Page 101 of The Final Cut

The graze runs along his left side under the ribs, raw and ugly, but the bleeding is already slowing. I clean it with more force than strictly necessary, checking the depth, the angle, the edges of torn skin. No bubbling. No deeper channel. He will ache, swear he does not, and continue being impossible.

“You need strips,” I say.

“Fine.”

That is too easy, which means he knows better than to argue with me right now.

Ever crouches near Delia with gauze, warm water, and the sort of careful patience that makes my throat hurt. He does not reach for her. He places the supplies on the table within her sight, then sits back on his heels with his hands open.

“Your palm first,” he says. “If you’ll let me.”

Delia studies him as if kindness requires dissection.

After a long moment, she opens her hand.

The cut across her palm is shallow but dirty, the skin torn where something sharp pressed into it. Her wrist has deeper marks from the rosary beads, some red, some already purpling. Ever cleans around the wounds, slow and precise, stopping when her fingers flex against pain. He doesn’t tell her to relax. He doesn’t make the mistake of telling her anything about her own body.

Smart man.

The rubber bands sit tight around my wrist, and I want to snap them until they break.

Instead, I finish taping Deacon’s side. “Hold still.”

“I am.”

“You’re breathing wrong out of spite.”

His mouth almost moves. “I’ll work on that.”

“Do.”

Delia makes a small sound when Ever pulls a glass bead fragment from the torn skin near her wrist and drops it into the metal dish. It clicks against the bottom, tiny and awful.

I leave Deacon before I can think about it. “I’m getting towels. And clothes. We’re probably gonna need some more soon, just fyi.”

Nash watches me cross to the laundry room but doesn’t stop me. Maybe he knows towels are safer than murder. Maybe he knows I need a task that doesn’t involve looking at my sister’s wrists and knees for another second.

I gather towels, dry sweats, clean socks, and a long-sleeved shirt from the stack Shiloh packed when he raided my life from Blackwood House. In the kitchen, the coffee pot is still half-full from the hours I spent waiting, so I pour a mug. I add a liberal dollop of cream, and then another, because I don’t know how Delia takes it, and black feels too harsh. The guessing feels intimate enough to make my chest ache.

I set the towel near her chair. “For your hair. Or your hands. Whatever.”

She looks at it for a long moment before picking it up, careful not to touch my fingers.

“You still talk like you think I’m going to bite you,” she says.

Her voice is weak enough to make the insult feel like an offering.

“I know you are but what am I.”

The corner of her mouth twitches, then disappears into control.

I put the coffee near her. “I don’t know how you drink it.”

“I don’t.”

“Coffee?”

“Peace offerings.”