Luciana
I squeezed my eyes shut as his heavy footsteps echoed down the hall. When the sound finally went away, and I knew I was safe, I opened them and slowly reached down and grabbed my blanket.
Mortified.
Terrified.
He’d just threatened to shoot me for being afraid of a mouse, which made me wonder if he realized how petrified I was of him, what would he do?
I shuddered at the thought and purposefully started to mentally prepare myself for whatever nightmare lay ahead of me for the rest of the day.
I’d finally calmed myself down.
My breathing returned to normal, and I’d managed to ignore the mouse guts in the corner of the bedroom.
The sound of something shattering against the ground had my pulse skyrocketing to an alarming level, followed by another shatter, and then a loud boom.
And then yelling.
So. Much. Yelling
Followed by silence.
Had one of the guys come back from the dead?
Or had more been sent?
I was torn between wanting to jump out the window to make my escape and doing the decent human thing and making sure Chase was still alive.
I finished getting ready and greedily searched or any sort of weapon, just in case the bad guys were back and I had to make a run for it. My eyes landed on a vase in the corner. I grabbed it with shaking hands and slowly made the dreaded trek down the hall, managing to find every freaking creak in the floorboards as I did it.
His room was empty.
I exhaled and peeked down the stairs.
Nothing.
Silence.
I took the stairs slowly, ready for someone to pop out at any time, then turned the corner and walked into the kitchen just as a shadowy figure loomed in the doorway right in front of me, backlit by sunshine streaming in from the kitchen window.
“Aghhhh!!” I just reacted, sending the vase across his face so hard it split in my hands then fell to the ground in pieces.
“Shit!” Chase stumbled into me then braced himself against the wall. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I-I thought you were one of the bad guys from last night.”
He scowled. “At least you got part of it right. I am bad, but not from last night.” He winced as blood trickled down the side of his head by his right ear.
Tears filled my eyes. “Are you going to kill me now?”
He didn’t even blink when he whispered, “Maybe.” And then he leaned in closer. “I don’t like when others make me bleed.”
“It was an accident! I thought something happened to you, and then I thought—”
Was it my imagination or did his face soften a bit? Just enough for the permanent angry scowl to diminish.
More blood fell, and my guilt tripled. He wasn’t nice. Not by a long shot. And he was rude.
Mean.
Angry.
But he was still a person.
And I’d grown up in a home that put human decency above all else; it was probably why I hated violence so much. I felt it was unnecessary and always bred more violence, so why encourage it? Support it?
He pressed a palm to his head and turned around. “Do your job, Luciana.”
I sucked in a breath.
The way he said my name.
The way my stomach fluttered when my body had no damn business reacting to anything that murderer was doing.
Cursing, he started rummaging through one of the cabinets and jerked out a first-aid kit.
I hung my head, stepped over the broken glass, and made my way over to him, then wet one of the cloths by the sink and held it to the side of his face.
He jerked away so fast you’d think I’d shot him. “What the hell?”
“Geez, you’re like the Beast from Beauty and the Beast. It’s just a little cut.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You hit me with a fucking vase.”
Man had a point.
“‘Tis but a flesh wound,” I tried joking.
It fell completely flat.
My cheeks heated as I held the cloth out to him. He eyed it, then me, then it. “What’s your game here?”
“Game?” I repeated, completely lost. “What do you mean game?”
“Four times.” His eyes locked onto me with that same intense look I didn’t think a person could ever get used to. “Four times I’ve offered to shoot you.”
“Three,” I corrected like an idiot who was begging to stay on his bad side.
“Huh, must have just thought it that last time.”
Comforting.
I gulped as he took a step closer and then another, until he was inches from my face, until I could see the flecks of gold in his bright blue eyes and see the faint scar on his chin, the ink from a chest tattoo peeking out from his t-shirt.
“So I’ll ask again, what’s your game here? You don’t know me. You don’t like me…” His eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch.
I slowly reached across the small space between us and grabbed the wet cloth from his hand and then, very gently, placed it on the side of his head. I held it there while he stared me down with nothing but confusion and anger in his eyes. I didn’t back down.
I probably should have.
Any rational human would back down, stop poking the bear, but my conscience wouldn’t let me. I’d been the one to injure him; it was my job to heal him, right?
No words were said between us as I held it there; a full minute went by, then finally, he pressed his palm against the back of my hand.
I hadn’t realized I was shaking until I drew back and grabbed the antiseptic. I pulled the cap off, dabbed a bit on the cotton ball, and moved his hand away.
He winced at the first contact, and part of me wondered if it was the antiseptic or my touch; both seemed to garner the same reaction from him, as if he either wasn’t used to being touched or just greatly despised any sort of human contact. Maybe that was how all murderers were?
I tried not to think about it.
Or about the way his plump lips parted on a gasp when I kept rubbing the blood away.
I went for another swipe when he grabbed my wrist and whispered in a rough voice, “Enough.”
I nodded, quickly stepped back, and turned around, unsure why my stomach still felt as if it was at my knees, and why my fingers buzzed with awareness of his skin.
I was almost completely out of the kitchen when he called out, “Why?”
“Why what?” I didn’t turn, just waited for his response as I stared down at the hardwood floor and tried to breathe normally.
“Why help? Why clean up the blood?”
Emotion built up inside my chest until it hurt to breathe and I had no idea why, no idea why the intensity in the room had shifted, why I suddenly felt dizzy, or why his question felt heavy with deeper meaning. I looked over my shoulder and answered honestly. “When you’re the one who causes the pain, you do everything in your power to make it better.”
His eyes closed briefly before he clenched his jaw. “Most people aren’t like that.”
I smiled sadly. “I’m not most people.”
“No,” he said in a gruff voice, “you’re not.”
I couldn’t read his expression.
I took it as a compliment, even if his intent was to insult me, because I didn’t want to allow his words to penetrate, to hurt. Something told me that if I let those words in, the man would follow.
And the last thing I needed in my life was an obsession with a guy who killed people for a living — and offered to do the same to me.
I gave him a curt nod and walked back down the hall toward the tiny jail cell, aka office, and shut the door quietly behind me, only leaning against it when I was able to catch my breath and analyze why the heck I was freaking out, and why my heart still felt both tight and fluttery in my chest.