I glare at him a moment longer, then grab one of the suture kits and slam the cabinet closed.
“Whiskey, too,” he says.
“You’re going to need it.” I take the bottle out, too, and shove it at him. “Drink up.”
He unscrews the cap and drinks deep. His Adam’s apple bobs with every swallow. I busy myself with washing my hands.
“Where do you get these things?” I examine the contents of the suture kit. A curved needle. A length of surgical thread. Sterilizing wipe. Pair of scissors.
“Internet.”
I stare at the wicked curve of the needle. “Okay, slugger. Talk me through this.”
“Use the swab to sterilize the area. Don’t want to die of sepsis or something.” He takes a last swig of whiskey and sets the bottle down. Some of the tension slides out of his face.
I clean his cut and the skin around. Goose bumps rise to meet my touch. Despite the totally screwed-up nature of the situation, a tiny traitorous voice in the back of my head reminds me that this is the most I have ever touched him.
His breath stirs the air by my ear. “Now thread the needle. We’re going to do an interrupted stitch, right? Means each stitch is its own thing, disconnected from the others, not like the frilly needlepoint you do.”
I look up at him from under my lashes. “Do you want to make jokes, or do you want me to save your life?”
He laughs, then winces. “Look who’s found herself a God complex now that she’s got a needle in hand. All right, Cherry, hold the sides of the cut together with one hand. Take the needle, slip it through the skin on one side, and use the curved bit to scoop under and come out the other. You tie off the stitch with a knot and start again.”
I stare at the deep cut in his side. I look at the needle in my hand. This seems like a very stupid idea. I’m not sure Valentine’s drunk near enough whiskey.
“C’mon, Red. I know some part of you has always wanted to stab me.”
I pinch the edges of his wound together. He hisses.
I push the needle into his skin. His knuckles grip white on the edge of the sink.
“Great,” he grunts. “Now do like I said. Under and out the other side.”
I pass the needle through, cut the thread, then tie the whole thing off.
“Whoa.” My face is inches from his side. He twists around to see, nervous. “That was cool,” I breathe.
“God help me,” Valentine mutters and takes another slug of whiskey.
I slide the needle back through his skin. A tiny, choked moan escapes him. In and out. Tie off each knot. Again. Valentine takes slow breaths, like he’s trying to meditate or something.
After the last stitch, I paste a clean white bandage over his side.
“Thanks.” He hops off the sink and pats the counter twice. “Your turn.”
“I’m fine. It doesn’t need anything.” I turn to leave the bathroom. Nothing good can happen with the two of us in this confined space.
He steps in front of me. “Let me take a look.” He’s still not wearing a shirt. My arguments dry up in my throat.
I take his place on the counter, and Valentine stands between my legs. I’m too warm, even though my jacket’s in a heap by the front door, and I’m only wearing the flimsy black tank top Cass chose.
“Chin up.” He wraps his pale, beaten fingers around my jaw, turning my face under the light to inspect my wound. Just like that first night, at the diner, his bruises look so much worse under the fluorescent lights.
“You ever get banged up like this before?” he asks. “On your first case. Lucy. Did he…?”
“No.” The only time Matt Caine ever touched me was that hand on my shoulder. His thumb sweeping under the strap of my tank top.
My arm still aches where the guy tonight grabbed me. Pinned me to the car. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t run. Helpless.
I pull myself together and keep talking. “I was running from some guys last year, and I slipped in broken glass.” I extend my right arm, exposing the jagged white thread of a scar that runs from my wrist to my elbow. “Seventeen stitches, but I got away. Not the same thing as a knife.”
Valentine runs a finger over it. I shiver, but only slightly. Maybe he didn’t notice. He swallows and pulls his hand back.
I angle my face back into the light. There’s a dead wasp that’s found its final resting place inside the light fixture.
Valentine wets a cotton ball with antiseptic. The smell is cold and sharp. I hiss at the sting as he swabs my face.
“Oh, don’t be a baby,” he says. I look down from the wasp to glare at him.
His eyes slide away from mine. “You took it pretty well. Lot of people couldn’t handle a switchblade to the face.”
I shift my seat on the hard counter. “You make it sound like I had an eye gouged out. It’s just a cut.”
But his gentle fingers on my face make the wound more real. Here, in his bathroom, no longer running for my life, all of my fear catches up to me.
I got hurt. Someone wants me dead, and tonight they nearly made it happen. I bite down until my teeth creak.
“You don’t have to do that,” Valentine says.
“What?”
“Pretend you’re not afraid.” He squints in concentration, cleaning my cut in quick, meticulous strokes, but I know he’s watching my reaction out of the corner of his eye.
With inches between us, there’s no room for that other side of him, the part of himself he uses like a wall between us. There’s no room for that part of me, either.
“I am afraid.” I’m so quiet, but he’s close enough to hear. “I just don’t see what good it does to admit it.”
His eyes meet mine, and this time he doesn’t look away.
I am painfully aware of his bare skin. So much of it, inches away. I never let myself look at him this much. There are two parallel freckles just below the outer corner of his right eye. His heartbeat flutters against the thin skin of his throat. Fragile and rabbit fast.
