Chapter Eleven
Rian
The doc is awake when we go back inside. Before I have the chance to do or say much of anything, he tells me, “Your fever broke last night. I’d like to check it again and take a peek at your wound.”
“I’m fine,” I say. I’m tired of being taken care of, tired of being a patient, and just want to feel like myself.
“Don’t be stubborn. How will you kill me if you die?” he asks.
“I’ll do it, remember?” Conan slips around me.
I chuckle. “Get the fuck out of here. I’ll talk to you soon.”
“I’ll be in touch.” Conan pats me on the back before giving his attention to the doc. “You remember what I told you?”
“Your threats to kill me and hurt anyone I’ve ever cared about? Yes, I remember.” He struggles to get out of bed, but can’t with the way he’s cuffed to the headboard. He settles back again, sighing in frustration.
“Here.” Conan gives me my gun and the keys. He’ll be taking the car and getting rid of it, leaving his behind for me. I’m grateful he doesn’t argue about me being alone with Abbott, but then, he knows that when it comes down to it, I’ll always do what needs to be done.
He disappears from the room, and I tuck my gun into my pants, already frustrated about having to do everything one-handed. I walk over to Abbott. I don’t know what makes me do it, but when he doesn’t look at me, I grab his chin with my hand and turn his head until his eyes meet mine.
His stubble prickles against my skin. His breathing picks up, my eyes catching on the pulse beating rapidly in his neck, drawn there too long.
“You’re going to be good when I unlock you.
Don’t think you can overpower me because I’m hurt.
Don’t think there is anything you can do to win this. That will never happen.”
He juts his chin out, not shrinking himself or backing down. “I know what my fate is. Your friend made sure to tell me all the ways he’ll make other people hurt if I screw up.”
“He’s very good at making people hurt…though, I am too.” I let his face go, then manage to unlock the handcuffs only using one hand.
Once free, the doc immediately drops his arms and begins massaging one hand, then the other, making me wonder if he’s hurting. Lack of circulation, maybe? Not that it should matter. It doesn’t matter, really.
I step back when he stands, telling me, “Sit down.”
I cock a brow, but he doesn’t amend how he spoke to me, just watches me with a face that’s all business. “Yes, Doctor,” I tease.
“You’re in a good mood today,” he says, after I sit on the bed, his words taking me aback. Why had I joked with him that way? We’re not friends. We’re not anything. I certainly shouldn’t be doing or saying anything to him to make him feel that way.
“Hurry up and do what you need to do.”
He unstraps the sling and sets it aside. I’m shirtless, so he just goes for the tape on my wound next, uncovering it.
“Looks much better,” he says. “There was a lot of redness, but it’s gone down.” I look and see he’s drawn a circle around my injury.
“What’s that for?”
“To see if the redness spread, but it didn’t. It’s actually smaller. I didn’t want to risk you going septic. I’ve been keeping a sharp eye on that. You heal very well.”
“I’m good. What can I say?” I ask, and he rolls his eyes.
“It’s your body, not you.”
“My body is me,” I argue, not sure why I am, but not stopping myself either.
“It’s nothing you can control, I mean.” He bandages me up again. “You need to take your antibiotics and pain pills so—”
“No.”
“Jesus, Rian. I’m trying to get you healthy, so you’re not half dead when you kill me. Maybe consider being a better patient, if for no other reason than it’s faster for me to die, and you can move on with being a drug dealer.”
“I’m not a drug dealer.” He crosses his arms, the look of disbelief almost comical. “Okay, we are in the drug business, but saying it that way is…”
“Oh my God. You’re a drug dealer who is offended by being called a drug dealer? Is that beneath you?” he scoffs.
“Yes, as a matter of fact. It’s part of what we do, but not the whole of it, and reducing me to a drug dealer negates that. I’m a businessman, first and foremost.”
“You’re delusional, is what you are. And you’re taking the pills.”
He reaches for the bottle of medication, but before he can get it, my hand is wrapped around his wrist. He flinches, making an unexplainable pang of guilt shoot through me.
