Opening the case, I rummage through it, find what I need to clean the area, rinse the wound, apply some Neosporin for good measure, and then tape a bandage over it.
"Thank you," Jakob murmurs. A glance at me, then. "Are you alright?"
I shrug. "I'm not the one who got shot."
Jakob waves a hand. "It's scratch. Barely counts."
"It counts."
"Fine, it counts," he says, "but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about your anxiety attack back there. Are you alright?"
I let out a shaky breath. "Yeah. I mean, no, but yeah."
He snorts. "That clarifies things."
"I thought you weren't sarcastic?"
"You're rubbing off on me."
I cackle. "I think it's the other way around. You rubbed offinme."
His glare is so intense that I realize he doesn't appreciate my jokeat all. "Brys."
"Yes, Jakob?" I keep my voice quiet, soft.
He shifts in his seat uncomfortably. "Don't."
I hold up both hands, palms facing away. "Okay."
“You haven't answered my question."
I sigh. "Yes, I am alright. Shaken up, scared, and I'll definitely have bad dreams about all that at some point, but I'm okay. I'm a New Yorker—I've seen dead bodies before. Just…not like that. Not that close. And…I…I've never watched anyone's last breath like that." I shudder. "The brains on the wall. Ugh." I shudder.
This silence possesses a razor-sharp tension, a fraught intensity radiating from Jakob. "It isn't a pretty sight, is it?"
I peer at him as he navigates around a slow-moving semi. His face is carved from granite, the sharp angle of his jaw shadowed with thick dark stubble. His glittering dark eyes are fixed on the road ahead, but seem to see more than the blacktop and white and yellow lines. His brow is furrowed, jaw pulsing and ticking.
"Hey." I touch his shoulder. "What's wrong, Jakob?"
He shakes his head. "Nothing. I'm fine."
I snort. "I'm a woman, Jakob. You think I don't recognize a fake 'I'm fine' when I hear one?"
His expression softens a hint—a subtle expression of amusement, or perhaps merely recognition of my attempt at humor. "It's…" Another shake of head, a sigh. "Nothing."
"Jakob."
"Brys." He glares straight ahead, anger clouding his features. Anger? Pain, more likely, because as my therapist tells me, anger is merely a byproduct of pain. It's a secondary emotion, growing out of unexpressed pain.
"That isn't the first time you've seen brains splattered on a wall, is it?" I'm tossing out a guess.
"No." His growled response is a deep rumble, quiet and heavy with old pain.
"Tell me about it?"
The lines of decades-old agony carved into his face deepen. He's silent for several miles, but I see his mind working, considering.
"My father." His voice is sepulchral and gritty, gravel rattling at the bottom of a deep well. "I was sixteen."
