No. Don’t go there, Cass.
I glance at said idiot, who now seems to be evaluating me with slightly more interest than before. His gaze moves over my face as if trying to solve a puzzle. I wonder what he sees when he looks at me. Some naive college girl who stumbled into the wrong alley? Someone stupid enough not to run from an armed stranger?
“This doesn’t concern you. Just leave.” The words leave his lips with a wheeze.
“No.”
Each choke of blood in his throat has me wincing in place.
“No?”
“That’s right. No. I can’t just leave you!”
“You don’t know me.”
I sigh in exasperation, shifting closer. “What will it take for you to let me call for help?”
Please.Just let me help you.
You’d expect someone in such bad condition to look weak, curled in on himself in pain, and begging for relief. For some reason, this mandoes nothing of the sort, as if he’s incapable of feeling the damage to his body. His eyes squint like he’s doing some pragmatic assessment.
When I’ve just about given up on getting a response, his throat clears with a fresh round of coughs.
“I can’t go to the hospital,” he sighs. “And you can’t...” Another cough. “...call the police. I’m not a good man. Ease your conscience, little menace. Let me…pass in peace.”
Those eyes flick up to me with a teasing glint. “It’s not a comfy hospice bed they’ll...put me in.”
Little menace. Despite the blood and gore surrounding us, something warm dances in my chest at the nickname. He’s dying, and he’s giving me demented pet names. What is wrong with both of us?
The bright silver of his weapon shines in the splatters of reddish-black on the pavement. A reminder of who exactly I’m trying to help. My pulse drums faster.
There’s a real possibility that helping this man will place me on the wrong side of morality. The thought should scare me off. But time warps back, and all I can think about is the closet. Those three days of suffocating darkness, the scratch of my fingernails against the wooden door, the way the panic made me drown on dry land. The way no one came when I screamed.
I can’t leave him here.
Do I have it in me to call for help and condemn him?
His next wheeze tears me from the thought.
But this time, when he starts coughing again, he can’t seem to stop. It’s terrifying. Blood sprays from his mouth and pulses from his chest, and I begin to panic.
He’s drowning. He’s drowning in his own blood.
My fingers curl and unfold.Do something. Do something, you useless piece of?—
Fuck it.
I race to his heaving body, bare knees splashing red as I kneel on the pavement. My hands fly to his chest, pressing into the flooding wound. Warm. So warm. How can one person have so much blood?
Our gazes meet, mere inches apart. From the intimacy of the position, I allow myself to look—really look—at the man whose life I’m trying to save. Dark, short hair curls across his brow, a stark contrast to the paling pallor of his skin. I gape at the collection of sharp features: a strong nose, high, sharp cheekbones, full, jet-black brows. Each characteristic is too severe on its own, but combined, they create something utterly fascinating.
A masterpiece I can’t look away from.
Deep blue crashes into me with waves of light when I find his gaze again, threatening to drown me in cavernous, salty depths.
I’ve never seen anything quite so hopeless or empty. The look of a man who has already done the work of mentally severing himself from a future he’ll never see. Blood swims down his shirt and congeals in the fabric, a nonsensical volume pouring from a bottomless tap.
He’s going to die here. Right here, with my hands pressed to his chest.
