Page 290 of Immune

“I just think you should stop looking for the right amount of guilt when you’re still covered in their blood,” I tell her a little bluntly, and her breath catches. I point at the sink, and ask, “You want it off?”

“Yeah.”

“Then go ahead. Take it off,” I say.

Her eyes flash. “Excuse me?”

“Take off what has blood on it. Rinse what you want rinsed. Keep what you want kept. I won’t do it for you, not unless you ask,” I tell her.

“You’re really bad at comfort.”

“Yup.” I nod solemnly, and for a second, her mouth curves.

Then she practically tears her shirt over her head. It’s not sexy, not at first. It’s angry and fast, like the fabric itself has personally offended her. She throws it on the floor and it lands in a wet heap. Her undershirt follows. Then her hat. Then the bandana. Her hair falls loose, pale and tangled, and streaked with dried blood close to the ends.

I turn away.

“Don’t.”

The word crackles across the room and I stop.

“Look at me,” she demands.

I turn back.

She stands in the middle of the training room in just a bra and blood-stained pants, shoulders tight and chin lifted like she’s daring me to flinch. There’s blood on her stomach, her arms, her throat, but not all of it belongs to the dead men. Some of it’s from the wound on her arm and some of it’s from her hands and knee.

Her vitiligo cuts through all of the mess in pretty pale patches that I’ve only spotted a few times, through holes in her jacket or when her sleeve raised too far and revealed too much back when she was Stranger and I was the annoying pest she couldn’t get rid of.

Her body is shaking, but her eyes aren’t, and she repeats, “Look.”

“I’m looking,” I assure her.

“Not like you’re checking for injuries.”

“That’s generally considered a part of looking, though,” I say, trying to elevate her mood.

“Kaito.”

Right. Got it. I finally understand. She doesn’t want softness and she doesn’t want me to turn this thing into some kind of medical assessment or rescue. She just wants a witness. She wants to know if I can look at her, see everything she is right now, and still not turn away.

So, I look. Fully.

At the blood.

At the bruises.

At her bare skin.

At the bite Ewan left, angry and fresh on her throat.

At the dark fear under her eyes.

And at the girl who killed three guys and came back terrified because her body did it a little too well.

“I see you,” I tell her honestly.

Her mouth trembles only once. “What do you see?”