by April Lust
“I have to get this jacket off you, okay? Just tell me if I’m hurting you too much.”
He nodded and straightened out his arm so she could pull at his sleeve. The leather was stiff with blood and stuck to his skin. But it was already so shredded. It looked like someone had taken a knife to it, slicing the back into thin pieces.
“I’m just going to cut it off, okay? It’s already torn beyond repair.”
She ran to the kitchen to get scissors and when she came back, knelt by him to cut the jacket from him. Many pieces did stick, requiring her careful hand to peel them away without tugging on his skin. Where the back of the jacket had been slashed, his back was also cut in several long wounds. Most of them had crusted over with blood and didn’t seem to be too deep.
Since his shirt, too, was as damaged as his jacket, she kept going and cut it off. As she peeled away this layer, she could see the many stabs and bruises covering his skin. She had to clench her jaw and swallow hard. The anger welled in her mixing with her disgust of the bloody wounds. Maybe she wouldn’t have made a good nurse after all if she reacted like this to so much blood.
She ran the water in the tub, making sure it wasn’t too hot or too cold. His boots and socks came off easily. Aside from the blood that dripped down his legs, he was unharmed from the waist down. His jeans would be a challenge, though.
“Umm,” she said, standing over him. “Somehow, we have to get your pants off.”
He tried to pull himself up, but as he heaved, he went even paler than he’d been, and he stumbled over to the toilet in time to fall back to his knees and throw up into it. He groaned in pain with every heave, and when he was through, he rested his arms on the toilet seat, his forehead covered in sweat and blood.
“Well, I cut everything else off,” she said. “I guess that’s all we can do at this point.”
She carefully took her scissors and cut along the seams of his pants until he was left in just his boxers. He slid over to the tub, and swung a leg up over the edge to fall into the water with a splash.
Isabella quickly flushed the toilet, not daring to look at the bloodied water as it swooshed out of sight.
“Is the water okay? Too hot or too cold?”
He shook his head and leaned back in the tub. She picked up the wash cloth and started with his face, dabbing carefully around his eyes. He opened them to look at her, his right eye almost swollen shut, but his left eye a glittering green slit beneath thick eye lids.
“Thank you,” he whispered, and let his eyes close.
Once she cleaned his face and scrubbed his short blond hair, she moved down his chest, noticing for the first time how incredibly muscular he was. His lower stomach was a cluster of round muscles, his chest protruding out above it. His arms, too, were thick and round, the lines of his veins bulging out under his skin. He couldn’t have an ounce of fat on him. She didn’t have to do much to his legs, since they soaked in the water, but she ran the wash cloth over them anyway, feeling his hard, wide thighs and calves.
It looked like most of the damage was to his face and back. One leg had a welt on the side. Maybe someone had kicked him to drop him to his knees. In several places, his stomach and back were bruised and cut, with his back having the majority of the slashes across the skin. His face had several small cuts, was half purple with bruising, and the swelling seemed to be getting worse.
She let the water out of the tub and grabbed a towel to dry him off. But she’d only gotten past his head and face before the blood from his cuts had made a small pool in the tub around him.
“You’re bleeding too much,” she said. “I think you really should go to the hospital. We can go to one that’s far away if you want. I’ll drive you. But you might have internal bleeding.”
He shook his head. “I have too many enemies. They’ll find me.”
“You’d rather die here?”
“They’ll kill me anyway.”
Isabella rubbed at her face. What could she do? If he didn’t care if he died here, then she’d have to do her best to keep him alive. First, the wounds.
All she had were pink and purple glittered bandages in her bathroom cabinet. Sara loved them, but they’d be little help to this man. She went into her room and looked around. What could be used as a bandage? Her clean sheets sat in a pile in the corner. She’d come back from washing them at Sue’s yesterday and hadn’t had a chance to stuff them into the narrow hall closet yet. She picked up a pillow case and shook it out. This might be the perfect size.
In the bathroom, she helped him sit up, then took a hand towel, folded it in half, and placed it over his back. It covered the area of the wounds. She wrapped the pillow case around him, tying the corners in the front to keep pressure on the wounds. He groaned when she pulled it tight. Most of the cuts on his face were smaller. She dabbed away the new blood, smeared some ointment on them and covered his face in pink and purple glitter bandages.
“Sorry.” She almost chuckled at the sight. “These are all I have.”
“Least they don’t have kittens on them,” he muttered, pulling the corner of his mouth up.
“Ready to stand up?”
He gripped the sides of the tub and pushed himself up, pausing to tremble as he straightened his legs. His boxer shorts were now soaking wet and covered in blood.
“Umm.” She pulled her mouth to the side. “Those should probably come off.” She pointed to his boxers.
