26. Deniz
Chapter 26
Deniz
“ O n the kitchen table,” Chase says, opening the door as soon as I have Clara out of the car, completely sober for once. The fact that she’s alive is a miracle, and I know I must look out of my mind, covered in blood that’s both hers and not. The lights reflecting off Chase’s marble floors are blinding in comparison to the dark desert sky I’ve been shrouded in. I nearly trip as I carry her through the living room, finally sliding her onto the massive kitchen table covered in chucks pads.
Bashir is helping Taf set up sterile instruments, but I can barely make out their faces. I still have all my weight pressed against Clara’s hip. She’s barely reacting to the pain anymore.
“Come on, ????,” I repeat, my voice hoarse from saying the same words. I can’t stop, can’t think of anything else to say. “Stay with me.”
“Deniz, move,” Taf commands, voice muffled by a mask. All the precautions in the world to perform surgery on Chase’s fucking table, where I’ve watched him take body shots off his exes, an antiseptic charade we all know won’t prevent an infection. I can feel the shadow of a laugh pass through me, like I’d find this funny if I had room for anything but fear. “You have to move so I can help her.”
My muscles won’t release, though. If I move my weight, she’ll bleed out. I can feel it. Even though there’s a thread of sanity left telling me that she’ll die if I don’t move, that Taf is the sole person I trust to save her, I can’t. Bashir’s arms wrap around my shoulders, and the fight I put up against him is so weak. My adrenaline is waning now that I have her here, and my body is crumbling as I watch her chest rise too shallowly.
“I can’t…” I falter, pushing against Bashir’s grip as Taf moves to assess her. “She can’t die.”
“You brought her here,” Bashir reminds me, keeping a hand on my shoulder as he loosens his grip. “Taf’s her best chance.”
“The flow seems partially staunched, but she’s lost a lot of blood. I need to find the bullet, see if it hit an artery,” Taf says, and though it’s mostly to himself, I cling to every syllable. Chase hovers in the living room, his pallor nearly as ghostly as Clara’s, but Bashir keeps his hand on my shoulder, and somehow his presence is holding me upright.
“She still has blood flow in her toes,” Taf says, pressing gloved fingers to her bare feet and watching intently. “That’s a good sign.”
Taf keeps talking in clipped half-sentences as he changes his gloves and continues working, unpacking my torn shirt from the bullet hole in the dip between her hip and thigh, cutting off her pants and underwear with shears. I barely blink, knowing the scene is the opposite of sexually objectifying, but Taf still does his best to keep her covered. He injects her with what must be some sort of anesthetic, the long, thin needle slipping through her skin like air. I hear Chase sit on the coffee table with a muted thud, and when I look at him, his head is between his knees.
But I force myself to watch, to witness every moment of this in case these are her last. Taf cleans out her wound, muttering about bullet fragments and ruptured ligaments. After what feels like seconds and hours, he pulls a mangled bullet out of her body with forceps, laying it on the table next to her unconscious frame. Soon he’s got sutures between his fingers, fixing what I can’t while constantly soaking away fresh blood with clean gauze.
It takes hours, though I barely notice the time pass. Everything feels like one extended breath, like the second hand has broken on the clock and we’re all hovering in time. He calls Bashir over to help turn her, and I stay rooted to the spot, listening to her stronger cries as they roll her so Taf can check the back of her leg.
That has to be a good thing. A louder voice, a more forceful twitch of her shoulders. It must be.
When Taf finally steps away from the table, Clara laying on her back again, he looks exhausted. Deep lines groove into the dark brown skin of his forehead, sweat beading at his hairline.
“It didn’t hit an artery. She lost a lot of blood, and it wouldn’t surprise me if she had some hairline fractures in her femur or pelvis. She’s going to need a lot of rest, and a physical therapist, but she’s not going to bleed to death, at least not tonight.”
My exhale of relief comes out as a cry as I throw my arms around Taf, burying my face against his shoulder. She won’t die tonight.
“Clean her up, and then we’ll take her upstairs,” Taf directs, pulling my arms off him. I can’t read the strange look in his eyes, but I don’t have the energy to, anyway. I reach for Clara, brushing away the hair from her face and watching the first evidence of color bloom back onto her cheeks.
“I’m assuming neither of you brought overnight bags,” Chase interjects, gesturing at my bare chest, the nonchalance of his words in opposition with the cold sweat clear on his skin. “I’ll go grab something for both of you.” He starts up the stairs, leaning over the banister but avoiding looking at the bloody mess of his dining room. “And clean up my fucking house.”
Bashir offered to help carry Clara up the stairs, but I needed her in my arms. Chase has wet rags in the sink and spare clothes on the bathroom counter when I make it to the guest room he set up. It’s an effort to get Clara cleaned up without bothering the stitches Taf made, but all of my friends help in one way or another. Tossing bloody rags. Holding her still so I can pull sweats over her legs. Dressing her wounds. We don’t speak, other than the occasional direction or request, the tension thick in the air.
Finally, she’s tucked under a heavy blanket, her hair brushed back from her face. I stare at her like it will kill me to blink, my thumb rubbing circles against her shoulder as she murmurs in her sleep.
“She needs rest,” Taf reminds me, putting his hand on my shoulder. “It’s safe for her to sleep now.”
It’s only knowing that my presence likely keeps her from resting that removes me from her side. Chase steers me into his bathroom, shoving me in the room and shutting the door, demanding I clean up before I contaminate his entire house with blood.
