When the back of my hand grazes her shoulder, a violent tremor wracks her whole body. The reaction hits me like a punch to the chest. My jaw locks so hard my teeth ache. Moretti did that. He put that flinch inside her. He tied her to a chair and pressed a blade to her skin until her body learned to expect pain.
"Come," I say, dropping my voice to the quiet tone I keep only for her.
I don't let her walk on her own. Her legs are shaking too hard to hold her up. I reach in and wrap my arm around her waist, anchoring her to my side, and pull her against my body. I walk her straight toward the iron staircase that leads up to my glass-walled office.
My men part to let us through. They see the soot, the grease, and the blood soaking my clothes. They see the dirt smeared across Helena’s pale face and the way she leans into my side.
No one says a word. No one asks a question. They know better than to look me in the eye right now. The pure rage rolling off me is enough to feel in the room. If anyone speaks, I might kill them to relieve the tension.
I guide her up the clanging metal steps. Every footstep echoes like a gunshot. I push the heavy office door open, guide her inside to the black leather sofa, and sit her down. Then I slam the door shut and drop the heavy steel deadbolt into place, instantly cutting off the noise of the warehouse.
Before the silence can even settle, a sharp, frantic knock hits the glass.
It's Doc, the underground surgeon who runs the illegal triage suite in the basement. His white coat isn't white anymore. It's covered in fresh, bright red blood. Lev’s blood.
I yank the door open and let him in.
"Examine her," I command, pointing to Helena.
The doctor approaches her slowly. I stand right behind him, hovering over his shoulder and watching his every move. Even in a clinical setting, I hate another man putting his hands on her.
Helena sits completely stiff on the edge of the leather sofa. She lets the doctor click his penlight and shine the bright beam into her eyes to check for a concussion. She lets him gently press his gloved hands along her collarbone and down her ribs.
He traces the exact line where the seatbelt of the Sentinel caught her when the loader crushed the car. She winces.
A small gasp escapes her lips when he presses against her left side.
"Is it broken?" I demand.
"Deep tissue bruising," the doctor says quickly, stepping back to give me space. "And severe whiplash from the crash, but her ribs are intact. There's no internal bleeding that I can detect. Given the state of the vehicle, she's lucky to be walking."
"And the hand?" I ask. My eyes lock onto her right hand, resting limply in her lap.
The doctor reaches into his bag and takes her shaking fingers. He uses a wipe to clean away the dried blood.
The slice Moretti made is fully visible now. It's a shallow cut right at the base of the joint. It lines up perfectly with the black marker circle he drew to map out where he was going to cut her finger off.
It was a slow drag of steel meant to terrify her rather than actually maim her, but seeing that thin red line on her pale skin makes my vision go dark at the edges.
A roaring sound fills my ears.
The doctor wraps a white bandage around her thumb, carefully hiding the wound and the marker ink from sight.
"It's superficial," he says quietly, packing his supplies away with nervous hands. "Keep it clean. It'll heal."
He steps back and clutches his bag to his chest, ready to bolt.
"Lev," I say.
The doctor freezes, and his gaze drops to the blood-stained concrete.
"We stopped the bleeding," he says, his voice dropping into a grim, clinical monotone. "We managed to graft the femoral artery, but he lost a great deal of blood before he hit my table. His heart stopped twice during the procedure."
My chest tightens. All the air leaves my lungs in a single rush. "Is he awake?"
"He's in a medically induced coma in the basement," the doctor replies, shaking his head slowly. "His body can't handle waking right now. The next forty-eight hours will decide everything. If the graft holds, and if his brain wasn't starved of oxygen for too long, he might wake. If not, we'll have to amputate the leg to stop the tissue from dying. That's assuming his heart keeps beating."
The words hang in the air.