He nodded and she slid them down, trying not to look. But as she used the washcloth to remove the blood that had dripped from his back before she got the bandage in place, she snuck a peek at his front. She was not disappointed. His butt was firm and round.
She set the blanket on the floor for him to step onto and supported his weight as he lifted each leg over the edge of the tub.
They shuffled to her bedroom. He seemed to move even slower now, and she wondered if he was just getting tired and stiff, or if that meant his injuries were worse. She had no idea how internal bleeding worked, or what the signs would be if he were in danger of bleeding to death of unseen wounds.
Please don’t let him die in my apartment, she thought. She pulled back her covers and he slid into her bed. Too bad it wasn’t under better circumstances that she had a sexy naked man in her bed.
She brought him water and he sipped at it, then let his head fall back on the pillow.
“Can I get you anything else?”
“Ice,” he whispered.
“To drink or for your head?”
“Head.”
She went to the kitchen and filled a bag with ice, then wrapped a paper towel around it. Maybe some pain killers would be good, too. She stopped in the bathroom and took her bottle of ibuprofen from the mirror cabinet.
In her room, she carefully set the bag of ice over his worst spots of bruising and put the bottle of pills on the lid of her hamper, which doubled as her bedside table.
“Here are some pain killers, but I don’t know that they’ll help much. Is there anyone I can call for you or anything else you need?”
“No,” he whispered. “Thanks.”
“Okay. I’m going to leave the door open and sleep in the other room, so just call if you need anything.”
He didn’t respond, so she turned out the light and went to the living room to make a call. She dialed the number for Jeanine.
“Hey, hon, everything okay?” Jeanine said when she answered.
“Yeah, sort of. Can you keep Sara overnight?”
“Sure thing. What’s going on?”
“It’s nothing major.” How much should she tell her? “Just have a sick friend here, and I don’t want Sara to get it.”
“Oh, sure. No problem. She’s already asleep anyway.”
“Oh, good.” She was relieved that Sara was sleeping, even if it meant she didn’t get to say goodnight to her. Isabella didn’t think she could handle telling her she’d need to stay there away from her. It was the first night they’d spent apart since they left. B
ut it’d be much worse for Sara to wake up and find a strange man in her mom’s room, swollen and bloody. How would she ever explain that? “I’ll call in the morning, okay?”
“Have a good night and don’t you go getting sick, either.”
“No, I won’t, thanks.”
She hung up and went to clean up the bathroom. The blanket was still on the floor. It was dark blue in color, but she could see the spots of blood, almost black-looking. Would the stains come out? She ran cool water in the tub and dropped in the blanket, trying to rinse out as much as she could before wringing it and hanging it up on the shower curtain rod.
The floor had a few blood-tinged puddles, which she wiped up with the now pink washcloth. She tried to rinse it out, too, but it had been white and seemed like it would never be again. At least not without some strong bleach. Maybe Sue had some and she could try to soak it next time she went over to do laundry.
She sat down in the living room, exhausted. She didn’t feel like watching TV, but was too keyed up to sleep. Her mind ran back through the night. The man lying there on the ground, how she’d thought he was dead. Getting him into the car, getting him here and cleaned up. He had enemies, he said. Was he just another bad boy like her ex had been?
She thought it was hot in the beginning, the way Craig got into fights and always won. He was so strong and tough. But when those fists had turned toward her, it wasn’t so attractive anymore. She’d realized too late that his anger issues didn’t exclude her and that the way he led his motorcycle club with an iron first was the same way he’d rule her entire life. From the way she did laundry to the way she dressed, who she spent time with, where she went. And if she did something he didn’t like, she paid for it. Usually in bruises. Sometimes in blood.
Isabella still felt ashamed that it had taken her seven years, three and a half of those with Sara watching, before she got the courage to leave. And the money. She’d had to borrow from her parents, who had little, and had to leave almost everything she owned to get them out of there. But, they were here now, had been for six months.
From what she heard from people back home, Craig already had a new girlfriend. She’d expected him to come looking for her. She did take his child, after all. But when she thought of all the nights he’d screamed at her to make “that baby” shut up, she thought maybe he was glad to be rid of them. Just as well. She sure was glad to be rid of him.
She’d felt so free these last months, even if it had taken most of that time for her to stop looking over her shoulder. Now that this man was here, was she just inviting trouble back in? How badly did these enemies want him dead? What if they showed up at her door?
Isabella went into Sara’s room and climbed into her bed. She held her little purple bunny close and tried to sleep. But every little sound she heard, she jumped and had to listen carefully for several minutes to see if there was either someone at the door or if the man needed something. It was a good thing tomorrow was her day off. She would have been a zombie with such a late and restless night.
