"What?"
"My name." She's staring straight ahead, not looking at me. "It's Natalie."
Natalie. I file it away alongside all the injuries I need to treat and all the questions I'm not going to ask until she's ready to answer them.
"Good to meet you, Natalie. Sorry about the circumstances."
Her laugh is hollow and cracked. "You and me both."
The cabin comes into view and she tenses all over again. I feel it happen, the way she braces for something bad. Like she's expecting the trap to spring now that she's let her guard down.
"Just the cabin," I tell her. "Dogs you already met. Nobody else."
"You live alone?"
"Yeah."
Another long silence. Then: "Me too. Now."
There's a story there. A bad one. But it'll keep until she's got food in her stomach and bandages on her wounds and a locked door between her and whatever monster put that handprint on her throat.
I carry her up the porch steps, shoulder through the front door, and bring her into the warmth of my home.
Natalie sitson my couch with a mug of chamomile tea cradled in her hands, watching me set out medical supplies on the coffee table like she's waiting for me to reveal the catch.
I've been moving slow. Explaining everything before I do it. Keeping my voice soft and my hands where she can see them. All the things you do with a wild animal that's been hurt, all the things you do with a person who's learned that hands mean pain.
"I need to check your ribs." I crouch in front of her, keeping plenty of space between us. "Going to have to lift your shirt. I can get you something else to wear while I do it, something thatopens in the front so you have more control. Or we can wait. Your call."
She considers this. I watch her weigh her options, factor in her level of pain, calculate whether she trusts me enough.
"Now's fine." She sets down the tea. "Let's just get it over with."
I grab a soft flannel from my bedroom, one that buttons up the front, and hand it to her. "Want me to turn around while you change?"
"Please."
I turn. Listen to the careful sounds of her moving, the sharp intake of breath when she hits a sore spot, the quiet rustle of fabric. When she says "okay," I turn back to find her drowning in my flannel, her ruined shirt in a ball on the floor.
The bruising on her torso is worse than I expected. Deep purple and sickly yellow spreading across her ribs and stomach. Defensive wounds on her forearms. And there, right over her heart, another handprint. Darker than the one on her throat.
My vision goes red at the edges.
I breathe through it. In through the nose, out through the mouth. My fingers find the seam of my jeans, press down until I feel the solid reality of my own thigh beneath my palm. Not now. She needs a medic, not a man about to lose his mind over what someone did to her.
"Okay." My voice comes out steady. Calm. A minor miracle. "I'm going to touch your ribs now. Tell me if anything hurts more than the rest."
I work carefully. Methodically. Checking each rib, watching her face for signs of increased pain. Two cracked on the left side, one bruised on the right. Her wrist is sprained, not broken, which is good news at least.
"You need a hospital," I tell her when I'm done. "I can treat most of this here, but you should get X rays to make sure I haven't missed anything internal."
The fear that flashes across her face tells me everything I need to know about why she won't be going to any hospital.
"He'll find me." She says it like stating a fact. Like announcing the sun rises in the east. "Hospitals have records. He has people."
"He?"
She doesn't answer. Just stares at me with those bruised eyes, and I see the moment she decides she's already said too much.
