He exhales slowly, like he’s fighting dueling urges to jump up and shake some sense into me or kiss me raw.
I study him for a moment, all his tension and iron self-control, the way he seems to have a chokehold on the chain that’s wound around his own neck. But underneath the careful control lurks resignation.
He looks like the conductor of a freight train traveling at full speed who’s realized the brakes are gone and the bridge ahead has collapsed and there’s not enough time to jump to safety.
“Question, Mr. Black: why are you trying so hard to stay away from me?”
“I told you. I wouldn’t be good for you.”
“Yet here you are. Again. Giving the suggestion of major ambivalence.”
His expression sours. “Argumentative little thing, aren’t you?”
“I’m studying to be an attorney. This is good practice.” To prove it, I continue the argument. “Even more than a man who doesn’t seem like he wears sweats, you don’t seem like a man who lies to himself.”
His voice turns hard. “Wanting you and taking you are two different things.”
Taking you. The implications leave me breathless.
But after the breathlessness, the practical side of me buts in for a public service announcement that no matter how thirsty a horse he might be, I can’t make him drink. If he’s determined that this strange, intoxicating chemistry between us is a no-go, so be it.
I don’t chase after men. It’s undignified.
Plus, at some future point when the pain meds and probable PTSD have worn off, I might find that horror over him killing a trio of men that is now so mysteriously missing.
I turn my attention back to the scratchy sheets and say quietly, “Give me a minute to get dressed, please.”
“Dressed?”
“I told you. I want to go home.”
“I think you should stay here until tomorrow.”
His tone is firm, but he’s not the boss of me. I don’t care that everyone else kowtows to him. I won’t.
“It’s not your decision.”
Silence reigns for a long, uncomfortable moment. I wonder when the last time was that someone defied him, if ever.
Finally, he stands, buttoning his jacket. “Good for you.”
He doesn’t look back as he walks from the room, closing the door behind him.
Sighing heavily, I consider the needle stuck into the back of my hand. The skin around it is black and blue, and sore when I touch it. I gingerly peel off the tape holding the plastic tubing to the catheter and take a deep breath.
On a count of three, I yank the needle out.
A little pinch, a drop of blood welling up, and it’s done. I toss the catheter aside and swing my legs over the side of the bed.
When I stand, it’s with a low groan. Waves of pain radiate from my ribs where I was kicked, a stabbing feeling I have to grit my teeth against. The worst of it passes in a moment, and the pain settles into a dull but manageable throb. I shuffle across the cold linoleum floor to the wardrobe next to the bathroom, which is where I assume my clothes are.
When I pull open the wardrobe doors, I’m shocked to find my favorite jeans hanging there, along with my black wool coat and a black cashmere sweater I usually only wear on nice occasions. A pair of my boots are there, too, low-heeled black leather ones, along with my socks and underwear hanging from another hanger in a clear plastic bag.
The clothing I was wearing when I was attacked in the alley is nowhere to be seen.
“Interesting,” I say aloud, eyeing my things.
The wolf has been to my apartment. Did Ellie let him in or did he huff and puff and blow the door down?
Or maybe he called her and had her bring my clothes here? But how would he have gotten her phone number? And if she came here, wouldn’t she have stayed until I woke up?
I decide to let those questions simmer on the backburner while I attend to the more important matter of using the toilet. I’ll find out the particulars later, but right now, my bladder is about to burst.
When I flick on the bathroom light and get a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I wish I’d just gotten dressed and left instead.
The left side of my face is covered in ugly purple and black splotches in the shape of boot tread. My left eye is swollen. My lower lip is split. My hair is a rat’s nest of tangles, and my eyes are so bloodshot I look like I’ve just woken up from a bachelorette party in Vegas with no memory of how I got that huge Elvis tattoo.
I understand now why Liam thought I should stay in the hospital.
I use the toilet, wash my hands, brush my teeth with the travel brush and toothpaste set someone left on the sink, and attempt to make sense of the hysteria of my hair by running my fingers through it and patting it down. It doesn’t work. So I give up and get dressed, moving gingerly because my body is doing its best to make sure I remember the trauma it recently suffered.
Though it’s my mind I should be worried about.
I saw three men die mere feet away from me in that alley, yet I have a curious absence of emotion over that.
Granted, I didn’t like them much.
Also, I grew up on a farm with lots of livestock who regularly became my dinner, so I’m no stranger to the ways blood can be spilled. How everyday life is underscored by a soundtrack of violence.
But still. I should feel something. Remorse or revulsion, disgust or disbelief. Something.
Something other than this secret sense of satisfaction.
When I open the door to my room, I’m greeted by the sight of Liam deep in conversation with the two police officers who came in earlier. Standing about fifteen feet away in front of the nurses’ station, they don’t notice me, which affords me the perfect opportunity to observe the Liam Effect in action.
Even when speaking to him, neither cop looks Liam in the eye. Their gazes stay fixed firmly on the toes of his shoes. They look like two well-trained dogs waiting for a command at the feet of their master.
Liam notices me standing there. He looks me over, eyes flashing like the wolf’s in my dream. Then he says something to the cops, very low so only they can hear, and walks away from them toward me.
Though his back is turned, they both tip their hats to him before turning to leave.
“How do you feel?” he asks when he reaches me. His frown tells me he doesn’t approve of this plan.
“Terrible, but I’ll live. I can’t wait to get home and take a shower. Here—you left this in the room.” I hold out the copy of In Search of Lost Time I grabbed on the way out, but Liam shakes his head.
“Keep it.”
“I can’t read French.”
“Not yet.”
He says it like he foresees many trips to Paris in my future. If only he knew I’ve never been outside the United States.
He takes my arm and gently steers me toward the elevators at the end of the hall, cradling his hand under my elbow as we walk.
The clock on the wall at the nurses’ station tells me it’s a quarter past midnight. The slack-jawed stare the middle-aged nurse gives Liam as we pass by tells me her panties have just gone up in smoke.
I say to him, “Don’t we need to let them know I’m leaving? Check me out or something?”
“No.”
Of course not. He doesn’t ask permission for anything.
“But what about my pain meds?”