He shakes his head, breathes out, and keeps working. The thread pulls tight, puckering the skin. I’m bleeding less now, but the raw ache spreads through my gut and up my ribs. I close my eyes and see the faces of the men I just killed. The one with the broken nose looked at me like he recognized a kindred monster before I put a bullet in his face.
There’s a rhythm to violence and to being stitched up after: an intimacy, a control, a need that makes the world smaller and easier to manage.
Landon ties off the first stitch, then moves to the next. My hand finds the bottle, and I take another pull, the burn a better anesthetic than anything else in the kit. He’s sweating, but his hands never shake. I wonder if he’s done this before.
“Keep going,” I tell him when he slows.
He doesn’t waste words. Just cleans, threads, and pierces again. I feel every prick, every tug, but the pain is nothing compared to the need to move, to be anywhere but sitting duck in a kitchen waiting for the next team of killers.
“You ever stitched someone up before?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Lots of YouTube. You ever needed this before?”
I laugh, but it’s a short, ugly sound. “First time. I’m usually the one making the holes.”
He nods, accepting this, and finishes the run across my stomach. There’s a line of black thread now, neat and tight. He tapes a gauze pad over it, presses down until the bleeding stops, and moves to the wound on my arm.
This one’s cleaner—a smaller cut. He cleans it, pours vodka straight in, and doesn’t apologize when I hiss.
“How long do we have before the next team finds us?” he asks, focused on lining up the skin.
I check the battered digital clock, then the thin strip of light showing under the front door. “Director has officially put me on the kill list. If they’re doing it by protocol, we’ve got twenty minutes before the first drone does a sweep. An hour before the Disposals show up in person.”
He stops, the needle halfway through, and his eyes go wide. “You’re on the list?”
I nod, take another drink, and set the bottle down hard enough that the glass clicks against the table. “Yep. But I wrote the protocol for compromised assets. They’ll follow it to the letter, and I know every step.”
He finishes the stitch, mouth set hard now. “And what’s the protocol for someone like you?”
I grin, but it’s not a happy smile. “Depends on the value assessment. For mid-tier, it’s a bullet in the head, dump thebody, erase the digital traces. For top-tier, it’s exfil to a black site and a week of torture before the same outcome. For me?” I flex my fist, feeling the line of fresh thread pull across my arm. “They’ll go with firepower. Lots of it. They’ll want a spectacle. Also they know I’d never go quietly.”
He ties off the stitch, then wipes down the skin with gentle fingers. For a second, the air between us isn’t cold at all. He holds my arm in both hands, eyes on the cut, but his thumb strokes the inside of my wrist like he’s checking for a pulse.
“What about me?” he says, voice almost a whisper.
I tilt my head, studying him. The way he kneels between my legs, the freckles on his nose, the worry in his eyes that he tries to hide. I want to tell him he’s safe, but it would be a lie.
“They’ll kill you easily. You’re no longer a high target liability,” I say, because he deserves the truth. “Unless I get to them first.”
He processes this, then nods. “Okay.”
No fear. Just okay. Like he’s already decided.
He grabs the last bandage, tapes it tight, then stands. My blood is all over his hands. He looks down at them, then at me. He doesn’t wipe them off. He just moves to the sink and lets the water run, cold and loud in the quiet house.
I watch him. The way his hands move in the water. The way the blood washes clean. The way he won’t look at me, but won’t look away either.
He turns off the tap, shakes the water off, and grabs a towel. Suddenly, he laughs, short and sharp, and tosses the towel on the counter. “You ruin everything you touch, you know that?”
I nod. “It’s my best feature.”
He looks at me, then moves back to the table. He grabs the vodka, wipes the rim, and takes a drink.
“You’re going to have to teach me how to use a gun,” he says, eyes bright in the lamplight.
I smile, for real this time. “Now you’re speaking my language.”
He sits, thigh pressed to mine, and the pain in my side is nothing compared to the way his presence calms the rest of me. He pours two more shots, lines them up, and slides one over.
