"You gotshotprotecting me."
Her hands are gentle on my arm, examining the wound with a clinical focus that reminds me she used to be in medical school.
Her fingers are steady now.
Whatever shock she was feeling has been shoved aside.
"Take off your shirt," she says.
"Excuse me?"
"I need to see the wound properly. Make sure it doesn't need stitches." She looks up at me, all business. "I may have dropped out of med school, but I can handle a graze. Shirt. Off."
I should argue. Should tell her I've dealt with worse, that I'll patch it up myself, that she doesn't need to touch me.
Instead, I find myself unbuttoning my shirt.
The fabric peels away from the wound with a wet sound that makes her wince.
I shrug it off carefully, letting it fall to the floor, and I hear her sharp intake of breath.
Not at the fresh wound.
At my back.
"RJ..."
I'd forgotten. The scars.
Four of them, scattered across my shoulder blades and lower back—puckered, silvered, ugly.
Bullet holes that healed wrong because I didn't have time to let them heal right.
"Old wounds," I say flatly. "Don't worry about them."
"How old?"
"Does it matter?"
"You were shot. Four times. In theback."
"Five times. One of them went through clean—no scar."
She's quiet for a long moment. I can feel her eyes tracing the damage, reading the story written in my skin. A story of violence and sacrifice, and a life spent putting myself between bullets and the people I protect.
"You weren't running," she says finally. "These angles... you were shielding someone."
Smart woman.
"It's the job."
"Is that all it is?"
I don't answer. Can't answer. Because the truth is more complicated than she needs to know.
Her fingers brush one of the old scars, feather-light, and I flinch.
Not from pain—from something worse.
