He made sound. A rough, agonized sound, of the kind she could tell he’d tried to hold in. She could tell he was gritting his teeth against it, but it did him no good. If anything, it only made his pain seem more despairing, more full of frustration.
Like a man caught in a trap, she thought,who had only dreamt he was free.
Now the bars were clear to him again, and god, he couldn’t seem to take it.
For far too long a moment, he couldn’t seem to take anything.
In fact, by the time he finally spoke, she was so afraid she’d lost him forever that she couldn’t quite take in the words. He had to ask them again with twice the urgency and ten times the panic—though, it wasn’t the tone that really got through to her. It was him finally looking at her, as he spoke. It was seeing the concern in his dark gaze and that thread of hope that she was still with him.
“Lydia, please tell me that you’re okay,” he said.
And she answered for him. To reassure him.
To let him know that things were okay.
“Never better,” she said, but here was the thing:
As soon as she had she knew.
They weren’t only the kindest words.
They were also undisputedly true.
Chapter Sixteen
He wouldn’t explain anything to her, on the drive to his place. Though, she didn’t think it was about keeping it to himself. He was just on such high alert that nothing else appeared to get through. All that mattered was getting her safely into the car and then safely to his apartment and then safely inside.
And even then, he didn’t pause to talk. He made her wait at his Fort Knox door while he seemed to frisk the place. She watched him glide between tidy little rooms filled with surprisingly plush looking furniture, opening and closing things as if he was expecting armed assailants to be hiding in every cupboard.
Though she could hardly fault him for it.
If elevators had gun happy psychos in them, why notalleveryday things? They’d stepped out of the normal and into whatever dangerous world he’d once inhabited, and that meant heightened care at all times. It meant making sure they were safe even after it became absolutely clear that they were.
And it also meant blood.
“Oh my god, you’re bleeding. Isaac. Isaac, just stop for a second. You’re bleeding. You’re bleeding through your jeans, Isaac. Can you hear me?” she asked.
But he just waved her off.
“It barely grazed me, honey. It’s fine.”
“Yeah, but theitin question is a goddamn bullet.”
“A goddamn bullet that almost completely missed me.”
“Again, I think you’re missing the most important word in your own sentence.Almostmeans that itdid notmiss you. Almost means that you’re gushing blood.”
“I’d hardly call this gushing. At best, it’s a light trickle.”
“Forgive me if I don’t think you’re the best judge of that.”
“Why would I not be the best judge of something on my own body?”
“Because now you’re making a mess of the floor.”
She pointed, and this time he seemed to register what she was saying. At the very least, he looked down, at the trail of red he was leaving in his wake. And he reacted to it, too. He told her to go run some hot water in his bathroom and get the medicine kit from the drawer under the sink—both of which sounded like good ideas.
But as soon as she started in the direction he indicated, she knew something about his words had not been quite right. His voice had seemed too flat. His gaze had almost looked right through her, to something else beyond.Like he was already thinking of some next move he needed to make,her mind suggested.
