Not okay. Not okay at all.
He’s tugging on my hand. Tug tug tug, his hand working its way up my arm to my shoulder. Along the curve, to the back of my neck, the pressure of his fingers insubstantial after the crushing blows he’s dealt to my hand. “A few days.” The words come out through gritted teeth, his breathing labored. “A few days, then you’ll be rid of me.”
Painful words, words I don’t have defenses against.
“Good! It is settled. Murat and Ismael will help you get him to his flat.” The doctor bustles around, tossing his tools into his bag without care.
“No.”
“No?” What the hell does he mean, no? “You can’t stay here.”
The hand on my neck tightens. “I can’t go back to me flat.”
And I’m not taking him to mine. My haven. My sanctuary. Where no one can find me and I hide for days. The solitude is the only thing that makes this war bearable, knowing the people out there dying aren’t people I care for. Selfish, yes, but it keeps me sane.
“You must go somewhere.” Murat pulls out his intimidating face, but it doesn’t work on Declan. “The clinic is not safe. You will not return to your flat? We take you to Nora’s.”
“No!” The hold on my neck breaks as I surge up. “N-n-no, he can’t. I can’t have him there.”
The room quiets, everyone’s eyes on me. Staring. Waiting.
There’s one place I can take him. It’s likely cold and dusty and stale–smelling, but no one will find him there.
I push the air from my lungs. “If you’re worried people will come looking for you, I know where you can stay.”
* * *
I’m right. It’s cold and dusty and stale–smelling. Full of ghosts. Haunting laughter and sighs, and harsher, sharper sobs. Echoes of a dying and dead relationship. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t his. It was theirs. The rebels and their stupid war took my fiancé from me. All I’ve got left are these shreds that I’m forever trying to pull into a whole.
“Wow. This place has not been used in a while, huh?” Murat helps Declan across the small room to the even smaller bedroom.
I shrug. “Wasn’t any reason to.” Not after Ryan died. This place was supposed to be nothing more than a weigh station. I’d never imagined it would be the mausoleum to our dream. “Bedroom’s through there. The blankets are probably in terrible shape.”
The three men make their way into the darkened room, Declan muttering in pain. The guys were probably maneuvering him onto the bed. He’ll need food. Water. Clean clothes and soap. Towels and better blankets that aren’t dusty and possibly moldy. “Hey, Murat?”
He sticks his head out, wincing as Declan curses. “Yes?”
“I need to go out, grab some stuff. Can one of you stay with him until I get back?”
He narrows his eyes. “Maybe I should come with you. Ismael can stay here.”
His concern is touching, if misplaced, considering I’ve been running around this city mostly unseen for almost two years. “I’ll be fine.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
Oh. “I’m going to come back. I promise.”
“Do. Or no vodka for you.”
I flip him the bird. “Get his address for me. I’ll grab some of his stuff while I’m out.”
Murat disappears into the gloom, the low rumbles of conversation rising to frantic shouts. “Where is she? She can’t go!”
Sighing, I walk into the room, squinting as my eyes adjust to the shadows. “Someone has to. There’re no supplies here, and someone’s got to go get them. If you want clean clothes, you give me your address.”
“So send one of them.” His accent’s more pronounced now that he’s not wheezing with pain every three seconds.
“I could.” But they can’t blend like I can. They’ll attract attention. I don’t. Or, at least, not much.
No one speaks. It’s an audio version of a Mexican standoff, but I have no stakes in the outcome. If Declan wants to spend days sitting around in his dirty, torn clothes, he’s free to do so.
“Dolac Malta,” he says at last.
Dolac Malta’s some distance from here. How he ended up in our streets is something most people would be curious about, but asking questions only leads to more questions and conversations I’d rather not have. I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut.
“I’ll be a while, then.” An age, if I can. Being in the flat is making me twitchy, and the less time I spend in it, the better. The weight of all those memories is suffocating. Coming here was a terrible idea.
A few days. Until the worst of the pain passes and he can move about more freely. Or as freely as you can with a broken leg, a multitude of bruises, a dislocated shoulder, a sprained wrist, and several broken ribs. Oh, and let’s not forget the possible concussion.
