The water is hot, instantly easing the tension in my shoulders. I close my eyes, tilting my head back as “Back in Black” fills the air. I soap up, the scent of pine and cedar mixing with my own whiskey, black tea, and ginger scent. Out here, I can almost forget about the APBRA, about Jack Dalton, about the uncertainty of my future.
Out here, I’m just Knox. A man in the shower, with good music and hot water.
I shut off the water, the sudden silence ringing in my ears. I push open the simple wooden door, reaching for the towel I left hanging on a hook?—
And then my world explodes in pain.
A spray hits me square in the face, searing, burning. My eyes slam shut, tears streaming down my cheeks. My throat closes up. I’m choking, sputtering, bent double as the chemical assault continues.
“What the fuck!” I manage to gasp, my hands flying to my face. “What the fuck?”
Through the blur of tears and pain, I make out a shape. Small. A woman. She’s wearing a skirt suit and holding a small canister, her hand shaking.
“Who the fuck are you?” I shout. My throat is already feeling scratchy.
She’s choking too, coughing as the spray catches her in the crosswind. “Who the fuck areyou?” she screams back with a mix of fury and panic. “This is my property!”
“Fuck!” The word tears from my throat, raw and broken. My eyes are on fire, a thousand tiny needles stabbing into them. Tears stream down my face, and I can feel the towel slipping, the damp cotton a pathetic shield against this assault.
I clutch it to my hips with one hand, the other flailing blindly in front of me. I’ve been thrown from bulls, broken bones, torn muscles, but I have never had pepper spray to the face. This is a different kind of agony.
I stumble backward, my feet catching on an uneven rock. The world is a watery, painful blur of green and brown. I need water. Now.
My back hits the rough wood of the shower stall. Fumbling, I find the knob and twist it. Cold water sprays out, and I shove my hands under it, the shock of the temperature a brief distraction from the burning in my eyes. I scrub at my skin, the water turning pink as it washes away the immediate residue.
Through the cascade of water, I can see her. She’s still choking, bent at the waist, one hand clutching that damn canister like it’s a lifeline. The other hand is wiping furiously ather face. Her skirt suit—some expensive-looking gray number—is completely wrong for this place. The blazer the color of a storm cloud is now streaked with dirt, and her heels are sinking into the soft ground, making her wobble. She looks like a city-dweller who got dropped on another planet.
“Need help?” I shout, my voice coming out as a hoarse croak.
“No!” she screams back, her voice strained. She straightens up, still sputtering. “Who the hell are you?”
My brain is still scrambled from the spray. “Knox,” I say. “And you are?”
She blinks, the motion rapid and furious. “Who?”
“Knox,” I repeat, turning my face back into the spray. The water helps, but the burning is still there, a relentless fire under my skin. I risk opening my eyes a slit, watching her through the curtain of water.
She’s still struggling, the canister slipping in her grasp. She’s crying now, real tears mixing with the chemical ones, tracking clean paths through the mess on her cheeks. She looks lost. Furious, but lost.
“The water can help a little bit,” I say, my voice softer now. I shut off the shower and take a step toward her, my hand outstretched.
“Don’t fucking touch me!” she shrieks, stumbling back. “I have a gun!”
Even through the haze of pain, I can tell she’s lying. Her hand shakes too much to hold a weapon steady. The threat is too loud, too brittle, like a cornered animal making itself sound bigger than it is.
“Oh yeah?” I ask, taking another step.
“Uh-huh,” she says, but her voice wavers. She’s all bluster and fear, her bravado crumbling as quickly as it appeared.
I feel a strange pull, an instinct to comfort that wars with the anger still simmering in my gut. I cup my hands under theshower head, filling them with cold water. I ignore her sharp intake of breath as I close the distance between us.
“Hold still,” I command, leaving no room for argument.
Before she can protest again, I gently wipe at her eyes with my wet hands. Her skin is soft, her lashes long and dark against the redness of her eyelids. She flinches at my touch but doesn’t pull away, her body frozen as I clean the chemical from her face.
She blinks up at me, her eyes finally focusing. They’re an incredible shade of green, like new leaves in spring. Even with the acrid smell of pepper spray still hanging in the air, I can smell something else. Something underneath it all.
A thread of scent so potent it cuts right through the pain.
