Page 15 of Crowbar

I rounded the side of the building, determined to catch Spencer before he reached his car, but slowed when I spotted him leaning his back to the brick. His knees were bent, and he was gripping his arms in a tight hold. The pain was too much.

“Go away.” He dropped his hand, only to grab his arm again.

“Not pushing.” I approached slowly, steps measured. “You ain’t gotta give me any details. Just want to examine your arm, is all.”

I wanted to catch the tear he swiped away.

“Promise no questions?”

He’d yet to lift his head or look at me. Spencer was embarrassed. Maybe even humiliated. Silence allowed abuse to continue. Secrets didn’t keep you safe. They kept you trapped.

But if I pushed, Spencer would shut me down completely. “Promise.”

The word felt like a razor blade sliding across my tongue.

“Okay.”

Lifting his arm, I gently turned and probed. His cry of pain told me it wasn’t going to heal on its own. The muscles along his forearm were rigid, knotted in a way that screamed torn fibers rather than a simple strain. When I pressed gently below the elbow, Spencer sucked air through his teeth and his whole body went taut against the brick.

“Easy.” I kept my voice level, the way I talked to Gunner when a loud noise spooked her. “I’m gonna rotate your wrist. Tell me when it spikes.”

I turned his hand palm-up, slow, maybe two degrees at a time. He lasted about fifteen degrees before a sound ripped out of him that made my wolf slam against my ribs so hard I tasted copper.

“Stop,” he gasped. “Stop, stop, stop.”

I held his arm steady in both hands, carefully cradling it. Nothing felt displaced. That didn’t rule out a fracture. but the soft tissue damage was significant. It would only get worse with every bag of cat litter he dragged across a linoleum floor, every cupcake pan he pulled from an oven, every night he slept on it wrong.

“Spencer.” I waited until he lifted his head. His eyes were glassy, lashes wet, and the look on his face was raw. “This needs urgent care. Tonight.”

“I can’t—” His voice cracked. He swallowed hard and tried again. “No insurance for ninety days.”

“I’ll foot the bill.”

His head snapped up so fast his skull nearly clipped the brick. “What? No. Absolutely not. You don’t even know me. You can’t just—”

“I can, and I am.” I released his arm with care, making sure he had it tucked against his body before I let go. “This isn’t a negotiation. You’ve got torn muscles in that arm, maybe worse. You keep using it like this, you’re looking at permanent damage. The kind that means you can’t stock shelves, can’t bake, can’t hold a pricing gun. Can’t hold Gunner.”

That last one landed. I watched it hit him behind the eyes, the flicker of fear that meant losing the small, good things he’d built for himself.

“I’ll pay you back,” he whispered. He needed control back. Dignity.

“We’ll argue about that later.” I pulled my phone from my back pocket. “Sit tight. I need to talk to Prez.”

Spencer slid down the wall until he was sitting on the ground, his bad arm pressed against his chest, his good hand gripping his knee. He looked small against the brick. Smaller than he should have.

I walked far enough that he couldn’t hear me then dialed Preacher. He picked up on the second ring, the noise of the cookout filtering through behind him.

“Yeah.”

“Need to bounce. Taking Spencer to urgent care.”

A pause. Preacher didn’t waste words, but the silence was its own language. “How bad?”

“Torn muscles in his left arm. Could be partial tears, could be worse. He can’t rotate his wrist without damn near passing out.”

“He tell you how it happened?”

“No. And I promised I wouldn’t push.” I ground my teeth. “Not tonight. My wolf chose him, Prez.”