on his face… It’s like the trigger to the pain I didn’t feel until now. Pulsating, burning, pinching agony.
He grabs my arm, pulling me inside without waiting for an explanation. The interior of his shop passes in a blur. It feels like I blink, and the next second, he’s hauling me into that back room, making me sit on the edge of the table.
“Look up,” he commands, gripping my chin.
My eyes burn from the artificial light as I comply. Something warm is dribbling down my chin, and I realize for the first time—as my body favors my right side—that the left is on fire. My knee is throbbing, and my shoulder feels stiff. With every passing second, the adrenaline wears off, giving way to a crippling sensation with each frantic beat of my heart.
Pain, pain, pain…
“He did this to you.” He’s not asking—he’s telling. Branden did this to me, causing so much blood it coats his fingertips as he continues his inspection. My brother smashed his fist into my face, the same way the man before me now attacked someone else.
Like an animal.
I don’t even register standing, but somehow, I’m limping into the hall, aware of him watching me. I feel like I’m moving underwater, weighed down, and clumsy. I keep my focus on the door, though who knows what I’ll find waiting for me beyond it. I just know I have to keep moving. Leave now.
Because the prospect of what might happen if I don’t scares me more than anything Branden is capable of.
Eventually, I make it to the door, grappling along the wall for support. My fingers curl around the handle, but a larger hand reaches from behind me, snatching my arm away. My feet leave the ground a heartbeat later, but my brain is slow to piece the reality of what’s happening together until I’m being carried inside a familiar living room and shoved onto a leather couch.
I think I try to say something, but my voice is so garbled, I don’t even understand the words.
But he does. “You can barely fucking walk,” he snarls before entering the kitchen with an enviable display of speed.
Seconds later, he returns with his arms piled high with supplies that put my meager sewing kit to shame.
“Your face is going to scar if you don’t go to a hospital,” he tells me, prodding my left cheek, which aches the most.
Any other day, I’d react to that fact with more panic. More guilt. A scar would mean more questions. Questions would mean more chances to screw up and betray Branden, which would only lead to him trying to exert more control over my life in general.
But now?
I can’t feel anything but the warm fingers smoothing the hair from my face. He dampens a paper towel and applies a cool liquid to my cheek next, holding it there despite how I flinch.
“Don’t move,” he warns. “You don’t want this to get infected.”
He continues to apply more liquid with a familiarity that makes me suspect this isn’t the first time he’s patched someone up like this. Bonnie? No. Something in his stern expression triggers the memory of what he said to me the night he was stabbed. You looked like me. Those scared bunny eyes…
“You need to take off your shirt,” he commands, drawing back. He stands and exits the room, seemingly expecting me to comply on my own.
I stare down at my sweater, speckled red in places, but I can’t seem to make my arms move. By the time he reenters the room, I haven’t budged.
But he’s already stripped off his bloodied shirt, leaving his chest bare. Dangling from his arm is a clean one, but he brings it to me rather than put it on.
“Lift your arms.” His tone carries an authority that I’m too exhausted to argue with. Or follow.
In the end, he sinks into a crouch and tugs at the hem of my sweater, dragging it over my head himself. He swaps it for the oversized one of his, which hangs on me loosely, pooling over my waist as he tugs off my skirt.
Wary, his eyes meet mine, brimming with confusion as though he’s contemplating some complex puzzle. “Get up.”
To leave. I’ve already made peace with that inevitable outcome. I try to stand. Gingerly, I brace my feet on the floor, but when I attempt to rise from the couch, my muscles refuse.
He has to grab my arm and haul me to my feet. I stagger, forced to cling to