I was out cold before I hit the floor.

I came to with the sharp prick of someone stitching my leg. I recognised the pull, the tightness. It’d been over two years since I’d been stitched back together, and I found in my f**kedupness that I missed the sensation of being repaired.

My head hammered with every sluggish beat of my heart, and I couldn’t swallow the foul taste in my mouth.

Maybe this time I could be put back together the right way.

My gut twisted. The pill! Did I take it and this was hell? That didn’t explain the swelling on the base of my skull or the soft murmur of voices. Someone knocked me out, and I guessed they’d used one of the smaller statues sitting on the tables around the room.

My eyes shot wide and I sucked in a breath. Zel bowed over my leg, her forehead furrowed, lips pursed in concentration. Two fingers pinched my skin together while she pulled a needle and surgical thread through the wound.

My hands clenched as the rush of conditioning doused me with violence. My labouring heart beat faster as Hazel touched my thigh. I wanted to scream at her to run, but the sharp pinprick of pain from the needle helped me retain my self-control. Shame filled me. I was addicted. They’d turned me into an addict of agony.

I clutched the bedspread, panting with heat, shivering with chill.

Her eyes rose to meet mine, bright green filling my world. “I have no idea what I’m still doing here. But I couldn’t walk out the door when I saw you holding that pill. I know what you were going to do.” Her eyes flickered to a medic sitting on the other side of the bed. Masked, dressed in white, his blue eyes never stopped looking at us. She’d brought a bodyguard? Or was the medic supposed to be the one sewing me up?

I blinked, trying to understand.

“The minute this is done I’m leaving, and I never want to see you again,” Zel muttered.

My heart tripled its beat, but I nodded. It was the only way.

Zel stabbed the needle in my skin, deliberately punishing me. “He wanted to numb the area while I worked, but I thought you might like the pain.” Her eyes held a silent conversation.

I know you self-harm, and I figured this would be what you wanted.

I nodded, battling past my headache. “Thank you.” I couldn’t say it out loud so I forced the message silently. I didn’t mean to hurt you.

Apologizing wordlessly wasn’t enough. She deserved a heart-felt apology. She deserved me on my f**king knees begging for forgiveness.

Keeping every part of myself on high alert, I captured her bloody glove-covered hand and squeezed. Swallowing hard, I murmured, “I’m so sorry. I have no excuse for what happened, and I know there’s no chance you’ll forgive me. Just…” I met her eyes, staring hard. “I need you to know you’ve helped me more than anyone, and I’ll never forgive myself for hurting you. I didn’t mean to.”

She pulled her hand away. “You could’ve fooled me. The look in your eyes, Fox. You weren’t all there. I think you need to find proper treatment.”

I wanted to tell her everything. Then and there. I didn’t care anymore about secrecy or what they’d do to me if they found out. I just needed it to be freed from inside me.

There’s a witness.

I looked at the medic. His masked face was blank; body tense. I shut down. I couldn’t discuss what I was in front of him.

Zel caught me looking at him. “Don’t worry. He won’t touch you.”

I frowned, gritting my teeth as she poked me with the needle again. “Why are you the one sewing me up? Do you have medical training?”

Zel’s lips flickered into a tiny smile. “He’s not doing this as I don’t want him in danger. You tried to kill someone who you knew—what would you do to a stranger?” Her eyebrow raised. “I have basic CPR and what I studied to earn a receptionist job at a doctor’s practice. But I’m not flying blind. Before you woke up, he helped.” Nodding at the medic, she added, “He checked your wounds while you were out and agreed nothing internally is damaged.” Her lips twisted into a wry grin. “I’m a good sewer. Ask Clue. I can crochet with the best of them, and I figured this couldn’t be much different.”

My eyes popped wide, flaming my headache. “Stitching a leg is completely different than stitching a damn pillow.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Well, I think I’m doing a damn good job and considering I’m battling the urge to stab you multiple times with this tiny needle for what you did, you can f**king sit there and let me finish.” Fire lit her eyes. “If you think you can stop me, or if you move too fast, that lovely gentlemen over there will dose you up with anaesthesia so fast you’ll be out cold, and when you wake, I’ll be gone forever.”

The needle stabbed me hard, deliberately rough. “Understand?”

Instead of being cowered by her tirade, my f**king c**k thickened. My heart pumped lust thick and fast, and all I could think of was kissing her. I wanted so f**king much to be normal so I could hug her and kiss her, and thank the universe for giving me an angel.

“As long as you’re inflicting pain, I can keep it together.” The admission made Zel look up. I lowered my voice, throwing an annoyed glance at the medic. “I want you to know. Everything about me. Maybe then you can understand. I want you, Zel. The thought of you leaving f**king kills me.”

Her hands shook—the only sign of emotion. Her eyes tore away from mine, and she resumed her stitching.

We didn’t speak again as she finished sewing me up. Her touch was light and gentle, but every stab of the needle gave me what I craved. Somehow, she created a new sensation. Mixed with pain and sweetness, making me surrender to her hypnosis, giving me the strength to ignore the conditioning just for the moment.

I fell into a trance. When I next opened my eyes the medic was gone and Zel had stuck crisp, white bandages over the stitched-up wounds. It was only then I noticed she’d cut off the leg of my trousers.

Her eyes met mine before she ever so carefully, ever so hesitantly, touched a large scar on my shin bone where they’d snapped my leg and then pinned it back together after a mission.

I sucked in a breath, clenching my fists. Without pain the conditioning echoed in my brain.

“Did you do this snowboarding as a child? Or perhaps falling off a motorbike when you were a teenager?” Her voice stayed low, none of the anger and heat from before.