Page 48 of Wraith

“I threatened an innocent man.”

“He’s helping us now, isn’t he?”

Dr. Morrison makes a sound that might be agreement or might just be concentration as he begins the first stitch. The needle goes through the skin with a small, precise movement.

“How does it feel?” I ask Wraith.

“Numb,” he says. “Can’t feel anything.”

“Good.”

Dr. Morrison works in silence, his hands steady despite the circumstances. Stitch after stitch, pulling the wound closed, tying off each one with practiced efficiency. It takes maybe fifteen minutes. Maybe less. Time does strange things when you’re watching someone get sewn back together in a veterinary clinic after threatening the person doing the sewing.

Finally, he ties off the last stitch and steps back.

“Done,” he says. “Keep it clean. If it gets infected, go to an actual hospital and tell them whatever story you want, but get it treated.” He strips off his gloves. “And never come back here.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“Don’t thank me. Just leave.”

Wraith slides off the table, moving carefully, testing his range of motion. He pulls his shirt back on and looks at me.

“Ready?” he says.

I nod.

We leave the exam room. Walk back down the hallway. The secretary is pointedly not looking at us as we pass through the waiting room and out into the parking lot, where the morning sun is bright and warm and completely at odds with everything that just happened.

The moment we’re outside, Wraith’s hand finds mine.

We walk toward the truck in silence. His thumb moves against the back of my hand, a small gesture that feels bigger than it is.

“Good work back there.”

I smile.

Chapter Nineteen

Wraith

My side throbs with each breath, a steady reminder that I’m not invincible. The truck cab smells like old leather and pine trees, and June is standing outside the driver’s side door, keys in her hand, waiting for me to decide. My instinct is screaming at me to take the wheel. Drive until I find us somewhere safe. A motel off the highway, cash only, a place that doesn’t ask questions. I can push through the pain. I’ve done it before. I can handle this.

Except I’m not sure I can.

I lean my head back against the seat and close my eyes. The morning light presses red against my eyelids. My body catalogues every complaint: the knife wound in my side that Morrison stitched with veterinary thread, the bruised ribs from where Bruiser landed those punches, the ache in my jaw from Hawk’s fist, the general bone-deep exhaustion of a man who slept on a floor against a radiator and then fought two armed Sons while hungover and fully erect.

That last part is a detail I’m choosing not to examine right now.

The point is, I’m weak. Weaker than I want to admit. Weaker than I’ve been in a long time. And the part of me that’s spent decades surviving on control and dominance and the absolute certainty that I know best is having a tough time with that information.

But June threatened a veterinarian with a scalpel.

The thought makes me smile despite everything. She actually did that. Grabbed the scalpel, blocked the door, and told Dr. Morrison she’d cut his face off if he didn’t help. And the crazy thing is, she sold it. There was something in her voice, in her eyes, that made him believe her. Made me believe her.

She’s been handling herself.

Competent. Strategic. Impressive. When Hawk found her in the bathtub, she could have screamed, could have frozen, could have done any number of things that would have gotten us both killed. Instead, when the situation turned violent, she grabbed a toilet tank lid and saved my ass.