It’s quiet for a long moment. So quiet that I’m almost sure I’m alone, but then I hear footsteps nearby. My vision starts to clear. I process where I am. Sorta. I’m lying on a couch with several towels underneath and wrapped around my body. In a living room I don’t recognize, with low sunlight piercing through the curtain nearby. It makes my head hurt, so I look away from it and toward the man standing to the side of the couch.
“Soren, you’re awake. Finally,” Carmine says. He crouches down beside me and brushes his fingers along the side of my face. The cuts on my cheek and chin have started to scab up now. I don’t mind the pain I feel as he touches them. It reminds me that he’s really here. I’m really here.
“Are you okay?” I ask him. “I couldn’t even take him on.” My throat is dryer than I realize and my words almost sound like dust coming out of my mouth.
Carmine holds up a bottle of water he’s carrying and twists the cap off. “I managed,” he tells me. “I was not going to let him kill you.”
“I can’t believe Eivor sent him after me,” I mumble. My brows furrow and I start to sit up.
“Hey, careful there. You got it pretty good, Ren,” Carmine insists. He puts his hand on my back before I sit up the rest of the way.
I sigh and it hurts my ribs. I haven’t felt this fucking beat up in a while.
“I’ll kill him for this,” I growl softly. “You could’ve died. We could’ve died.”
“Don’t,” Carmine holds the bottle of water to my mouth and I take a slow sip, then a gulp, thirstier than ever. It drips down my chin after he takes it away. I watch his mouth as he takes a heavy drink too and then screws the cap back on.
“You’re sayin’ you don’t want him dead?” I ask, raising a brow. “After?—”
“I did not say that,” he motions with a finger. “But right now? It’d be starting a war, and that’s what he wants. Isn’t it?”
I look to the floor for a second. “It is,” I agree with a nod. “He’ll take any reason to blow your entire family up.”
“Now you are included in the mess. All due to not killing me,” Carmine sighs and slips onto the couch beside me.
I notice that I’m still naked but my lower half is wrapped in a towel that’s stained with my blood. I trail my fingers along the towel until I reach the middle, between the both of us.
I shake my head. “I should’ve never tried,” I say through gritted teeth.
“No, you should not have,” he agrees. Carmine slides his hand onto the back of my neck. “But you stopped.”
“I can’t kill you, Carm,” I say slowly, my eyes meet his. “I—” I stop myself. It’s not the right time. When is the right time?
How ridiculous will I sound?
“I can’t kill you,” Carmine tells me. “I cannot stand the idea of you dead, Soren. I can’t.” I scoot closer to him until our noses are brushing.
“How…how did we make it out?” I ask him.
“I’m not sure. Sheer stubbornness?” he tells me with a chuckle. “I stitched you up the best I could. You did not lose as much blood as it seems.”
I look down and he’s right, my shoulder is stitched up haphazardly, but it’s decent.
My eyes shift up to Carmine and I see the blood on the back of his neck still.
“You stitched me up, but who stitched you up?” I asked him and slowly walk my fingers around his head to see the sticky blood of a still damp wound on the back of it.
“Carmine!” I hiss. “You can’t just walk around with this.”
“It’s fine, it’s not that bad,” Carmine insists.
Nevertheless, I move around him as best as possible and take a look, parting his blood-matted hair to look at the gash on his head.
“You definitely need a couple stitches, man,” I grumble. My body is so sore, but I don’t give a damn. I’m going to take care of Carmine whether he likes it or not.
“You sure?” he asks.
“Yeah, I’m sure, you idiot,” I snarl. “You’re gonna get yourself killed.”