The cold shower clears my mind enough to remind me that I still have another injured person to take care of, though I’m hesitant to bring him into Chase’s home. I care significantly less if he lives or dies, despite knowing he probably has vital information about Konstantin. I dress in Chase’s clothes, staring at myself in the mirror. There are deep, dark circles beneath my eyes, which look haunted. The last week feels like a dream and a nightmare that I can’t wake up from.
When I finally make it downstairs, my friends are gathered on the living room couches, four steaming cups on the coffee table. The dining room is still a disaster, Clara’s blood on the table and floor. My aversion is back in full force, now that the imminent threat of death has passed, and I swallow hard against the nausea.
“Hey man, hate to tell you this, but you even owe me an explanation at this point, and I avoid explanations at all costs,” Chase calls as soon as I hit the landing. The levity in his voice is forced, and none of the rest of us react to it.
“I know,” I sigh, dropping down onto the sofa next to Taf. I down the coffee, not even feeling the burn as it scalds my throat.
“Bashir has money that you got involved with the mob,” Chase says, half serious. “I said you joined a troupe of very convincing superhero cosplayers.”
I laugh. Actually, I can’t stop. The exhaustion, delusion, stress, unbearable agony of the last few hours crashes over me as I break down, tears leaking out of the corners of my eyes as I laugh so hard it hurts. Bashir stares at me incredulously, and Taf keeps his face neutral, but Chase chuckles along with me, likely realizing how beyond repair I am.
“You think this is fucking funny?” Bashir yells, leaning his elbows on his knees to stare at me.
“I mean, the cosplay thing was pretty good,” I admit, wiping away my tears with the back of my hand.
Clara’s alive. The relief is so intense, so poignant, everything else feels small in comparison. My friends’ disbelief, the dishonesty between my fiancée and I, the man bound and gagged in the tiny trunk of my car. All of it is manageable, because she’s alive.
“You come to us barely a month ago and tell us you’re engaged to a woman we’ve never even heard of,” Bashir says, looking to Taf and Chase for confirmation. “Then you show up here with her half dead, telling us you can’t take her to a hospital. There is something going on, and I swear to god, Deniz, I will go to your parents if you don’t tell us what’s happening.”
The humor fades as quickly as it came, a cold emptiness settling in my bones in its place. There’s so much to do, calls to make and problems to solve. But my friends deserve as much of the truth as I can give them.
I take a deep breath, sorting through truths and lies, my secrets and hers.
“Clara knows who killed Kerem.”
All three of my friends stare at me as the words hang in the air. The only person who doesn’t look surprised is Taf.
“Kerem died in a fire. An accident.” Bashir’s voice is cautious, almost condescending, like he’s afraid I’ve lost my mind. But I turn to Taf, trying to make him see how serious I am.
“I didn’t want to believe it was her,” he sighs, running a hand down his face. “Christ, Deniz. Getting yourself involved with the Costas.”
I had a feeling he knew who she was, but Taf keeps nearly as many secrets as Clara does. He comes from a long line of doctors and medical practitioners, but he’s the first to work in a hospital. I remember how disappointed his parents seemed. He shrugged it off, suggesting they wanted him to stay closer to home, but I always felt like there was more.
“What do you mean, the Costas ?” Bashir demands, now looking to Chase to find someone on his side. “Do you know what the fuck is going on?”
“No, but I’ve heard the name before. Other…ah…realtors have let me know they’re not a family to cross,” Chase grimaces.
“Did they cause the fire?” Taf asks gently, his hand drifting to my elbow before I jerk it back.
“What? No.”
The answer shocks me, even though it’s technically true. When did I stop believing the fire was her fault? I don’t have time to process the change, because Bashir is snapping in my face.
“From the beginning, Deniz.”
I take a deep breath and explain that Kerem’s death was not an accident, but collateral damage to an attack on Clara’s mother. I avoid explaining The Syndicate, even though it seems Bashir alone is completely in the dark about families like the Costas. Instead, I focus on how Clara and I have a common enemy, that we’re working together to find the person who ordered the hit and caused both of us so much grief. I review the events of the evening, confirming that someone potentially involved in Kerem’s death was the one who shot Clara. It’s still a lot of half-truths, but it’s close enough.
“Did you kill him?” Chase asks. It’s a little shocking to see him so casually reference murder, but I think he sees a lot more than he tells us about.
“Not exactly…” I hedge, and Taf groans next to me.
“Please don’t tell me there’s another victim in your car,” he pleads, hanging his head, shaking it. “You know, I worked so hard to get away from this shit, and you just walk right into it.”
“Maybe it’s fate,” I say, the joke landing flat as Taf levels me with a look of disdain.
“I’ll go check on the other guy,” Taf sighs, and I think about telling him to forget about it. But Clara asked me to keep him alive, and Taf can do that.
“You’re not bringing Clara’s attempted murderer into this house,” Chase declares, shooting me a grin. “She’s hot, and I don’t like people who try to kill hot people.”
Taf and I stand, but Bashir holds a hand up, his expression pleading, still threaded with anger.
“You’re not the same man you were, Deniz,” he says, imploring me to see reason. “Kerem would hate to see you doing all of this, marrying a killer, all this revenge.”
Bashir is so full of grief. For his mother. For Kerem. But also for the version of me he is hanging on to, the man whose biggest concern was how to become the smartest in the room.
“I know you miss him,” I say, hoping he hears both meanings. “But Kerem was my brother. Losing him was supposed to change me. And I think Kerem would be happy to know that I love him so much that I will become anyone to see him rest peacefully.”