?”
He grunted, and reached out to press the back of his hand to my forehead.
“You feel a little warm. Maybe it’s the whiskey. I’ll be okay if you will,” he said. “Let me get the bath ready.” He stood up. “Give me a sec.”
I listened to him rummage here and there around the little cabin, humming softly to himself. Between the whiskey and the parts of me that no longer screamed their searing, horrific pain, the rain steady on the roof, I drowsed until Armin was back, his tall frame filling the doorway.
The only man I was relieved to see.
ten
. . .
Armin
It wasa team effort to get her into a seated position, and I took the opportunity to throw one of my flannel shirts over her head.
She got a sly look on her face, and I imagined she had a few words to say about me, a man who’d ordered an escort, going to great lengths to cover her up. But then she slid one leg out of bed, and her whole face went pale with the pain.
“I can’t—” She gasped and shook her head.
“Can I take a look?”
She nodded. I slid the shirt up on that side. Her skin was red with angry striations, the area around her hip bone swollen and distended.
“Oh Mia, we’ve got to get this hip back in. You can’t go on like this.”
“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay.”
I helped her lay back again. It would have been better with her on her stomach, but tears were rolling down her cheeks, and I couldn’t ask her to move any more than she already had. “On three?”
“No,” she said. “Now.”
And I pulled.
The way she screamed was going to haunt me until the day I died.
I thought maybe she’d gone unconscious with the pain, but when I lifted her into my arms, she curled into my chest, her breaths still short and ragged. I wanted to ask if she was okay, but I knew she wasn’t, so I kept my mouth shut and carried her to the bathroom.
The cabin might not have been much, but this room made up for it: full walk-in shower, travertine tile, and a separate tub with massage jets in front of a picture window. I was proud of my work, and I wished Mia was well enough to enjoy it. Hopefully she’d feel better after a soak. I set her down gently in the water. I’d put so much salt in there I was worried she might float up to the top.
