“Is that what happened to your family—an accident?” he asked.
She shook her head, not that he’d see.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me.”
Hell, the whole of New Zealand knew the story. Why not him, too? “My mum and dad got sent to jail.”
He lifted his gaze, shielding the light. “Whoa.ThatI didn’t see coming. The way you spoke about accidents—I thought...”
“No, that’s more professional. I’ve mopped up after a lot of tragedy. Guess I’m a little desensitized,” she said, feeling the need to explain her tactless questioning.
“Happens.” He pulled tweezers from his kit. “Is that partly why you left the air force?”
She frowned. Did she want to share details? She’d met the guy only a few hours ago.
“Talk to me, Tia. It’ll take your mind off this.”
Good point. And she felt an urge to connect with the part of him that was still living his hell. “I’d had enough of senseless death. I wanted to return to the land of the living where sudden, violent death is the exception, not the norm.”
“I hear you.”
“I know it’s a cop-out to leave other people to do that job, but after a while you either go mad or you go numb. I could feel myself swinging between the two, sometimes empty, sometimes furious, as if my mind was trying to settle on which way to go. When you start laughing at the other guys’ dark jokes, about the bodies, about death...”
He tilted his head. “Yeah.”
“I didn’t want to reach the point where it was me making the jokes. And you can’t shovel that shit while you’re swimming in it, no matter how many psychologists they dump you in front of.”
“You’re still doing good work, with the search and rescue ops.”
“It’s as much death as I can handle.”
“These tourists—it’s hit you hard, hasn’t it?”
“Yeah.” She swallowed. “Must be hard for you, too, after your experience.”
“This next bit...” The corners of his eyes wrinkled.
“It’ll hurt, I know. Just do it.”
He gave a grim nod. She guessed that was him slamming the door on sharing his story. He bent closer, his warm breath coasting over her skin. She closed her eyes, concentrating on that, not on—
“Yeow,” she breathed, her eyes flicking open.
The tweezers held a bloody tuft of denim. Mate, it felt like he’d stabbed her, not removed something. Blood rolled down her shin. She bit her lip and rode out the pain, switching focus to his face. His stubbled jaw was square and serious, his brown eyes sharp, lines etched between them. His brow hunkered as he tugged again. She braced, keeping her gaze on him as the pain struck. As he worked, she kept staring, kept breathing. If he looked up, she could avert her eyes. In the meantime, she’d run with the only pain relief on offer.
“My brother, Zack,” he said quietly, still focused on her leg. “We were doing a river in Spain. He went down a waterfall and got impaled on a branch. Total freak accident. It was a mess.” He examined a fragment of denim in the tweezers like it was a portal into the past. “Years later, a doctor buddy—the medic in my commando team—went over the medical report for me. The way the stick hit was crazy unlucky—the speed he was going, the trajectory, how it snuck in under his life jacket and jammed between his ribs. A quarter inch either way and it might have just cracked a rib.”
Her chest tightened. “Was anyone else with you?”
“No. It was like this. Isolated. That’s why we picked it. He begged me to stay with him, but I figured if I did he was definitely dead. So I paddled for help. By the time we got back...” He gulped, his Adam’s apple bobbing. His eyes shone. “He’d only lasted half an hour. Half an hour.”
She shuffled forward awkwardly and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“I don’t usually talk about it,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “For exactly this reason.”
“I get that. So you blame yourself.”
“Should’ve known going for help was futile. Should’ve listened to him. He died alone, in so much pain... When we found him you could still see it on his face.”
