I lie still for a long time, staring at the wall. My vision’s blurred without my glasses, but I can tell the wall is made of logs.
I’m bedridden with a gunshot wound in an assassin’s log cabin in Russia. I’ve been unconscious for a week, and parts of me have been removed.
I’d laugh if I didn’t already feel like crying.
I need to use the toilet, so I gingerly swing one leg over the edge of the mattress. Minutes later, when my breathing has returned to normal, I swing the other leg over and sit up.
The pain is so intense, my eyes water. I think I might puke.
Malek appears in front of me and takes me by the shoulders. I get the sense he wants to shake me in anger, but he doesn’t. He growls at me instead.
Panting, I say to his feet, “I have to use the bathroom.”
“You need to stay in bed.”
“I need. To use. The toilet. You can help me stand up, or you can get the hell out of my way, but I’m not peeing in this bed.”
Silence. A dissatisfied grunt. Then he gently lifts me up by my armpits and stands there holding me as I groan and sway and struggle to get my balance.
“Fuck. Fuck!”
“Focus on your breath, not the pain.”
I grip his corded forearms and drag in deep breaths until the worst of it has passed.
I read somewhere once that a gunshot wound is more painful than childbirth, and I remember laughing at that. Like how can pushing a human through your cooch hurt less than getting hit by a bullet?
This is how. This right here.
Childbirth only rips your vagina apart. A bullet rips up your whole body.
“Did I lose part of my intestines, too? It feels like my guts were torn out and replaced with razor blades.”
“Gunshots to the abdomen are among the most painful of all injuries.”
“You say that like you have personal experience on the matter.”
“I do. Are you steady?”
“As much as I’m going to be.” Which isn’t much, but I’ll be damned if I’ll admit that I’m probably going to fall flat onto my face as soon as he releases me.
I might be an invalid, but I still have my pride.
“The bathroom is over there.” He gestures to something.
“That would be helpful, if I could see where you pointed.”
“Your vision is that bad?”
“I’m legally blind without my glasses.”
“I’ll get you another pair.”
“They’re prescription.”
“Let me worry about that.”
He takes one step back, keeping his hands underneath my armpits. I shuffle forward. He takes another step back. We go halfway across the room like that, until he loses his patience.
“This will take forever. I’m picking you up.”
“I need to walk. It helps with blood flow and healing. Lying in bed too long after surgery puts you at risk for blood clots and lung problems like pneumonia.”
I sense surprise in his pause. “How did you know that?”
Because that’s what the doctors told my mother after the surgery she had to remove her cancerous ovaries, but I’m not in the mood to share painful personal anecdotes.
I say crossly, “I’ve got a big brain.”
His answer is mild. “Your head is uncommonly large for such a small person. Have you ever been approached by the circus and offered a job?”
“That’s not even a little bit funny.”
“Then why are your lips turning up?”
“That’s the face I make before projectile vomiting.”
He picks me up and carries me the rest of the way to the restroom, as if we didn’t already go over this. When he sets me down in front of the toilet and stands there with his arms folded over his chest, staring at me, I blanch.
“You’re not standing right there while I pee.”
“You could fall.”
“Yes, I could. That would be an appropriate time for you to appear and assist me. Not now.”
He doesn’t budge. Which, of course, makes me mad.
“Why go to all this trouble for someone you were threatening to kill? You could’ve just let me die back there and been done with me.”
As if he thinks he’s making perfect sense, he says calmly, “You took a bullet for me. I’m responsible for you now.”
“I’m not lucid enough to unravel that logic.”
Ignoring that, he turns to go. “I’ll be right outside the door if you need me.”
I lean on the edge of the sink, staring in confusion at the closed door, until I decide I’d better sit down before I topple over. Moving carefully, I creep to the toilet.
“Are you all right?” Through the door, his voice sounds sharp.
“Until you hear a loud thump, assume I’m fine.”
“I thought I did hear a loud thump.”
“That was just the sound of all the hope leaving my body.”
It’s not until I finish using the toilet and look at myself in the mirror above the sink that I realize the underwear and long black sleep shirt I’m wearing aren’t mine.