Maybe more than a few days. Dammit.
Murat and Ismael are used to my coming and going without so much as a word, and I swing out of the flat, down to the street, planning my route. The encroaching twilight will both help conceal me but make the trek more dangerous. Shutting down my thoughts, I draw in a frosty breath and focus on the route that will take me to my flat. Two blocks down. Through the alley. Three blocks over, a block back, another five blocks down. A crack-like alley. A passageway between buildings, cross the street, a block back. All so I’m invisible. All so I can’t be found. Ridiculous, at first, then necessary when Cristian found me. Now I have a reason not to be followed.
Being followed means he can find me whenever he wants. I hold all the cards so far by being unreachable, and I intend to keep it that way.
My flat is cooling and dark by the time I reach it. I can’t take much. Too heavy a load cuts down on the response time, and with bullets flying out of nowhere, a half-second is the difference between living and dying.
Clean sheets, an extra blanket. A change of clothes for myself. Food. Water. Another blanket. The sweatshirt I swore I’d left in Murat and Ismael’s flat and they claimed they didn’t have.
I have too much stuff. The growing bundle is heavier than I’d like, and I’ll need to move quickly to get to Dolac Malta before it gets too late. It’ll have to stay here for the time being. I’ll pick up Declan’s clothes and come back for the blankets.
Inefficient. But necessary. Declan’s choices are grubby clothes or going naked, and I’d rather not have to deal with a naked Declan. Or any naked man, for that matter. So clothing. Nice, clean clothing.
His shoulders are so broad. How had they managed to take him down, take him by surprise? The dark hair should have allowed him to blend in, as long as he kept his mouth shut. Irish. He must be Irish, with a name like Declan. Declan of the broad shoulders and pain–roughened voice.
My swirling thoughts are the only excuse I have for why I run right into Murat the second I open the door. “Jesus!”
“I thought you might need help. Declan would not shut up until one of us went after you.” He peers around me into the flat. “You are not close, are you? And you walk home in the dark, after the vodka.” The scowl on his face shouldn’t be comforting, but it is. “Nora. No more. You drink, you sleep on our couch. Or we take you home.”
The wall around my stinking well of emotions has too many cracks and patches in it. His words threaten to undo me because, as mean and chastising as they sound, it means he cares. It means they both care, and I can’t have people caring for me.
Murat’s a big guy, and his hands make my arms look like matchsticks as he clasps them, moving me to the side and scooping up the bundle I’ve dropped by the door. “Let’s go. And you will tell me why you led me on a duck chase.”
“You mean goose chase. It’s so I won’t be followed.” Because he’s here, I clatter down the stairs instead of slink, not bothering to muffle my footsteps. It’s not hard to do; just contract your leg muscles and hold everything stiff. “Obviously I need a different route.”
“But why do you do it in the first place?” He pushes open the door to the
street.
Because if I don't, Cristian will find me. I'll never know peace again. “There are—” A pause. “—people who think I’d be useful. And they refuse to accept I’m of no use to anyone.” It’s true. I’ll never be a spy. A thief, a runner, a broken human, a shell of the girl I was, but never a spy. Never for him, no matter how enticing his promise of a way out of the country is.
Murat stops me with a hand on my shoulder, and again there’s the sensation I could be snapped into tiny pieces. I’ve seen Ismael in full temper, chasing off rebels and soldiers alike, driving them from the neighborhood, but never Murat. Ismael’s buddy is the friendlier of the two, though just as fierce in a fight. “You are in trouble? You need help?”
I can’t help it. I stiffen. “No.” His hand drops away at the ice in the word.
The streets are quieter than I’d like, a distant rat–a–tat–tat warning us of a firefight some streets over. Too faint to be close enough we’ll run into it, loud enough for nerves to kick in my belly. My feet are itchy and my hands twitch along with my shoulders and my hips. We’re moving too slow.
“Nora?”
“Faster,” I whisper. We need to get off the streets, out of the way, grab the clothes and be back soon. Now. Soonnow.