Around 2 a.m. she decided to check on the man. She tip-toed into her room, using only the light of the moon shining through the curtains to see. He was on his side and looked peaceful enough. She watched him for a moment, saw his chest rising and falling slowly, and felt the relief wash over her. Hopefully in the morning, he’d still be breathing.
Chapter Two
The morning felt late when Isabella opened her eyes. Cuddles, Sara’s bunny, was on the floor and the room was bright with light. She got up and immediately went to her room to check on him.
The first thing she thought was that he looked too pale. She went to him and put her hand on his shoulder. He felt warm, but not alarmingly so. She shook him gently and whispered, “Hey.”
He didn’t stir. She shook harder, starting to panic. Finally, he moved his head and his eyes opened as much as they could. The ice pack had fallen off in the night and sat on the bed beside him, a bag of water now.
She waited for him to stir enough to look at her. “How are you doing? Are you okay?”
He nodded slowly.
“Do you want to try to sit up? Maybe eat something?”
He slowly inched his way up until he was sitting with his back against the wall at the head of the bed.
His right eye was now swollen fully shut, but his left looked a little better. She could see more of his vivid green eye. His bruises were brighter purple and his lip and cheek had puffed out more in the night.
“More ice?”
He nodded and groaned. “My head is pounding,” he muttered.
“I bet. Here are the pills. I’ll get more water.”
She went to kitchen and poured him fresh water, then refilled his bag of ice. She mixed up a quick protein shake. This had always been her go to after Craig had hit her. It was easy to drink through a straw if necessary, gave some needed nutrients, but wasn’t hard on the stomach like a lot of food would be. And it didn’t require chewing, which never seemed a problem until every part of your face hurt.
Isabella brought the ice pack, water, and shake into the room, holding the ice under her arm. She quickly dropped the ice on the bed, then set the drinks on the hamper table. He picked up the ice and held it over his right eye.
“I made you a protein shake. They always worked well for me when I was hurting.” She stuck a straw in the drink and held it out to him.
He took a few sips. “Thank you.”
“So, can I ask, what’s your name?”
“Jace. Peters. You?”
“Isabella Smith. Nice to officially meet you.” She gave him a thin smile. “Wish it was under better circumstances. Here, take some ibuprofen.”
She opened the bottle and poured out a double dose, handing it to him with the water glass. He took a sip of the water and swallowed the pills, which seemed to cause him pain.
“What else can I do for you?” she asked.
He laughed once, then groaned. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough? I couldn’t ask for better care.”
“Good. I’m just worried. All that bleeding. If you have any internal bleeding, that needs to be taken care of right away. You could die from it. And drink plenty of water. That’ll help flush out your system from all the adrenaline and from the extra work your body is doing right now to recover.”
“You a nurse?”
“No.” She hung her head and realized she’d maybe said too much already. “I wanted to be once. I work in a gift shop now.”
“Sounds nice. Much easier.”
“Yeah, I guess. Less blood at least. But more complaints about inventory.”
His visible eye glimmered as he looked at her. Though his lip and part of his face were swollen, she could tell he was very good-looking. She wanted to run her hand along the soft-looking stubble on his chin and feel his smooth cheek. He probably had a girlfriend, though. He wasn’t wearing a ring, but maybe he was even married.
“Are you sure there isn’t someone I should call for you? A wife or girlfriend? Mother or father or other family member?”
He shook his head. “No girl, not much family, and the ones I do have won’t talk to me. Though they might be glad to hear I finally got what was coming to me.”
“So, you deserved this? That doesn’t seem accurate. No one ever deserves to be beaten like this.”
“You know a lot about it, do you?” He tilted his head at her and drank more of the protein shake.
“I know enough, I guess.”
She tried not to be excited over the “no girl” thing, and instead focused on the fact that his family didn’t talk to him. Craig’s family hadn’t talked to him either. How similar were they really? Did she just attract abusive men? Maybe that was her type. Maybe she was destined to either end up in a good relationship with someone she wasn’t attracted to, which might be okay if he treated her well, or she’d end up with someone she was greatly attracted to, like Jace, who would likely turn out to be just another wife beater. She was do
omed.
“You have a child?” he asked.
Had she mentioned Sara to him? “I do.”
“I saw the pink car seat. And did you know there’s a stuffed cat under the driver’s seat in your car?”
“Ahh. I did not know that, but I’m not surprised. Sara has quite the stuffed animal collection.”
“Sara,” he repeated. “And does Sara also know a lot about physical pain?”
Isabella’s face grew warm. Sara knew more than she wished she had. Craig had only hit her twice, both times were agony for Isabella, and the second time was what had urged her leave. It was one thing for her to take his anger, but she wouldn’t stand by and let that happen to her daughter.