All the ramifications of what that means are pushed aside by the sheer horror of seeing my reflection in the mirror.
Even without my glasses, I can see that I look like Death.
Like the literal, physical embodiment of Death.
I’m pale as chalk. My eyes are red and sunken. My lips are chapped, and my hair is a nest of snarls where rodents have obviously been fighting.
I’ve lost weight, too. Maybe ten pounds. My clavicle bones stick out like a skeleton’s.
In disbelief, I touch my cheek, then my hair.
Then, overwhelmed by the reality of my situation, I start crying. I crumple against the sink and break into sobs so loud, I don’t hear it when Mal bursts through the door.
Without a word, he takes me in his arms and holds me against his chest as I weep.
No, that sounds too delicate for what I’m doing. This is a breakdown. A full-body event complete with blubbering and bawling, howling and wailing, shaking and quaking and lots of snot.
Mal remains silent during it all. He simply holds me.
It’s the only reason I don’t fall to my knees.
When the loudest wails have tapered, and I’m a hiccupping, red-faced mess, he releases me long enough to turn to the counter and grab a tissue. He holds it against my face and tells me to blow, like I’m a five-year-old with a head cold.
It’s surprisingly soothing.
I blow into the tissue. He wipes my nose, tosses that tissue into the trash, gets another one, and wipes the tears from my cheeks. He picks me up in his arms and heads back to the bedroom.
My head resting against his chest and my eyes closed, I whisper, “I don’t understand what’s happening.”
“You don’t have to. All you have to do is heal, malyutka. And that will take time.”
Hearing his nickname for me makes me teary again, but I sniffle and squeeze my eyes shut so the tears don’t come out.
I grimace in pain when he lowers me to the bed but don’t make a sound. He adjusts the pillow behind my head.
“I need to check your sutures. I’m going to pull your nightgown up.”
I don’t bother protesting. I know he won’t listen to a word I say. Besides, I don’t have the energy. Mal as my caregiver is just one more mindfuck my poor brain has to wrestle with. All my energy is going into not having a mental break with reality.
With gentle hands, he pulls up the sleep shirt and lightly probes around my belly while I wince and grit my teeth.
“There’s no sign of infection around the sutures,” he says quietly. “And your abdomen isn’t hard, which is good. I’ll change the dressing, then get you your meds.”
“Meds?”
“Pain medicine. Antibiotics.”
“Oh.”
“I need you to tell me right away if you develop pain or swelling in one of your arms or legs, if you have shortness of breath or feel dizzy, or if you have blood in your urine.”
I close my eyes and say weakly, “Oh, god.”
“Don’t despair yet. It gets worse. Even if you heal perfectly, you may experience PTSD. It’s a common side-effect of a gunshot wound. Nightmares, anxiety, jumpiness—”
“Got it,” I interrupt. “Even if I don’t end up being a mess, I’ll still probably be a mess.”
He stops his inspection of my stomach and looks at me. “You’re young and strong. Your chances are good.”
Something in the way he says those words makes me nervous. I inspect his face closely for any clues, but his expression is neutral.
Suspiciously neutral.
“Wait. I could still die, couldn’t I?”
“Yes. Sepsis isn’t uncommon for this type of wound. You could also develop blood clots, airway collapse, fistula formation, peritonitis, abscesses, and other life-threatening complications.”
At least he doesn’t sugar coat it. I have to give him credit for that.
I say faintly, “You’re just a ray of sunshine, aren’t you?”
“Also, with only one kidney, you can never drink alcohol again.”
I close my eyes and groan. “I think I’d rather be dead.”
“Look on the bright side.”
“There is no bright side!”
“Think of all the money you’ll save. And you’ll never have another hangover.”
He makes it sound so rational, I have to laugh. That causes more pain to rip through me, and the laughter quickly turns to groans.
Mal squeezes my hand. He murmurs, “Breathe through it. It’ll pass.”
I suck in deep, desperate breaths through my nose, squeezing his hand so hard, I’m probably crushing bones.
I don’t care. It’s his fault I’m in this predicament in the first place.
