He guides me to the edge of the pool. I sit. The stone is warm under my thighs.
Koshin crouches in front of me and takes my right hand. Turns it over. Studies the blood crusted in the creases of my palm, the dark half-moons under my fingernails. His jaw goes tight, that tension he gets when he's holding back.
"I'm going to clean you up."
"I can—"
"No."
He doesn't wait for me to argue. Just reaches for a cloth, dips it in the water, and starts working at the blood on my fingers. Gentle. Thorough. His eyes fixed on his task.
I watch him work. Watch his hands—steady, careful, nothing like the hands that beat my father bloody hours ago.
Same hands.
Different purpose. The steam has loosened his collar, baring the line of his throat, and I'm too tired to pretend I'm not looking.
He's on his knees for me. The mad god of Discord, kneeling on wet stone, washing blood off my hands.
The water runs rust-colored off my skin.
"She'll come around." His voice is quiet. "Your sister. She's in shock. She doesn't hate you."
"You don't know that."
"I know she was watching you. The whole time. Couldn't take her eyes off you."
"Because I murdered someone in front of her."
"Because you saved her." He switches to my left hand. "She knows that. She just can't hold both things at once yet."
The cloth moves across my palm.
"She'll hate me," I say. "Eventually. When she processes it. When she realizes I didn't hesitate. I didn't try to—"
"You did what needed to be done."
"I did what I wanted to do."
He pauses. Looks up at me. And there it is—that smile. The wrong one. The one that shows too many teeth.
"I know," he says. "I watched you do it."
My stomach drops. Or rises. I can't tell which. Heat prickles up my neck.
"You looked beautiful." He goes back to cleaning my hand, casual, like he's commenting on the weather. "Standing over him with blood on your face. I almost didn't let you pull the trigger yourself. Wanted to do it for you. But you needed it."
"That's—"
"Fucked up?" He laughs, low and rough. The sound curls through me, settles somewhere it shouldn't. "Yes. And you liked hearing it."
I don't answer. Can't. Because he's right and we both know it.
He goes back to cleaning my hand. The cloth moves over my wrist, between my fingers, across my palm—
He stops.
His thumb presses against my inner wrist. Holds there.
