Glancing down at myself, I twist one way and then the next as I try to locate what she’s talking about, but I can’t see anything. There’s no pain other than the dull throb in my abdomen. “Where?”
“On your back,” she says while pushing up onto her knees in my bed. “Come here.”
I snatch the medical kit from my dresser and walk toward her. She doesn’t look me in the eye. She’s completely focused on the wound I can’t see.
Sitting on the bed, I pass her the kit, and she opens it while keeping one eye on me. “Turn around,” she says as she locates what she’s looking for.
I obey, and my back tightens as old pain rises with the expectation of a threat. Turning my back on someone rarely ends well.
Ivy’s first touch against my lower back is soft and gentle. Two fingers rest near my spine while her thumb sweeps outward, and then something cold presses against my skin. It’s removed quickly, and then the sting of antiseptic fills the air and attacks my nose. I scrunch it just as something cold and wet presses to my back, where pain flares immediately.
“Ow.”
“Don’t be a baby,” Ivy says, running what must be an antiseptic-soaked cotton ball along the wound.
“You’re a mean nurse.”
“You want to compare injuries?”
“Nah.”
“Thought so.”
From here, I glimpse her ankle wrapped in that bad cast. I’ll have the doctor here by morning to fix her with a fresh one. As Ivy continues to work, my gaze wanders up her bare leg to her knee where the leg of her jogging pants scrunches near her thigh. A few bruises from the plane crash have faded to light yellow shadows now.
Ivy hums softly to herself as she works, replacing the cotton ball with something a little rougher. Dissolvable butterfly stitches are my best guess.
“You really didn’t feel this?” she asks.
“When you feel a lot of pain, what’s one more?”
“True,” she murmurs. “If I focus on the throbbing in my ankle, then the pain inside doesn’t hurt as much.”
Inside.
Her grief must be overwhelming. When my family perished, I sank into a dark mindset where the only thing that brought me peace was causing harm to others. My life as an Enforcer was a bloody one.
It didn’t help, though, not really.
“Okay, I’m done.” The medical kit clicks closed as Ivy finishes up.
I turn to face her and my heart stops for a brief half second. She is much closer than I realized, and she notices the moment she tilts her head up and our eyes meet. Her tongue darts out across her lower lip and she swallows hard enough that I hear the softness.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she replies with an ever so slight tremble in her voice.
I should move away. I should distance myself and head out to find Valentina and see what she managed to get from that asshole, but something stops me from doing so. It’s like the bed is reaching out and clinging to me with the same warmth I see in her eyes, enticing me to stay just a moment longer.
Ivy doesn’t pull away either. There’s an inch or two between our faces, yet her eyes remain locked onto me. “You should be more careful,” she says softly.
“More careful?”
“When checking yourself for wounds.”
“Hard to see my back,” I reply with a lower tone. “Lucky you were here.”
“Mmhmm. Lucky.”
