I stand up, the gun raised, my finger on the trigger. I walk to the door, my bare feet silent on the damp carpet. I look through the tiny, scratched peephole.
A small, middle-aged man stands in the rain, clutching a worn leather medical bag. He looks nervous, his eyes darting toward the parking lot.
I slide the chain back and open the door just enough for him to slip inside.
He doesn't look at me. He doesn't look at the room. He walks straight to the bed, his movements practiced and clinical. He is a man who exists in the shadows of the world, a man who has seen more bullet wounds than the local ER.
"Don Thorne," the vet murmurs, opening his bag.
Thayer doesn't answer. He is hovering on the very edge of consciousness, his eyes rolled back, his jaw clenched in a silent battle with the pain.
I stand at the foot of the bed, the gun still in my hand, watching as the man works. He doesn't remove the stitches I put in. He examines them, a faint, surprised grunt escaping his lips.
"The girl did these?" he asks, his voice thick with a gravelly accent.
"Yes," I say, my voice steady, surprising myself.
"They're ugly," he observes, pulling a vial of clear liquid and a syringe from his bag. "But they're tight. They saved his life."
He injects the antibiotics into Thayer's arm. Then, he pulls out a heavy, dark glass bottle and a clean cloth.
"I'm going to put him under," the vet says, looking at me for the first time. His eyes are old, tired, and entirely devoid of judgment. "He needs the deep sleep for the body to start the repair. He won't wake up for at least six hours."
I nod, my throat tightening.
He presses the cloth to Thayer's nose and mouth. I watch as the last of the tension leaves Thayer's massive frame. His hands, which were clawing at the mattress, go limp. His breathing slows, the jagged rattle smoothing into a deep, heavy cadence.
The vet works for another hour, cleaning the wound properly, applying a specialized antibiotic paste, and re-wrapping the shoulder in professional, sterile bandages. When he’s finished, he packs his bag and stands up.
"He's strong," the vet says, nodding toward Thayer. "A normal man would have been dead at the railyard. But he's fighting for something. Make sure he keeps fighting."
He leaves as quietly as he arrived.
I am alone with the monster again.
I walk to the window and pull the blackout curtain aside just a fraction of an inch. The gray light of dawn is beginning to bleed into the sky, revealing the desolate, rain-slicked parking lot and the dark silhouette of the ghost car.
There are no police cruisers. No flashing lights. Not yet.
I turn back to the room. I walk to the small bathroom and turn the faucet on. I wash the dried blood—his blood—from my hands, my arms, and my face. I scrub until my skin is rawand pink, but the phantom heat of his touch still lingers, a permanent brand on my soul.
I look at myself in the cracked, water-stained mirror.
The girl I was forty-eight hours ago—the girl who flinched at loud noises, the girl who lived in the shadows of her father's greed—is gone. She died in that cabin. She died when she pulled the black nylon thread through Thayer's skin.
The woman looking back at me has hollowed-out eyes and a blood-stained soul. She is the wife of a parricide. She is a fugitive. And God help me, she is more alive than she has ever been.
I walk back into the bedroom. I strip off the dark tactical pants and the oversized t-shirt, leaving them in a heap on the floor. I am wearing nothing but the ruins of my wedding lace.
I climb onto the bed.
I slide beneath the heavy duvet, pressing my body against Thayer's uninjured right side. He is still unconscious, but his body heat is immense, a furnace that draws me in. I wrap my arm carefully over his waist, my fingers brushing the dark ink of the tattoos on his ribs. I rest my cheek against the hollow of his neck, listening to the steady, rhythmic thud of his heart.
Mine.The word doesn't feel like a threat anymore. It feels like an anchor.
I close my eyes, the exhaustion finally dragging me down into a dark, dreamless sleep.
I don't know how long I sleep. But I am woken by a sound that isn't the rain.
