But I have to learn. Right now.
“What do I do?” I ask. My hands hover over his shoulder, terrified to touch him.
“Cut the shirt,” he says, his voice incredibly tight.
I grab a pair of trauma shears from the tray and step between his legs.
The intimacy of the position hits me instantly. My thighs brush against his knees. I’m standing in the V of his legs, close enough to feel his breath on my neck.
I snip up the middle of the ruined black T-shirt, splitting it open and gently peeling the fabric back.
Up close, his chest is a memoir of pain. I saw the scars on his back in the gym, but this is different. This is an intimate, brutal record of what he is. Burn marks. Knife slashes. A starburst scar on his right pectoral that looks like shrapnel.
He isn’t just a killer. He’s a survivor of a hundred wars I know nothing about.
I turn my attention to his left shoulder. The cotton is glued to his torn flesh by coagulating blood, and pulling it over his arm would be excruciating. Breathing through my mouth, I carefully slide the lower blade of the shears up the seam of the sleeve. I snip the fabric away inch by inch, freeing his arm before gently peeling the ruined material back from the wound.
The blood starts flowing faster now that the shirt’ pressure is gone. The wound is ugly. It’s a jagged, angry hole where the bullet tore through the muscle, dark red and welling sluggishly.
“Oh god,” I breathe. “Cassian...”
“It missed the main artery, but the muscle is shredded,” he says. “It’s not clean, but it’s not fatal if you pack it.”
“Fixable?” I stare at the hole in his body. “You need a hospital. You need a surgeon.”
“I can’t go to a hospital,” he says. “We’re ghosts, remember? If I walk into an ER, the police come. If the police come, the men who hired the Syndicate find us.”
The reminder steels my spine.
“Okay,” I say. “Okay. Tell me what to do.”
“Clean it,” he says. “Saline. Then iodine.”
I grab the bottle of saline and pour it over the wound.
His hand grips the edge of the table so hard the metal groans. His head drops back, thick cords of muscle standing out in his neck. He doesn’t make a sound, but his entire body goes rigid.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m sorry.”
“Keep going,” he grits out.
I grab the iodine and flush the wound. The smell of antiseptic mixes heavily with the hot scent of blood.
“Pack it,” he says. “Gauze. Into the cavity. You have to apply pressure from the inside.”
I stare at the gauze.
“What about the bullet?” I whisper, terrified of pushing it deeper.
“Through and through,” he grits out. “Exit wound in the back. Just pack the cavity.”
“You want me to... put my fingers inside?”
“Yes.” He opens his eyes. They’re black pits of pain. “You have to stop the bleeding. Do it.”
My stomach rolls, but I lift a thick wad of gauze.
My mind rebels. Every instinct I have screams to drop the fabric, to step back, to not force my hands into torn human flesh.
