“He’s out,” Luka says grimly, checking his pulse. “Pain took him under. Probably better this way.”
Better. Yes. He won’t feel what comes next.
But I’m alone now.
Just me and the wet red landscape of muscle and organ and the dark shape of the bullet lodged against something vital.
I keep cutting.
“Forceps.” My voice is steady, and I don’t know how. “Luka, hold the incision open.”
He does, and I can see inside Roman now, can see the bullet pressed against his liver. If I pull wrong, if I nick the tissue, he bleeds out on this table and never wakes up.
I reach in with the forceps.
The metal scrapes against something—rib, maybe, or the bullet casing—and Roman’s body jerks. The lizard brain is fighting the knife. I talk to keep my hands steady. “Stay with me. Stay. You’re not allowed to die.” My hand is steady, even though my voice is breaking. “You hear me? You don’t get to die on this table.”
The bullet shifts under my forceps.
“I didn’t jump into that river for you to die.” I grip the metal, feel it move. “I didn’t beat your heart for you to die.”
The bullet slides free.
“I didn’t fall in love with you for you to fucking die.”
Nine millimeter. Deformed. Covered in his blood.
I drop it because Roman’s still bleeding and I need to close the wound before the blood loss kills what the river didn’t.
“Needle. Thread. Now.”
Luka hands them over, and I stitch.
Messy. Just trying to close tissue that keeps slipping while blood pools faster than I can work. His body is limp and grey, and I can’t tell if he’s still alive until I check his pulse between stitches—weak, thready, but there.
“Almost done.” I’m talking to myself now, to no one. “Hold on—”
Final stitch.
I tie it off and slap a pressure bandage over the wound, and his blood is everywhere, my hands and my arms and my face.
“Roman.” I grab his jaw. His eyes are still closed, his face grey, his lips colorless. “Come back. You have to come back.”
Nothing.
I check his pulse. Still there. Weak but there.
His eyes don’t open.
“Come on.” I’m crying again, tears dripping onto his chest. “You trusted me. You can’t—you can’t just—”
I lean down and press my mouth to his.
Desperation, my lips against his like I’m trying to breathe more life into him, like I can pull him back from wherever he’s gone through sheer fucking will. He tastes like blood and river water and ethanol, and I don’t care. I kiss him like it’s the last thing I’ll ever do, like my mouth on his can keep his heart beating.
His lips are cold. Unresponsive. He doesn’t kiss me back.
I pull away, pressing my forehead to his, and I’m sobbing now, ugly broken sounds that don’t care who hears them.
