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Her eyes searched mine. “What do you mean by that? You’re just here because my sisters called you and they’re just being them.”

Anger roared up and out.

“That’s bullshit! As soon as I found out what was going on, I dropped everything and broke land speed records to get here. What the fuck, Chloe? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for months. We always talk. We’ve been talking for years. I thought we were friends. Good friends. When you stopped taking my calls, it hurt, and I finally got through to Zoe. She told me what was going on, but you should have been the one who told me.”

She winced, her brown eyes growing darker, and looking even more wounded, but I didn’t let that bother me. She needed to get it through her thick skull that I cared, and what she’d done had scared me. She needed to understand that I was pissed and more than a little hurt.

“Zarek, you’re making a big deal out of nothing.” I could tell she was trying to sound like her old self, but even that one sentence left her breathless. She was a wreck. There were still the bloody footprints to contend with. I yanked off the thick blanket covering her. What was up with that? It was the middle of summer and the AC wasn’t running. What was she doing under thick blankets?

“What are you doing?” She tried to take back the covers from me, but it was no use.

My eyes zeroed in on her blood-caked foot. “What have you done to yourself? What happened to the mirror in the guest bathroom, Chloe?” I asked as I gently lifted her leg up so he could inspect her foot.

“Let go of me.”

“Not going to happen.” I wanted to howl as I saw that dirt and carpet threads mixed in with the blood.

“Jesus, Chloe, look at this mess! Where’s your first aid kit?”

“What?”

I looked up into her face. What focus she’d had as she tried to fight me for the blanket was pretty much wiped out.

“Your. First. Aid. Kit. Where is it?”

“Why do you need that?”

“Look at your foot, Chloe. You cut it. There’s blood all over your floor and on your sheets.” That got her attention. She looked at her foot in my big hand, as if she were noticing it for the first time. “Didn’t you even realize you were cut?” I asked in amazement.

“I cut it earlier. I stepped on some glass.”

“Your mirror. Do you know when you broke your mirror? Do you know when you cut your foot?”

“I can’t remember. Do you think it was yesterday?” she asked me.

“Honey, I wouldn’t know.” She was clearly out of it.

“It’s not that big of a deal. It doesn’t hurt now,” she said softly.

“It will when I clean it up. Is your first aid kit in the master bathroom?”

She nodded her head.

I gently set her foot down on the bed and went to the bathroom to get the kit. At least the mirror in this bathroom was intact, but it was a mess in here, too. I needed to get her the hell out of this house. But first I needed to see if she needed stitches. I wet a washcloth and grabbed the small case with all of the first aid supplies. I went back into the bedroom. Chloe was sitting up in bed. She had more color in her cheeks, and she was beginning to look ticked off.

Good.

“You don’t need to be here.”

I sat down on the bed and propped her foot on my lap. She hissed in pain.

“Thought it didn’t hurt,” I taunted.

“It’s your rotten bedside manner.”

As gently as I could, I washed away the caked blood. “I don’t see any glass.”

“I’m not an idiot,” she said as she tried to pull her foot out of my grasp. “I took it out.” I held on and looked closer and pressed. She gasped.