Declan’s block has all the streetlights shot out. The dark covers everything, turning the buildings into fuzzy outlines. It’s as close to utter silence as you can get in the middle of a city in the middle of a war zone, and it’s got me closer to the edge than being weighed down with Murat’s presence.
I don’t need to tell him to walk softly. The pair of us creep up the steps side by side. The landing is clear. So’s the hallway.
The door to the flat is wide open, beckoning a sinister welcome.
Setting the bundle of blankets down, Murat jerks his head to the door, holding up his hand for me to wait. That’s fine. I’m perfectly content to wait out here, in the dark hallway that is probably clear of anyone wanting to get into some shenanigans. A few tense minutes later, he motions for me to come inside and eases the door shut behind me.
Somehow the war outside made its way into Declan’s flat. Books and papers, food cartons, broken plates, ripped pillows and cushions with the stuffing spilling out like entrails. Clothing and shoes and paper, so much more paper than one would expect. Bending down, I pick up a scrap. Glossy. Smooth and glossy, like a photograph.
Torn pictures, littering every surface.
Murat disappears into the bedroom in search of intact clothes, leaving me to scout out perishables. I can’t stop picking up the pieces of the photos. They’re a puzzle I need to figure out, only Murat’s reappeared and I don’t have time. The paper falls from my hands, useless.
Murat doesn’t question me when I take the lead, zigging and zagging our way home, doubling back, circling, edging around corners and darting through glass-strewn streets.
Ismael’s grumbling is loud enough to be heard on the steps. “Soon. He will keep her safe.” The relief in his eyes doesn’t quite cancel out the impatience as we walk through the door. “See? She is back now.”
“I can’t fuckin’ well see. I can’t get off the bed.” Declan’s disembodied voice holds even more pain than it did before. My stomach knots at the sound. I can’t do this. And I really don’t want to take the syringe Ismael’s holding out.
Why couldn’t the doctor have given him the shot earlier?
“He would not let me stick him until you got back,” Ismael says as I stare at the needle.
“He’s incapacitated. You could have dosed him anyway.”
“Nora?” Declan, calling from the bedroom.
Nora, the way it sounds, even with his ravaged voice. Something dark and sinful and lovely. My name never sounded as sweet when Ryan said it. An unfamiliar feeling wells. Guilt. I nudge it aside.
Snatching the syringe, I stalk into the bedroom. “Sheets and blankets need to be changed first. Guess it’s a good thing you’re still conscious.” The brothers shift him off the bed and prop him against the wall, stripping the sheets and blankets aside, smoothing on the clean ones. “Why were you waiting until I got back?”
Declan’s eyes are still swollen, but there’s a gleam of blue in them, the cracks wide enough for me to see the irises. “You’re a tiny thing, and you went out there alone. You’d already risked your life for me once today. Keep doing it and I’ll be further in debt. I hate owing people.”
Sheets changed, he’s helped onto the bed again, and he growls until they leave. “I hate being at your mercy almost as much, lass.” Lass? Lass is Scottish. Maybe he’s Scottish. “Go ahead.” He holds out his good arm.
The man is in a tremendous amount of pain, and he waited until I returned before allowing anyone to dose him. For what? Because he feared I wouldn’t come back, that I’d leave him helpless? “Don’t you think you’d be more comfortable if your clothes weren’t all bloody and soaked?”
One side of his mouth pulls up in a smirk. His lips are unblemished, full and firm. “Gonna undress me?”
It's been so long. The guilt rises again, spreading sticky little tendrils through my chest.
“Hey.”
Ryan’s gone. I have no reason to feel guilty.
“Nora.” He tries to snap his fingers and grimaces. “I’m foolin’ with you. And yes, if you could get me boots off, that’ll do for now.”
Foolin’. Turning away, I head for the kitchen, ignoring his protests, and find the scissors exactly where I knew they’d be, in the second drawer to the left of the sink.
