Leaning closer, I’m careful not to touch, careful not to make it worse. The outer edges are pink and angry, the wound dirty. But it doesn’t look too deep. He didn’tstabher. More like the blade glanced off her side.
“Jess?” Leaving her blouse off the injury, I come back to her face. “Blondie? Ineedyou to wake up. I know you haven’t slept, but I can help you. I can stitch it up, but I can’t fuckin’ start until you wake up.”
Jesus. Starting – being midway, using needles on her while she’s unconscious – andthenher waking… I’d be a dead man.
Andshe’d probably die from fright.
Flipping open the dark gray first-aid kit, I go straight to the meticulously organized sections and fish out a small vial of ammonia. Shaking it, I tap the glass vial against the corner of my bedside table and bring the foul-smelling liquid to her perky little nose. “Wake up, Jess.”
Instantly, her head whips back to escape the stench. “Don’t.”
“Wake up. Careful.” I grab her when she shoots back. “Don’t hurt yourself.”
“Bishop?” She blinks, two, three, four times. “Kane?” She looks around my tiny apartment with a frown similar to what she had while asleep. “Where are we?”
“My apartment.” I hold her down when she attempts to sit up. “Just stay down for a sec.”
“What are you doing? Please don’t hurt me.”
“You fell asleep in the street. You’re bleeding, Jess. What the fuck is wrong with you that you bleed like this and don’t go to the ER?” Her carelessness pisses me off. “You go out to Infernos, where you donotbelong, you almost get raped, you run home and go to work, and you’re fucking bleeding. What the hell is wrong with you?” I lean forward and tap heavy fingers against her skull. From zero to sixty, I transform from worried to pissed. “The blonde getting into your brain and strangling the bit that holds common sense?”
Her defiant eyes narrow. “You don’t have to be a jerk about it.” She works to sit up again, only to let out a yelp and fall back to the mattress. “What did you do to me?”
“What didIdo to you?” Her question offends me more than it should. “What didIdo? I stopped you from bouncing your stupid head off the concrete. I brought you home to help you. Look at your fuckin’ ribs. You must be in pain, yet you’d rather bitch at me.” I push her back and ignore the challenge in her eyes. “I can help. Lay back and give me permission to help. Or say hospital, and I’ll drop you off at the front doors.Yourchoice.Youchoose.”
“I can’t go to the hospital,” she whispers. Her voice shakes. Her hands shake. “I have family that work there. They’ll find out, then they’ll tear me apart.”
“So you went home and figured a spit-shine would fix your ribs?” I want to strangle her. “So fuckin’ stupid. Do you want my help? I’ve done this enough, I know how to close a body up. I’ll do it up right, I promise.”
Her eyes narrow. “You’ve stitched others up before?”
“No. I’ve stitched myself up. Several times.”
“How the hell do you stitch yourself up?” She throws her hand up with attitude, but tweaks her sore ribs and drops it again. “I can’t even look at it. I can’t even wash it out.”
“You haven’t washed it since yesterday? Nothing?”
With watery eyes, she clamps her lips closed and shakes her head.
“Fuck.”Ever heard of infection, dumbass?“I can help you. I won’t even send you a bill.”
She buries her face in my covers the way a woman might when in ecstasy. Her long hair fans her face and hides her bright blue eyes from me.
But she’s not in ecstasy. And she’s not a regular woman I might have in my bed. “This won’t be a favor owed?”
I bite my smirk and turn to my first-aid kit to get my shit ready. “Maybe. We’ll see. I’ll raincheck it. You’ve got nothing I need right now.” I stop and study her bleeding wound. “Lift your top. I’m gonna clean it out. Stitch it up.”
She turns to reveal scared eyes. “Is it going to hurt?”
“Yes.” There’s no point lying. I don’t waste my time bullshitting. “Yeah, it’ll hurt a little bit. I have Lidocaine. That’ll help numb it a little, but I have to clean it first. That’ll hurt.”
Nodding, and like she can’t bear to hold my gaze any longer, she drops her head back and stares at my ceiling. “Okay.”
“You can still choose the hospital. It’ll hurt there, too. But maybe you trust them more. I’m gonna be stabbing you with a needle. Pretty big trust exercise fora ‘guy like me’.”
She continues to study my ceiling. “No hospital. You saved my life, so I guess I can trust you to do this, too.”
“You guess.” Shaking my head, I stand and take her hands. “Pull your top off. I won’t look at your tits. Probably. Your shirt needs to be washed; you can’t put it on again over top of your cleaned cut.”