Ana doesn’t ask why we stopped here or why I chose this location. She knows and gets busy cleaning up, starting with her jacket. She shrugs out of it and tosses it into the trash, then pulls the beanie from her head, allowing her hair to tumble about her shoulders. The hat is black, a dark shade that hides the blood we both know is there. You don’t stand next to a man who takes a bullet and walk away nice and clean.
“How covered am I?” she asks, a weak tremble in her voice that speaks to that human side of her I both fear and love. Darius might have betrayed her, but he was in her life for ten years and she considered him a friend. That feeling of loss and betrayal is an all too familiar blast of emotion I learned even before Ana and I split. It’s nothing I ever wanted her to feel, and yet, I know I left. I changed my number. I made her feel those things as well.
Shoving aside emotions neither of us can afford to feel right now, I focus on her question and give her all-black attire a once-over. “Your jacket absorbed most of the noticeable damage.” My lips press together. “And your face.”
“Of course it did,” she says tightly, lifting her chin to present her face for cleanup.
On some level, this moment represents more than necessity. It’s about inherent trust and intimacy. It’s about us and all the ways we’ve been bloodied up by the past and the present. I open the bottle of water and pour some on the hat before I start cleaning her up, working to remove the battle scars, as I prefer to think of Darius’s blood, right now.
“Was it the same guy who killed Jake on the phone?”
“It was.”
“And you promised him what?”
“He threatened to kill people if I don’t bring him the package.” I toss the bottle and the hat in the trash with her jacket. “I told him I don’t give two fucks who he kills and that I only work for money.” Some part of me waits for her to believe this is the real me, and damn it, I’m once again transported to the past, to the day I had to tell her I killed Kasey. I’d arrived to her place and Trevor had beaten me there, lying to her, telling her I was dirty, not Kasey. That I was a killer.
“You killed him?” she’d demanded. “You killed Kasey?”
When I’d tried to make her see that I’d had no choice, I’d failed.
“I never understood how love could turn to hate,” she’d hissed. “Now I do.” She’d moved her hand from behind her back and pressed her gun into my belly. “Why? Why would you do this to me? He was my brother.”
But the present plays out nothing like the past. Ana doesn’t assume the worst of me. Maybe she never did. Maybe that day we collided in our first moments together since I killed Kasey was nothing but a creation of Trevor and my own guilt because Ana immediately, says, “You were trying to remove the leverage he holds over you.”
“That’s right,” I say. “And he said yes.”
“He’s desperate,” she assumes. “He’s not in charge or in control.”
“Exactly my thought,” I say, but I leave it at that, at least for now.
My sole concern at present is how much blood I just cleaned off of her face. She was standing right there next to Darius when he was shot. She was too fucking close to him for comfort and I let that happen. Aware that there’s no way I didn’t miss some of the mess on her, I slide out of the lightweight black windbreaker I’m wearing and slip it around her shoulders. She reacts instinctively, all business as she pokes her arms into the sleeves, the material swallowing her hands, and immediately attempts to roll the material.
I take over, quickly adjusting the arm length to wrist level. When her hands are free, and the jacket looks appropriate to her size, I catch her waist under her jacket and lean into her.
“That was too damn close.”
“In a number of ways,” she agrees, obviously referencing her friendship with Darius. “He was supposed to be my friend.”
The way I was supposed to be the one person she counted on above all others. Darius was just one more person to let her down. I won’t do that again. “You need to know that I will not let that happen again. I don’t care if I make you hate me all over again, I will protect you at all costs. Do you understand me?”
She pulls back, her eyes burning amber in the glint of the dim light. “No,” she says tightly. “I do not understand. What’s your plan? To follow me around and keep me from doing my job? I’ve worn a badge since before we met, and that’s not going to change. You can’t protect me. I don’t want you to protect me.”