I could lean back now. Let those walls slide back into place.
I reach out, the pads of my fingers grazing his pulse point. He tenses, then leans into my touch. His skin is so, so warm. He closes his eyes, and a low hum of pleasure escapes him.
I lean forward to the very edge of the counter and press my lips to his.
Valentine’s reaction is immediate. His arms wrap tight around me, pulling me close. He tastes warm and faintly sweet, like whiskey. I am touching him everywhere, hands on his back, his waist, the low dip of his hips. His fingers tangle in my sticky, bloody hair. My bun comes loose from its mooring.
My fear is gone. The only thing I feel now is the sharp scrape of his nails against my scalp, the desperate press of his lips to the skin behind my ear. I have held myself back from trusting him, from wanting him, since the day we met. But he was right there beside me in the fight tonight, and now all I can think is closer and more.
He stills. Exhales a ragged breath against my cheek and steps back.
I blink against the harsh lights. Valentine’s not looking at me anymore. He fumbles to open a fresh bandage. His lips are swollen pink from kissing, and an electric bolt of longing zaps through me. He’s still not looking at me.
“What the hell was that?” I manage.
“Turn your face back into the light.”
I wait, but he keeps his eyes on the ground. I do as he asked, still waiting for a real response, but he just smooths the bandage over my cheek. His touch is light and fast, like he’s trying to avoid too much contact with my skin.
He hesitates, then offers his hand to help me down from the sink. He doesn’t immediately let go once my feet are on the ground.
He did this that first day, too. At the dumpster. Here we are again, back where we started. We keep spinning around in circles. It makes me want to scream.
We stand there, chest to chest, with my hand wrapped in his. His eyelids are heavy and his lips parted. I could reach out and touch him again. I can see t
he tension in his wrist, in his shoulders, his jaw. How much he wants me to do it.
I’m suspended in amber. Unable to move. Too confused and vulnerable to make that choice again.
After a moment, he lets go of my hand.
“Let’s get you home, Cherry.”
I can feel Valentine’s eyes on the side of my face as I watch the road. We’re about a minute away from my house.
I’m driving again. No way was I getting in the passenger seat after all the whiskey he drank, and he didn’t put up much of an argument. After the kiss, I think he just wanted to get rid of me as fast as possible.
He keeps almost saying something.
He drums his fingers against his knee. I gnaw on my lip. When he does this, it usually means he’s lying about something.
I park down the street from my house, but neither one of us moves.
He finally speaks. “I’m sorry.”
I stare out the window. I don’t want to hear him apologize for the kiss, or tell me it was a mistake. That much was already clear.
“I didn’t mean what I said before,” he says. “If it were me, if it were Annabelle, I’d have chased after Dorsey, too.”
I look around, surprised. The lights are off. He’s lit only by the thin, silvery light of the moon.
“Yeah, but you got hurt,” I say slowly. “That’s my fault.”
He shakes his head once. “Dorsey did that, and you and I will make him pay. For all of it.”
I’m suddenly aware of how small the car is, how little air there is between us. I remember again the way his skin shivered under my hands, the ruthless grip of his hands in my hair. Even in the dark, I can tell he’s remembering all the same things.
He says, “I want to teach you self-defense.”
The moment breaks. “Excuse me?”
He takes a breath to say something, then pauses, like he’s changed his mind. “I won’t always be around, you know? Can’t be your muscle all the time.”
My chest constricts at the thought of him gone. It’s the same unsettled feeling I got in his barren apartment. Like he might vanish at any moment.
Valentine adds, “Plus, if I ever really piss you off, I want you to be able to kick my ass.”
He’s deflecting. Putting the walls back up. I guess it’s his turn to do that.
Still, it’s not a bad idea. I got cornered tonight, and it didn’t feel good.
Another vision flashes through my mind. His hands on my shoulders as he shows me how to punch. Valentine, flushed and sweaty, tackling me to a gym mat. His mouth inches away.
I suck in my cheeks. Not going there.
His shifts in his seat as he waits for my response, like he’s afraid I’m going to tear him apart for the suggestion.
I say, “Yeah, okay. Teach me.”
He smiles. The good smile. I feel myself doing the same.
I wait for a moment. Give him one more chance. He doesn’t move.
I unbuckle my seat belt. “Okay, then. Night.”
He ducks his head. “Night, Cherry.”
I stand in front of my bedroom mirror in the dark. My arm is tender, and I twist to see the bruises on my biceps. Five of them. Five fingers that grabbed me. There’s another sore spot on my lower back, where he pressed me into the car door.
My joints ache. That happens when adrenaline wears off.
The white bandage on my cheek looks blue in the moonlight. It’s freckled with small dark spots where blood has leaked through.
The shaking starts at the tips of my fingers and spreads through my whole body. My knees go weak and give out. I am alone in my room, and there are no more distractions from my fear. My bones tremble with the force of it. A sob surges out of me so strong, it’s soundless.
The lights blink on. I don’t lift my face from my hands.
My grandfather’s voice. “What happened?”
I want to hide my face forever. I never want him to see.
