Page 20 of The Glass Empire
I start cleaning up. The needle goes into the sharps container—an old coffee can I labeled with a Sharpie—and the fishing line goes into the trash. The vodka bottle is half-empty now. I'll have to replace it before Del notices.
"Why?" I ask. "I don't even know your name."
He's quiet for a long moment. I wipe down the counter, scrubbing at the spots where blood has already started to dry, and I don't look at him. I'm afraid of what I'll see if I look at him.
"Aleksander," he says.
I stop scrubbing.
"My name is Aleksander."
The word hangs in the air between us, heavy and light at the same time. A name. Finally. After weeks of silence, weeks of evasion, weeks of watching him walk in and out of my life without giving me anything to hold onto.
"Aleksander," I repeat. Testing it. The way he tested my name, that first night. The way he saidMonikalike he was tasting something sweet.
"Aleksander Mire."
The last name lands differently. Heavier. Like he's giving me something he doesn't give anyone. Like he's handing me a key to a door I'm not sure I want to open.
I don't recognize the name. I should. Maybe I will, someday. But right now, it's just a word—a collection of sounds that mean nothing to me except that he chose to say them.
"Mire," I say. "Is that supposed to mean something?"
He doesn't answer. He moves closer—not touching, not yet, but close enough that I can feel the warmth of him, the solid presence of him, the way his body blocks out the light from the sign outside. He reaches out, slow and deliberate, and takes my hand.
My right hand. The one I use for stitches, for needles, for the small, precise movements that require steadiness. He turns it over, palm up, and looks at it like he's reading a map.
"These hands shouldn't be wasting time in a diner."
My throat is dry. "What should they be doing?"
"Saving lives."
I should pull away. I should laugh, make a joke, pretend that his touch doesn't feel like something I've been waiting for without knowing I was waiting. But I don't. I stand there with myhand in his and my heart in my throat and I let him look at me the way he's been looking at me for weeks.
"You're better than anyone I could hire," he says. "I've seen you work. Twice now. You don't flinch. You don't hesitate. You just... do what needs to be done."
"That's called survival."
"It's called talent. And I have a use for it."
I finally pull my hand back. Not because I want to. Because I need to think, and I can't think when he's touching me.
"What kind of use?"
"My family has needs. People get hurt. I have doctors on retainer, but they're not always... available. And they're not you." He pauses. "I want you to work for me. Medical attendant. On call. I'll pay you more than you make in a month at this place. I'll give you a room, if you want it. Protection. Whatever you need."
"A room?"
"The mansion has empty rooms. You'd have your own space. Privacy. Safety."
I stare at him. "You want me to live with you?"
"I want you to be safe." He says it like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "That man tonight—Dmitri—he came here because people know about you now. Word spreads. A girl who can stitch a wound, who doesn't ask questions, who works alone in a diner at two in the morning? That's a resource. And resources get used. Sometimes by people who aren't as gentle as I am."
"Are you gentle?"
The question comes out before I can stop it. I watch his face change—just slightly, just enough—and I see something there that I don't recognize. Something that looks like hunger, carefully controlled. Something that looks like want.
