Page 38 of Freedom’s Inferno

“Thanks, man.” I hung up and set the phone on the vanity, stepping into the shower.

The water hit me hard, too hot at first, scalding enough to sting. I let it. I wanted the distraction. Embracing the burn was easier than acknowledging everything else. The steam rose thick around me, wrapping me in a haze that smelled of smoke and soap.

I cursed as my ruined palm hit the water, sucking air through my teeth. The pain was sharp and fierce, and somehow I hadn’t been expecting it. The gauze was stiff, and brown in some spots. I held it under the spray, watching it darken and sag, fibers loosening as the blood began to soften and run in thin red lines down the drain.

I started to pull and the pain hit hard and immediate. The soaked bandage peeled away, dragging against the raw skin beneath. I tore wet paper from the burn, every inch catching, then letting go with a squelch I could feel in my teeth. The edges came away stringy, white threads sticking to the wound, refusing to let go until I picked them off one by one.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her—the way the flames painted her in shades of gold and terror, the way she’d looked at me when the ceiling groaned and I told her to run. I could still hear glass breaking, the roar of heat swallowing the room. Lana had been a blur of motion: reckless, furious, alive. Now she curled against the wall like something breakable, and I hated that I wanted to protect her.

A knock cut through the haze of my thoughts. I closed my eyes, letting the water hit the back of my neck one last time before reaching to turn the knob. The pipes groaned, and silence filled the small bathroom.

“Lana?” I called. She didn’t answer, but another soft knock followed. I grabbed a towel from the rack and wrapped it around my waist, the fabric too white against the bruises staining my ribs. I cracked the door open.

Lana stood there, arms crossed, barefoot, hair tangled from sleep. Her eyes flicked down to the towel before snapping back up. “Well, you look… better.”

I leaned against the frame, too tired to smirk. “You knocked?”

She rolled her eyes. “I came to see your hand.”

“It’s fine.”

She didn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, she pushed past me and rifled through the vanity drawers, a woman on a mission. “Sit.”

“Lana‒”

She turned, holding up a small white first-aid kit like a weapon. “Sit.”

I sighed and dropped onto the closed toilet lid, the towel rustling against my skin. She knelt in front of me, her knee brushing mine as she reached for my hand. I drew back on instinct, and she gave me a pointed glare, blue eyes sharp.

“You should’ve washed this last night,” she muttered, studying the cracked skin.

“I’ve had worse,” I grunted.

“Men,” she said dryly, opening the kit. “There’s no valor in letting your hand rot off.”

She was precise in her movements while she worked, her tongue sticking out in concentration.

The corner of my lips twitched.

She dabbed ointment over the burns, her thumb steady despite the faint tremor in her wrist. She began to rewrap it and I caught myself staring too long.

My heart kicked.

I wasn’t used to this. Being looked after instead of left alone.

The realization unsettled me more than the pain. For a split second, I was eight years old again, perched on the edge of the bathtub while my mother cleaned gravel out of my scraped knee after I’d gone down hard off my bike. She’d smiled at me like it cost her nothing, told me I was brave, even though her own lip was split and swollen where my father had caught her earlier that day.

That memory didn’t belong here. I cleared my throat and forced my attention back to the present, to her hands, to the steady pressure of the wrap.

“Are you always this bossy?” I asked, my voice thicker than I meant it to be.

She didn’t look up. “Only when men bleed on my floors.”

That almost made me smile. Almost.

Finishing, she sat back on her heels, the sharpness in her eyes dimming. “You should try sleeping tonight,” she said. “Both of us should. We can’t think straight like this.”

I nodded, even though we both knew sleep wasn’t coming. “We’ll head to my place once you’re ready. I’ll grab what I need. Then, we’ll check into a hotel. Somewhere nice, like you suggested.”