I lift my head and blink into the bright lights. He’s standing over me. As he takes in the bandage on my face, his expression shifts from mild concern to a blind terror that matches my own.
He sinks to the ground beside me. “Who hurt you?”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen him on his knees before. The shaking starts up again. There’s a block in my throat. I can’t speak.
He touches my face, turning my cheek to see the bandage. He’s gentle, but I shrink away.
“What happened?” His voice rises with desperation. “Tell me.”
“It’s just a scratch.” DeeDee, the stuffed monkey I threw at Cass earlier, is still lying on my floor. A point to focus on, so I don’t have to look at anything else.
He says quietly, “Don’t lie to me.”
DeeDee blurs.
“Look at me,” he says. Then louder: “Look at me!”
I tear my eyes away from the monkey. He’s a tall man. It’s unbearable to see him at my eye level.
I look at my knees. “I followed Dorsey, okay? Some guys didn’t like that, but I’m fine. I got away. It’s just a cut.”
I screamed when the knife went in. What would Gramps do, if he’d seen me like that? Pinned up against the car. Helpless.
He doesn’t need to know.
I take a deep breath. “Look, I get that it’s scary for your granddaughter to come home hurt, but—”
“You understand nothing.” He rises to his feet and paces the room. “You’re reckless. You are reckless, and foolish, and this stops now. You will end this.”
Two and a half years ago, he said something similar. We were sitting in a parked car outside the police station. His hands gripped the steering wheel.
This is over. You are a child if you think you’re going to get him now.
He was right that time. I was a child. But I’m trying so hard to be different now.
My bones scream in protest as I stand. “What happened to yesterday, all that stuff you said in the car? I thought you trusted me.” I don’t mean to yell, but I can’t help it. In the back of my mind, a voice reminds me that he’s afraid, too. But I’m tired, and I’m hurt, and I just need him to decide what kind of parent he wants to be because I can’t take this whiplash anymore.
His voice rises to meet mine. “I trusted you not to be reckless, and you’ve betrayed that trust. You’re hurt, Flora. What will make you take that seriously?”
Noises in the hall. Olive’s awake.
“I do take it seriously, but what am I supposed to do? Cry? Hide? That’s not me. You’re supposed to know that.”
He sighs. “I thought I could trust you to learn from your past mistakes. You have disappointed me.”
We’ve arrived. This is the moment I am finally too much for him. I knew it was coming, but the pain of it knocks the wind out of me.
“Right back at you,” I choke out.
His face looks more worn than usual. I’ve barely slept since Ava died. Maybe he’s staring at his ceiling every night, too. I want more than anything to reach out to him now, for him to reach out to me.
We stand there—both exhausted and heartbroken, neither able to cross the few feet of distance between us.
He leaves. I wait until I hear his bedroom door close, then fall face-first on my bed and weep.
This used to happen a lot, with Mom. She would scream and plead and say horrible things that made me hate myself and her. And then she’d walk away, and I’d know she could hear me sobbing, but she never, ever came back to make sure I was okay.
It hurts more with him.
Someone enters the room, but I don’t lift my head. I know it’s Olive. I know he didn’t come back.
The mattress sinks under her weight. “He didn’t mean it.”
“Yeah, he did. We both did. That’s the problem.” The pillow muffles my voice.
“No, the problem is that you two are practically the same person. You hold in your feelings until you explode.”
I lift my head. “Stop being wise. It’s annoying.”
/>
“I know.” She puts her hand on my back. It’s something Mom used to do when we were little and couldn’t sleep. The gesture is comforting and disturbing at the same time. “You’re both just scared. Maybe if you admit it, we can all deal with it together instead of yelling at each other.”
“I mean it. Say one more smart thing and you’re out on your ass.” I sit up a little, leaving mascara smears on my pillow.
“I overheard you and Cass talking earlier.” Olive picks at the black smudge. “I looked into that text message.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. “What, were you listening at my door with a shot glass?”
She rolls her eyes. “Your room is next to mine. Don’t yell so much if you don’t want to be heard. Anyway, the text was sent as a chat, like in iMessage? They created an account with a fake email—that’s how they managed it. It wouldn’t be hard to do at all.”
I know I should be keeping her away from this stuff. Under the bandage, my cut throbs. Whatever Gramps thinks, I do understand how serious, how scary, this has gotten. I don’t want to see Olive in the same kind of danger.
But Olive and I haven’t really gotten along in years, not since Mom left. Things with Gramps are such a disaster, it’s hard not to want my little sister right now. She’s going to keep doing this stuff whether I yell at her or not. For all of our differences, Olive and I are the same like that.
“Thanks,” I say.
She continues picking at the teary mascara on my pillow. “The thing is, because they set it up that way, there’s no way to know for sure who sent it. I could tell that it was sent over Wi-Fi, though, which means I could trace the IP address.”
Hope strains my overexhausted heart. “Yeah?”
She wipes my mascara crust off on her pajama pants. “It came from inside the high school.”
My concealer isn’t doing me any favors. The makeup is chalky and yellow next to the crisp white edge of my bandage. I wipe it off.
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