My eyes closed, I say, “My sister. Sloane. Does she know what’s happened to me?”
There’s a pause before he answers. “Yes.”
I sense miles of twisted story behind that, but he offers no further explanation.
“So she knows I’m alive? And with you?”
“Yes.”
I open my eyes and look at him. He’s kneeling beside the bed, leaning over me. My hand is still in his. “Aren’t you worried they’ll try to come get me?”
“If Declan O’Donnell sets foot in this country, it’s the last step he’ll ever take.”
He says it with such conviction, I understand not only that he’s already made arrangements for that to happen, but also that he won’t necessarily have to pull the trigger himself.
“You’ve got people watching him.”
He simply nods.
My voice comes out small. “Please don’t kill him.”
He shakes his head in frustration. “You keep asking me not to kill other people, but you’ve never asked me not to kill you.”
I think for a moment. “I’m pretty sure I have.”
“No. You haven’t. You just threatened to return from the dead to haunt me if I did.”
“I was like ninety percent certain all along that you weren’t going to kill me. Why are you glaring at me now?”
He says flatly, “I was going to kill you.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“Yes, I was.”
“You wanted to, but you were never going to. That’s totally different.”
Heaving a sigh, he releases my hand, stands, and leaves the room. I holler after him, “You never would have kissed me so much if you really planned to kill me!”
“Tell that to my late ex-wife.”
That leaves me breathless, and not just because my stomach hurts from the effort of shouting. I lie there with my heart beating like mad, thinking of all the ways he might have murdered his poor ex, until Mal sticks his head back through the door.
“I don’t have an ex-wife. I’ve never been married. I only said that to scare you.”
“It worked.”
“I told you I was a bad person.”
That makes me smile. “Yeah, but if you were really bad, you wouldn’t have admitted it.”
He closes his eyes for a moment, shaking his head. “I have to go out for a while. I’ll try to be back before dark.”
I start to panic all over again. “You’re leaving me here alone? What if I die while you’re gone?”
“Then I suppose I’ll have some digging to do when I get back.”
My mouth drops open. “Okay, that was just mean.”
I can tell he’s trying not to smile. “Would you prefer cremation? I can arrange a funeral pyre for you, if you like.”
“That is so not funny.”
“It’s a little bit funny.”
“No. It’s not.”
“Your lips are twitching.”
“That’s because I’m in a lot of pain!”
His head disappears. He returns in a moment holding a white paper bag.
“What’s in that?”
He sits on the edge of the bed and starts removing pill bottles of various sizes and colors from the bag. Some of them have labels, others don’t. The ones that do are written in gobbledygook that must be Russian.
When he shakes a few pills from different bottles into the palm of his hand and holds it out to me, I look at the pills with trepidation.
“How do I know what these are?”
“Because I told you what they are.”
“Yeah, but you also just told me you were going to kill me all along. I can’t trust you now.”
With exaggerated patience, he says, “Take the fucking pills.”
I grudgingly hold out my hand. He dumps the pills into it and pours water from a carafe on the nightstand into the glass next to it. Then he holds it out to me with a look like I’ll be in trouble if I say another word.
So of course I have to.
“Okay, but if I wake up dead, I swear I’ll come back to haunt you.”
“I’m really starting to regret that I saved your life.”
Smiling at his glower, I pop the pills into my mouth and accept the glass of water he holds out to me. I swallow all the pills in one big gulp. “Ugh. I think that big white one got stuck in my throat.”
“That’s the cyanide. You won’t be worried about your throat in a second, because you’ll be dead.”
“See, you can’t do that now. I don’t know whether or not you’re joking!”
“Look at my face. This is my joking face.”
His expression is absolutely serious.
“Oh my god. I just realized something.”
“What?”
“You’re a jerk.”
One corner of his mouth lifts. “Not too quick on the draw, are you?”
“At least I’m not a jerk.”
He stares at me silently, his eyes warm. I think he wants to smile, but I’m not sure he knows how to.
Then he stands and leaves me alone, telling me before he goes that he’ll be back as soon as he can.
When he returns that evening, he’s covered in blood.
