"You need to rest," I said, stripping off my bloody gloves. "Keep the wound clean. Change the bandage twice a day."
"You going to lecture me about hospitals again?"
"Would it help?"
"No."
"Then no."
I stood and offered him my hand. After a moment's hesitation, he took it.
Getting him upright was a process. He swayed, blood loss making him unsteady, and I ended up pressed against his side to keep him vertical. His arm came around my shoulders—heavy, solid, radiating heat through my jacket. My own defined torso pressed against his ribs, and I felt him inhale sharply.
"Careful," I warned. "Don't tear my work."
"Wouldn't dream of it." But his eyes were on my face, not his wound. Something flickered in those grey depths—surprise, maybe. Or recognition. Like he'd found something he hadn't expected.
I stepped back before I could do something stupid. "You going to be okay getting home?"
"My bike's around front. Brothers will give me a ride."
"Brothers?"
He tapped the patch on his cut—the stylized phoenix I'd seen earlier. "Steel Phoenixes. My MC." A pause. "My family."
The way he saidfamilyhit something tender in my chest. I understood what it meant to find family where you could.
"Well." I put professional distance between us. "Try not to get stabbed again before that heals."
"I'll do my best." He was looking at me strangely now, something shifting behind those storm-cloud eyes. "Thank you, Kai. Not many people would have stopped."
"Not many people would have kept fighting with a hole in their side."
He huffed a sound that was almost a laugh. "Point taken."
I turned to go, to find my bike and ride home and process the insanity of the last twenty minutes. But his voice stopped me.
"Kai."
I looked back. He was still leaning against the dumpster, one hand pressed gently over the bandage I'd applied. The distant streetlight caught his face at an angle that turned his features into planes of shadow and gold.
"Be careful going home." His expression had gone serious. "The men who did this—Devil's Dust—they don't like witnesses. You stopped to help me. That makes you memorable."
A chill traced down my spine.
"And memorable isn't safe?" I finished.
"No. It's not." He pushed off from the dumpster, steadier now. "You need me, you come to Phoenix Fabric. Ask for Reaper."
"Reaper?"
"My road name." That ghost-smile again. "Long story."
I should have been afraid. Should have been running for my bike, putting miles between myself and this bleeding stranger with his ominous warnings and his death-touched name.
Instead, I felt something else entirely—a pull toward those grey eyes, those capable hands, the mystery wrapped in leather and violence.
"Okay," I heard myself say. "Reaper. Phoenix Fabric."
