“I told you,” I say, pouring antiseptic onto a pad. The smell of alcohol cuts through the air. “You’re my insurance.”
“You risked your life for insurance?”
“It’s expensive insurance.”
I press the pad against the cut on her shoulder. She hisses. “Ow!”
“Hold still.”
“It hurts!”
“It’s supposed to hurt. It’s cleaning the dirt out.”
I work quickly, cleaning the wound as efficiently as possible. Then I apply a butterfly bandage to close the edges. My hands are steady, but my blood is still boiling. The violence pulses under my skin.
“Why?”
I stop. “Why what?”
“Why did you come?” she asks as her eyes search mine. “You could have stayed in the tower. You could have let them take me. You would be safe.”
“I don’t hide,” I say.
“That’s not it. You’re furious. I can see it.”
“I’m angry because you disobeyed a direct order,” I say, dropping the bloody gauze into the sink. “I told you to stay in the room.”
“I was trying to escape!”
“And look where it got you.” I gesture to her mangled feet. “You ran from a secure location straight into a Syndicate kill zone. You almost got yourself killed. You almost got me killed.”
“I didn’t ask you to save me!”
“You didn’t have to!” I snap.
The anger flares up again, protecting me from the adrenaline crashing through my system. It protects me from the startling realization of how fast I drove to get to her. From the fact that, for a brief window, I wasn’t thinking about leverage. I was only thinking abouther.
“You’re not responsible for me!” she yells, pushing my hands away. “You’re the monster! You’re the one who put me in this mess!”
“I’m the only reason you’re still breathing!” I roar back. I grab her face, forcing her to look at me. “Do you get it yet? There are no heroes coming for you, Iris. There are no knights. There are only wolves. And I’m the biggest wolf in the forest.”
“I know,” she whispers, her voice fracturing. “The second I heard his accent. I knew.”
“They’re the Syndicate. My rivals. They weren’t going to save you. They were going to use you to get to me, or they were going to break you into pieces to see if your father would pay the bill.”
Her chest is heaving, her pupils blown so wide her eyes look like obsidian. The fight drains out of her posture, leaving only a raw, desperate exhaustion.
“You’re the big bad wolf, huh?” she whispers.
“That’s right.”
“Then eat me already.”
The words hang in the air. She doesn’t mean it sexually. She means destroy me. She means get it over with. She means she’s tired of running, tired of fear, tired of the lies.
The adrenaline from the crash, the violence of the shoot-out, the rage—it all funnels into this moment. The energy shifts, warping darker. Hotter.
My attention snaps to her lips. Parted. Bloody. Then, to her pulse hammering under the delicate skin of her neck. I’m stillholding her face. My thumbs are stroking her cheekbones, a subconscious caress.
