Page 50 of Dozer

A real smile breaks across her face.

She stands and offers me her hand. I take it. Her fingers close around mine and then she pulls me upright, and we stand too close. Close enough that I can feel her breath, close enough that if either of us moves an inch, this stops being something we can pretend to ignore. Her eyes drop briefly to my mouth. Then back to my eyes. I know that look. I also know exactly how badly I want to answer it. I want to taste her. I want to feel her lips pressed against mine. I want…

Instead, I step back. "Move."

She exhales, almost a laugh. "Romantic."

"Not trying to be."

"That's your problem."

Maybe. Or maybe it's hers too. Or maybe I can’t. I can’t be romantic while we are running away from people who want us dead.

We get moving again ten minutes later. She checks the bandage twice before we reach the car, then once more when we're inside. I let her. I even let her keep her hand on my side for the last check, her fingers pressing lightly beside the dressing while she makes sure there's no fresh blood.

"Good?" I ask.

"Good."

I start the engine. The rail yard disappears behind us, swallowed by darkness and distance, but the feel of her hand stays with me. Some things are easier to survive than others. A bullet, apparently, is one of them.

Her touching me like she cares whether I make it out alive? That might be the thing that kills me.

CHAPTER 16

Kenzi

We find a motel an hour past the rail yard, the kind of place that doesn't ask questions and doesn't have working ice machines, which suits us fine given our recent history with vending machines and things that go wrong near them.

One room. Not by design, exactly as the place only has one available, but Dozer isn’t about to let me out of his sight. His side is still tender, but I’ve applied fresh gauze and I am absolutely exhausted from everything that has happened. Emotionally and physically.

The clerk doesn't look up for more than three seconds when Dozer slides cash across the counter. I appreciate him immediately. Some people have survival instincts. Some people have excellent customer-service instincts. This man has both.

I carry the bags inside while Dozer does another sweep of the parking lot, because apparently getting shot at, bleeding through his shirt, and crossing an active rail yard hasn't changed his opinion that every door, window, and suspicious-looking shrub is personally plotting against us. I have a feeling that this is Dozer’s default personality and even if we weren’t on a mission, he’d be doing the exact same thing. I wonder if the man ever relaxes, like truly relaxes.

I check his bandage again once we're inside, mostly because checking things gives me something to do besides notice how small the room actually is and how close the two narrow beds sit to each.

"You keep checking it," he says, sitting on the edge of the bed while I peel back the tape to look at the wound underneath. "It's fine."

"I'll decide when it's fine. That's how field medicine works. I don't just take your word for it because you're stubborn about being looked after."

"I'm not stubborn."

I look up at him. He looks back. "You're extremely stubborn. You're the most stubborn patient I've ever treated, and I've treated corpses who argued less."

That gets the ghost of something out of him, not quite a laugh, I've stopped expecting a full one by now, but the warm exhale version I've started to expect. I find myself watching his face longer than the bandage strictly requires.

He is close. Closer than actually demands, if I'm being honest with myself, which I'm trying to be more of lately. It’s some new habit I've apparently picked up somewhere between the morgue and a rail yard. I can feel the warmth coming off him. I can see the fine details I usually only notice on people who aren't breathing, like the small scar above his eyebrow, the faint shadow along his jaw, the tension still sitting there even now, hours past any active threat. There is something unsettling about realizing how much I like looking at him when he's not actively trying to kill somebody. I might like looking at him when he’s actively killing someone, but generally, I’m too terrified to think about that in those moments. Which, to be honest, there has been entirely too many of in the last few days.

"It's clean," I say, quieter than I mean to, taping the gauze back down with hands that have gone slower than the task requires.

"Good. I’d be shocked if it wasn’t with how often you’ve checked."

I smooth the edge of the tape with my thumb. His eyes drop to my hand. Mine do the same. There's a minute where neither of us says anything. Then his fingers close gently around my wrist. Not hard. Not the way he grabs me when we're moving through danger. Just enough to stop my hand from pulling away. My pulse immediately speeds up.

"You're shaking," he says.

"I am not,” I argue.