That’s not how I’m supposed to feel. It’s not how I ever feel, but as flashes of Abbott’s hands on my face, the way he wiped me down with the cloth, and the gentleness he’s shown me despite what I’ve done to him, play on a reel in my brain—I find that I do feel guilty.
“I’ll take the antibiotics. Just not the pain medication.” I don’t like the way it makes me feel, and I need a clear head to be here with him.
Abbott hands me water and pills, which I take like a good patient, and then get fitted with my sling again.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” I say.
“I’ll get the urinal.”
“Not a chance. I’m not pissing in that bottle again, and you’re definitely not holding my dick when I do it.” Because he did before. I’m surprised I was able to tell him when I had to go and wasn’t so out of it that I went on myself.
“That was strictly professional. Believe me, I don’t want anything to do with your dick.”
I shake my head. “That’s not what I meant. Stop insinuating that I’m homophobic. I just don’t need someone to hold my dick when I piss.”
“Too macho for that?” Abbott asks.
I surprise myself by flipping him off.
It takes me longer than it should, but I do manage to piss on my own with Abbott standing at the door waiting to jump into action if I need him. Afterward, I wash my hands and brush my teeth with the supplies Conan brought and one of them must have set out.
I wait by the open door while Abbott does the same. Abbott. Why am I still thinking of him that way?
He’s not Abbott. He’s the doc and nothing more.
“Come on. I need out of this room,” I tell him, moving toward the door.
“Aren’t you going to cuff me?” he asks.
“Do I need to cuff you?” It shouldn’t even be a question, me cuffing him, not if I need to, but if we’re going to be here for a few days at least, it would be more of a hassle than anything.
Abbott—the doc—isn’t like the scum I would usually be holding captive.
The point isn’t to torture him, to hurt him, to use him to show our enemies how powerful we are.
None of this was supposed to happen. He’s supposed to be home, in bed, not having witnessed a murder, not having been kidnapped, and certainly not nursing the man who will eventually kill him back to health.
“No. I won’t try to escape again. Your friend already warned me what will happen if I do.”
My jaw tics in frustration, though I’m not sure why.
I walk back toward him, not stopping until I’m standing in his space, until I can feel his breath on my skin, until the scent of his toothpaste hits my nose.
“He’s not the one you have to worry about.
I am. Don’t think because I’m injured, I’m any less dangerous.
Don’t fool yourself into believing that because I give you a little bit of freedom, I’ll hesitate for a second to slit your pretty little throat.
I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again. Always remember the man I am, Doc.”
His breath hitches, the sound of it wobbling just slightly. He tries to hide the fear on his face, in his eyes, but I see how his pupils widen, the way his body tightens, the tremble in his arms, no matter how much he tries to control it.
“I am a killer. I am a bad man. And I’m sorry that I crossed your path, but I did, and there is nothing we can do to change any of that now.”
“How do you live with yourself?” he asks. “How can you look at yourself in the mirror every day?”
His questions are valid. I don’t always love the things I do, but that doesn’t mean I won’t do them.
It’s who I was raised to be, who I will always be.
That doesn’t mean I revel in it. That doesn’t mean there aren’t times I wish things were different, that I don’t have regrets.
That I don’t know Moira deserved better, and Cillian deserved better.
It’s why I gave him the chance to get out, why he will always have that chance, and nothing and no one will stand in the way of me giving it to him.
“I don’t have any illusions about who I am.
There’s no choice but to live with it.” I step away.
“I’ll be setting the alarm on the house; a door opens, I’ll immediately be alerted.
You’ll stay in the same room as me. If I leave the room, you’re cuffed.
” I hold his gaze with mine, making sure he sees how serious I am when I add, “Don’t get any wild ideas about trying to fight back…
and if you do, you better hope like hell you kill me, because if you don’t, there is no describing the way you will suffer. ”
Abbott clears his throat. “I hate you.”
His words land sharply, like a kick to the chest, but I don’t flinch, don’t move, don’t feel really. How can I? “I would expect nothing less,” I say. “Now, come on. I need to eat.”
I turn away from him, heading back toward the door. A moment passes, then another and another, before I hear Abbott following behind me—the ache I have no business feeling still lingering in my sternum.