Page 15 of Ballistic

“Once you’re out of the woods, I promise to remove them. Relax, before your fingers pop off your hands.”

“Why the cuffs?”

I lifted my shirt to the three streaks across my stomach, where the lingering burn reminded me of the one time she’d tried to claw through me to get another dose of the pills.

The groove in her forehead deepened with a frown, eyes fixed on my wound. “I don’t remember that.”

“Wish I didn’t. Wasn’t pretty.” I lifted the Styrofoam cup from the nightstand beside her and angled the straw to her mouth.

Her gaze fell to the cup and back, eyes wary. Couldn’t blame her, except I happened to be the one who’d been feeding her water and cleaning up her vomit and shit the last few days. “What is it?”

“Water. Required to stay alive, ya know. Drink.”

One eye twitched as she lifted her head and wrapped her lips around the tip of the straw, keeping her gaze locked on mine, as she sucked the fluids. Her cheeks caved, ravenous it seemed with thirst, and when the gurgles told me she’d sucked it down, I set the cup back on the nightstand.

“I won’t keep you here long. You still have a few hard days coming up, but you’re almost through the worst of it. I got a doc friend of mine who’s gonna check you out. Make sure that cut on your thigh isn’t serious. Been cleaning and keeping it covered, but you’ve had a fever the last few days.”

“No doctors.”

“Nicoleta.” Strange the way her name rolled off my tongue, and her eyes twitched as if in reaction. “You need to be checked out. No one’s gonna hurt you. I’ll make sure of that.”

“I said no doctors.”

“Well, too bad. That cut’s been draining for three days, and it’s starting to reek. I can’t just pull some antibiotics out of my ass and make it go away.”

Her eyes narrowed on me. “But you have Hedonic.”

“You don’t need it.”

“You don’t know what I need,” she snapped back.

Arms crossed over my chest, I huffed. I had no idea what the girl had suffered, so she was right, I was clueless as to what she needed. And the shit part about that was, whatever had happened to her made her view me as an enemy.

She didn’t trust me enough to tell me what she needed, that much I could see.

“I’m going to get you something to eat.”

“I’m not—”

“I know. You’re not hungry. You’ve said that every day, but you have to eat to stay alive, so I don’t much give a shit if you’re hungry, or not.”

“What do you want from me? What is it you’re expecting me to do?”

I had to admit, her question threw me off for a second. “I don’t want anything from you.”

Eyes locked on mine, she rolled her head against the pillow. “I remember you. That day Tesarik bought me.”

I couldn’t get the visual out of my head. It’d driven me to the brink of madness, and for a split second, I wondered if she’d thought about me after that day, or if I melded in with all the other strange faces she’d undoubtedly encountered since.

“Why did you come after me?”

The answer seemed simple enough to me. So obvious, I didn’t understand why she’d ask it. “I didn’t want anything to happen to you.”

“Bullshit! No one saves anyone. No one risks their life to help someone.”

“Maybe not in your world, Nicoleta. But in mine? That’s what we do. How we survive.”

Her eyes sharpened into mocking amusement. “Yeah, it’s big business in your world, isn’t it? Trading girls off like we’re nothing but objects to be bought and sold.”