a small amber jar with a red cap;
a roll of gauze;
two metal clips that look like they belong on a surgical tray, not wherever he actually used them;
a coil of insulated wire;
and a timer, its face turned toward him, numbers ticking down to something.
There’s even a capped syringe I know damn well wasn’t for pain relief.
Yeah… plenty of things with plenty of uses.
Not the kind of uses that would’ve ever crossed my mind, probably.
Mark swallows, the sound rough in his throat. It pulls my gaze back to him.
“Skye,” he says, and in that one broken syllable, I hear prayer, bargain, and bad nostalgia all at once. Oh yes. I’ve definitely become an angel in his eyes.
“Don’t,” I say.
His mouth shuts, trembling.
Nathaniel finishes another pass of the cloth, sets the scalpel down on a folded towel—handle perfectly parallel to the edge of the table—and finally looks at me. His sleeves are rolled past his forearms, the skin there pale as paper. His eyes are bright. Brighter than usual.
“Hey,” he says. “What brings you down here?”
“That’s a weird question. Can’t I just come by?”
“If you wanted to, you’d have done that yesterday,” Nathaniel replies easily. “Or the day before. Missed me, perhaps?”
I bite my cheek to keep the smile from breaking through. Did I miss Nathaniel the past two days? Yes. Was he the one spending the most time down here with Mark because I asked him to? Also yes.
Having three men is convenient. You have one to do the job, another to warm your bed, and the last to make you forget the world. I’m a lucky girl like that.
But that’s not why I’m here.
“Oh, it’s that, then,” Nathaniel murmurs, reading me like he always does. “So soon?”
“It started feeling wrong,” I say quietly. “Like it’s been drilling into my head. I think I’ve had enough.”
I glance at Mark. He’s staring so hard, it’s like he’s forgotten to breathe. When my last words land, his expression twists and morphs, filling with hope I don’t even want to see.
We are not talking about releasing you, you moron. We’re talking about your death.
But what else could an angel do, if not release him from his misery?
“That’s a pity,” Nathaniel says. “I was hoping to play with him a little longer.”
“Didn’t you have enough?”
I take in the scene. His setup is meticulous. Cruelly so. The water bottle with a straw sits just within reach but clearly rationed. A pulse oximeter lies nearby, the kind he’d clip on and off to make sure he didn’t lose his toy too soon. Extra straps, spattered towels, faint stains.
Forty-eight hours of controlled chaos.
“You wound me, love,” Nathaniel purrs.
He drops the cloth, the scalpel, and crosses to me. His hands are still damp from the wipe-down, a faint trace of antiseptic clinging to his skin as they slide around my waist.
