Page 80 of Ruin

He didn’t come.

I clenched my jaw as Sam touched a particularly tender spot. I didn’t flinch. Not because I was brave, but because I had run out of reflexes.

“Where’d you learn all this?” I asked.

“Tools of the trade.” He shrugged without taking his eyes off his work.

“Arik needs you to provide him medical attention?” I asked as my voice was laced with curiosity.

Sam’s eyes shot at me. “Not him,” he said, his voice filled with seriousness.

I stared at him momentarily until his gaze broke free and returned to my tattered knees.

“Take a seat,” Sam said as he rose from the chair and motioned for me to sit down.

I stood from the bed and felt every bone in my body ache. With a plop, I dropped into the chair and dropped my head.

Sam pillaged around the bulky black leather medical bag looking for more cotton gauze to clean my wound with.

“So, where is he?” I asked as I held my breath waiting for his answer.

“Nearby,” Sam replied, his voice low and trailing.

“How’s the head?” Sam asked quietly, almost like he did not want to be heard.

“Loud,” I muttered. “Quiet. Both.”

He didn’t press. Didn’t tell me what that meant. Didn’t ask what I meant.

“I can’t remember the last time I felt normal,” I admitted after a moment, voice barely above a whisper. “Even before all this…it’s like the world’s been tilting for a long time.”

Sam paused his work. I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t.

“I think you’re doing better than you think,” he said, finishing with a fresh wrap. “You are here. That counts.”

I didn’t tell him it didn’t feel like it. That I still felt like I was trapped on that cliff, in Antonio’s grip, begging for air.

He cleaned up without another word, and I let myself drift, blinking slowly at the ceiling.

I closed my eyes.

Arik hadn’t come.

I felt the saline spray against my scalp, stinging the wound that was stitched together.

“Can he hear us?” I whispered, my voice barely audible as I watched Sam’s expression for clues.

“Maybe. Maybe not at this low of a whisper. I really do not know.” His breath ghosted against my hair as he leaned in, dabbing the stitches with practiced care.

A silence stretched between us, filled only by the soft rustle of cotton and the distant hum of the hotel’s mechanical heart.

“I’m surprised he hasn’t come by,” I said, trying my best to keep my voice low and steady.

I didn’t know what to make of the silence. Arik’s absence hung heavily in the room, the kind of quiet that meant too much.

“Do you want him to?” Sam asked gently, as if he already knew the answer.

“No. I…I don’t know,” I mumbled. My lips felt dry. The words sat awkwardly in my mouth like they didn’t belong to me.