Declan’s eyes widen as much as they can as I give them a testing snap. “Now—”
“Oh, hush. It’ll be easier to cut them off you.” Easier said than done, too, the denim stiff with blood and dirt. Half of one leg is already ripped, thank god, from the cast. He’s motionless as I snip away, only daring to move when I ask him to lift his hips. I cut away his sweater, a beautiful heavy blue wool I hate ruining. The boots come off, and I tug the covers over him before I have a chance to see him, really see him, stretched out before me dressed in nothing but boxer briefs, a cast, an Ace bandage, and medical tape and cotton pads.
“Can you move onto your side a little?” He does, and I slide the needle in, depressing the plunger. “Now shut up and get some rest. I’ll wake you in an hour.”
“Yes, Nurse Ratched,” he mumbles.
Without waiting to see if he sleeps, I hurry out of the room.
Chapter Three
He’s awake.
Shuffles and muffled whimpers drift out of the bedroom. Crap. I was supposed to have checked on him several hours ago, and I forgot, too wrapped up in my own thoughts and half-baked plans to remember his concussion. Now it’s early morning, early enough it still looks like night, and Declan’s awake.
Something thunks, followed by a streak of blue words. The crash followed by another thunk sends me into the bedroom.
He curses again when I flip on the overhead light. The lamp’s on the floor, and his fingers are doing their best to dig into the fake wood of the bedside table. “What are you doing?”
“Dancing a jig,” he growls. Someone doesn’t wake up pleasant. “Bathroom through there?” He jerks his head toward the door in the wall.
Nodding, I start forward, jerking to a stop when he growls again. “G’won. I’ve got it.” His eyes are still mostly swollen, but there’s no mistaking the glare. Fine. If he wants to stumble around and hurt himself even more, he’s welcome to do so.
More thunks, more cursing, another crash. Shaking my head, I make my way to the tiny kitchen and hope there’s something that can be used as an icepack. The swelling on his face looks horrid.
The electricity hasn’t been cut on this block, and the fridge cooled off quickly once it was plugged back in. The ice in the trays is cloudy and dirt–encrusted. It’s frozen. That’s what matters. It pops out with a crack.
I need a towel. A washcloth. Some kind of cloth.
The flat looks the same as it did when
I abandoned it two years ago, if a little shabbier with age. The kitchen towels should be in the same place. Wary of spiders and other nasty things, I stick my hand in the drawer and pull one out. I dump the ice into the middle of a towel and wad it up.
Declan’s managed to navigate his way back from the bathroom, though he’s balancing on one foot next to the bed. The scowl he shoots me speaks for itself; he can’t quite lower his body to the bed without causing himself immense pain or falling over. Placing the towel full of ice on the bedside table, a grunt escapes me as I take most of his weight. He hisses and flops inelegantly onto the bed, sheets and blankets bunched under him. “Thanks,” he grumbles.
“Here.” I pass him the towel. “It’s for your face. Help with the swelling.”
He doesn’t say anything, just presses it over his eyes, groaning as the cold seeps
through to his skin. It’s not long before the chill of the flat pricks goose bumps on his skin. I’m terrible at this nursing thing. If I’d been thinking, I’d have moved the covers out of the way before he got back into bed. “Lift your hips.”
He doesn’t.
“Declan. You want to freeze?”
“Not particularly.”
“Then lift your hips, you ass. The blankets are all bunched up under you.” With a grunt, he does, abs contracting with the effort, the light throwing his bruises and scrapes into stark relief.
It always hits when I least expect it and never at a convenient time. I’m not sure there’s ever a convenient time for a panic attack. It’s a rising wave of greasy, oily black, suffocating and intense. I’m pulling the blankets up, fingers brushing his shoulder, and the miniscule contact rushes through me. A vise tightens its grip on my lungs. Ryan’s in the street, broken and still. The ground is wobbly and someone’s speaking. I think. I can’t hear too well.
Then there’s a wall of sound, Ryan’s whimpers and hisses, the agonized screams, grunts and taunts in a language I can’t understand. A grip so tight on my wrist I’ll have bruises, and the sound stops and it’s just Declan, but he’s so far away. Tiny, tiny, growing smaller by the minute until there’s nothing more than black sucking me in.
Fracture Page 2
