“No, let me finish. None of this should have happened. You didn’t have to get stabbed, but you pushed me out of the way even though the dead inspectors weren’t touching me. For someone hellbent on not letting me get hurt, you somehow missed that, didn’t you? They were trying to kill you, not me, and you played right into it.”
“I was trying to protect you!”
“I never asked you to! If I wasn’t clear,neverhurt yourself in my name again. Felipe, I love you, but you can’t keep doing this. You can’t keep hurting yourself for other people.”
“I can take it.”
“No, you can’t. Felipe, look at you,” Oliver pleaded, gesturing tothe wound with his tweezers. “Maybe you thought you could in the past, but those days are over and done with. You can’t heal like you once did, and I will not lose you because of some— some martyr complex.”
Anger flared in Felipe’s breast, but he held to it as tightly as he did the pain.
“Whatever it is you did, you’ve done your penance.” Oliver’s breath hitched as he put in another stitch. “I don’t even know how you managed to survive all these years. Did you not realize how horrific your injuries were? You shouldn’t have been shot enough times to be able to tell if you have bone fragments lodged in a wound, and you certainly shouldn’t have had to stick your own guts back in. If I think too hard about all the injuries you’ve mentioned in passing, I feel sick. The worst part is that there are still so many I don’t know about, and all I can think is why did no one try to stop you?”
At the crack in Oliver’s voice and the moisture in his eyes, Felipe tensed.
“You have been so lucky, Felipe. Not all mortal wounds are bullets to the head or heart. All it would have taken was a broken bone making a blood clot or a nicked intestine to kill you. The way you’ve constantly thrown yourself into danger makes it seem like you have a death wish, and I can’t help but think maybe you still do.”
As Oliver carefully lined up the edges of the wound and stitched them together, he fell silent, but across the tether, a maelstrom of worry, sadness, and love battered against Felipe’s heart. Felipe didn’t know what to say. His ability to kill and not be killed had been his saving grace for his entire life. If he didn’t have that, what good was he to anyone? Cutting the string of catgut, Oliver laid down his tools and wiped at his face with the back of his hand. Turning to Felipe with bloodied hands and tearstained cheeks, Oliver’s steel grey eyes locked on his.
“I can’t do this again. We don’t know your limits now, and I don’t ever want to find out. If I lose you— If I lose you a second time, that’s it. I can’t bring you back again no matter how much I want to.” Oliverbit back a wet sob as his hands trailed to where the tether hung beneath his heart. “Please don’t make me bear that pain. I don’t think I’ll survive it.”
The protests died on Felipe’s lips at the desolation written across Oliver’s features. Felipe scrambled upright, ignoring the bruised pull of the stitches and the fireworks of pain in his arm. Grabbing Oliver’s bloodied hand, he kissed it and pulled him into an embrace. Silent sobs racked Oliver’s form as he clung to him, careful to avoid all the places he hurt.
“Please don’t leave me,” Oliver whispered into his hair.
“I won’t. I won’t. I promise.”
Felipe shut his eyes against Oliver’s bloody pajamas and let Oliver hold him until their eyes dried and the first rays of sunrise peaked over the trees. At a knock on the kitchen door, Oliver wrenched himself away from Felipe with a sniff.
“Come in,” he called, his voice thick but steady as he resolutely faced the sink.
Poking her head in, Gwen immediately eyed Oliver’s hunched shoulders with a quirked brow. When her gaze landed on Felipe’s bloodied chest and the equally messy table, she grimaced. “Is everything all right? I thought I heard yelling… or crying.”
“It was both, but we’re fine now,” Felipe replied with a wince at the unfamiliar tug of the stitches as he swung his legs over the side of the table. “Oliver was giving me a stern talking to that I probably deserved.”
“I see. And the crying?”
Drawing in a long sniff, Oliver tilted his head back as if he could drain the tears into his sinuses. “It’ll pass. Gwen, can you please get Felipe some clean clothes. Whatever you can find is fine but no jacket.”
“Will do. I actually came to tell you that Mr. Allen and I moved the dead investigators into the stable in case you want to take a look at them later. He also wanted me to warn you that Lucien or the mayor might stop by if anyone heard the gunshots.”
“I don’t know how they couldn’t have. That will be fun toexplain.” Wiping his eyes, Oliver groaned. “Thank you, Gwen. Please pass on my thanks to Mr. Allen… for everything. I don’t think I can face him right now.”
With a tight nod, Gwen left them alone again. Oliver’s shoulders drooped as he let out a sigh and washed his hands for what had to be the fifth time. Wetting a wad of gauze with the water from the kettle, Oliver returned to Felipe’s side and wiped the blood from his skin in slow, careful strokes. His hands shook with spent emotion, but as he wiped a streak of blood that somehow ended up on Felipe’s cheek, his red rimmed eyes fuzzed as if seeing some fleeting nightmare. Felipe pressed Oliver’s ringed hand over his heart and kissed him. He hoped Oliver could feel through the tether that he meant it, that he wouldn’t go anywhere. He had asked Oliver not to go where he couldn’t follow, but for Oliver, he would stay. He would always stay.
At the click of the kitchen door opening and closing, Felipe pulled back to find a pile of clothes waiting on the counter and Gwen nowhere to be found. Motioning for Felipe to stay put, Oliver grabbed the shirt from the pile.
“Did you bring a second set of pajamas?”
“No, but I didn’t expect to be fighting in them.”
“Me neither. Well, if all goes well, we won’t be here for more than a few days. I’ll see if the general store has anything tomorrow. Let’s at least get you into a shirt and clean trousers. Watch your stitches and collarbone.”
Felipe shrugged off the shredded shirt as Oliver put a wad of fresh gauze over the stitches on his stomach and wrapped them as best he could. Oliver held out the fresh shirt, but as Felipe tried to maneuver his battered arm into the sleeve, dizzying, white hot pain shot through his shoulder.
“You’re definitely getting a sling,” Oliver said as he worked around his sore arm.
Felipe nearly said it wasn’t that bad, but whatever was left of his dinner nearly came up as he lowered his arm. Oliver gave him a knowing look and offered him his trousers as he dug around in hisgladstone. He had just gotten them on when Oliver motioned for him to hold his arm out. As Oliver wrapped the oversized handkerchief around his elbow and tied it behind his neck, Felipe deflated. If he wanted to move it and make things worse, he could, but now, he had a constant reminder not to. At least it took some of the pressure off his shoulder.
