“SUV, actually.”
I laugh and immediately regret it when pain spikes through my ribs. “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”
“Sorry.” He reaches over and takes my hand with his uninjured arm. “The doctor says you have a concussion, three bruised ribs, and about a dozen cuts and scrapes, but nothing permanent.”
“What about you?”
“Gunshot wound to the side. Dislocated shoulder. Minor concussion.” He shrugs with his good shoulder. “I’ve had worse.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
We’re in some kind of private medical facility, I realize as I look around. The room is small but well-equipped, with monitors beeping steadily and soft light filtering through curtained windows. Not a hospital. Somewhere off the books.
“Where are we?”
“Just a clinic downtown. Alexei has a contact here. They treat injuries without asking questions.”
“Well, isn’t that convenient.”
“It’s necessary in our line of work.” Menlow squeezes my hand. “You scared me.”
“I scared myself.” I close my eyes again, and flashes of the attack play across my memory. The crash. The men dragging me through the window. The warehouse. “How long was I out?”
“About eighteen hours. They gave you something for the pain.”
“Eighteen hours?” I try to sit up and immediately abandon the attempt when my ribs scream in protest. “What happened? Did they catch the people who—”
Menlow presses me gently back against the pillows. “Take it easy. Everything’s being handled. You just need to rest.”
I want to argue. I want answers. But exhaustion is pulling at me, dragging me back under, and Menlow’s hand in mine is an anchor I don’t want to let go of.
“Stay with me?” I ask, hating how small my voice sounds.
“Always.”
The next few days blend together in a haze of sleep and medication and Menlow’s constant presence.
He barely leaves my side. When the doctors come to check on me, he hovers nearby, asking questions and demanding answers. When the pain gets bad, he holds my hand and talks to me about nothing—his sisters, his work, or a book he’s reading—until I can focus on something other than hurting.
At night, he sleeps in the chair beside my bed. I tell him to go home. He refuses. I tell him the chair can’t be comfortable. He says he’s slept in worse places. I stop arguing.
Sweet moments slip between the harder ones. He reads to me when I can’t sleep. He brings me food that isn’t hospital bland and watches me eat every bite. He brushes my hair when I complain about it being tangled, his fingers gentle despite their size.
But something is off.
He’s quieter than usual. Broodier. Sometimes I catch him staring at nothing with a faraway look in his eyes, and when I ask what he’s thinking about, he just shakes his head and changes the subject.
I tell myself it’s just the stress. The aftermath of nearly losing me. The weight of what happened pressing down on him.
But I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something he’s not telling me.
On the fourth day, my brain finally starts working again.
I’m lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to piece together the fragments of memory from the attack, when it hits me. The warehouse. The men who took me. The things I overheard while they were holding me.
My photographic memory has always been both a blessing and a curse. I can’t forget anything, even when I want to. Every detail gets burned into my brain, filed away for later retrieval, whether I like it or not.
