Page 45 of Wraith

June keeps her arm around me. Keeps me upright. I can feel her warmth against my side, her strength supporting my weight, and I have the thought that this is what trust feels like. Not the manipulative kind. Not the calculated exchange of favors and leverage. Just the simple, terrifying act of letting someone else hold you up when you can’t do it yourself.

Then she reaches out. Takes my hand. Not the one pressed against my wound. The other one. The one that’s free and clean and hasn’t been used for violence in the last thirty minutes.

“Dylan,” she says. Just my name. My real name. Not Wraith. Not the road name. Not the identity I wear like armor. Just Dylan.

“June?”

“I need you to trust me,” she says. “Really, trust me. Let me do the talking, let me take the lead. Can you do that?”

The answer should be complicated. Should require calculation and strategy and careful consideration of angles and leverage and what I might be giving up.

But standing here with her hand in mine and my blood seeping through my shirt and the veterinary clinic smelling of antiseptic and animal care, the answer is simple.

“Yeah,” I say. “I can do that.”

Chapter Eighteen

June

Dr. Morrison enters through the Staff Only door thirty seconds later, and my first thought is that he looks exactly like the person who would spend his career looking at dog assholes — which is not a judgment, just an observation, because someone has to do it and apparently this man has chosen that path. He’s in his fifties with gray hair that’s escaping from a ponytail, wearing scrubs covered in what I hope are just stains from his profession, and he has the weary expression of someone who has seen things, animal things, that would break a weaker person.

His eyes go immediately to Wraith’s side, to the blood seeping through his shirt, and his face does something that I recognize as professional concern mixed with deep suspicion.

“Follow me,” he says, and his voice has the particular quality of someone who has not decided whether he’s going to help us or call the police.

I keep my arm around Wraith as we follow Dr. Morrison down a short hallway that smells like disinfectant and scared cat. We pass exam rooms with steel tables and equipment that looks both familiar and alien.

He leads us into a room at the end of the hall and gestures to the exam table.

“Sit,” he says to Wraith.

Wraith sits. I stay close, my hand on his shoulder, trying to project an aura of calm competence that I absolutely do not feel.

Dr. Morrison crosses his arms and looks at us with the expression of a man who knows he’s about to hear some bullshit.

“Alright,” he says. “What happened?”

This is my moment.

I am responsible. I am capable. I am New June, and New June handles situations with grace and maturity and doesn’t panic when her ex-boyfriend is bleeding in a veterinary clinic.

“It was an animal,” I say, and I’m pleased with how steady my voice sounds. “A big one. Like, huge. We were hiking, and it just came out of nowhere and attacked him.”

Dr. Morrison’s eyes move from me to Wraith and back again.

“What kind of animal?”

“A... bear?” I say, and it comes out less confident than I intended. “Or maybe a mountain lion. It happened so fast. There was a lot of chaos. And blood. So much blood.”

“Uh, huh.” Dr. Morrison’s expression hasn’t changed. “And you want me to treat him because it was an animal attack.”

“Exactly.” I nod enthusiastically. “You’re a vet. You know animals. You know how to treat injuries caused by animals. It’s perfect.”

“I treat animals,” Dr. Morrison says slowly. “Not people who have been injured by animals.”

“But the injury itself is animal-related,” I say. “So, really, when you think about it, you’re the most qualified person to help us. More qualified than a regular doctor, because you understand the animal aspect of it.”

Wraith makes a sound that might be a laugh or might be pain. I choose to interpret it as support for my excellent reasoning.