Chapter 15 #3
“I’m not the bad guy here, Holly.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because you bloody stabbed me and I’m still here. Helping you.” The pain in my abdomen suddenly intensifies. A white-hot spike lances through me, followed by a low, burning hum in my gut. Fuck.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Give me that.” She snatches the suture kit from my hand and shoves me back onto the table’s edge with the grace of a decapitated monkey.
I brace myself on my hands, watching as she expertly unpacks the tiny metal box, extracting the same pair of forceps and roll of thread as before. She frowns at me, her gaze expectant.
I frown back.
“Take off your shirt, asshole.”
“Say please.”
Her lips press together in a tight, thin line.
She turns her back on me. I catch her wrist, pulling her back.
“Okay, okay, I'm sorry,” I say. Her eyes dart to the point where my fingers still linger on her skin, then back to mine.
She swallows hard. I release her. “Sorry,” I mutter again. Softer this time.
Holding onto the mattress with one hand, I lean back and slowly begin unbuttoning my shirt. I take my time, watching as Holly returns from the bathroom with a bottle of lidocaine, a syringe, and some cotton. She sets them down on the nightstand beside the gauze, tweezers, needle and thread.
“Hopefully, this is going to sting a lot,” she warns, bending in front of me. “Try not to flinch.” She unscrews the lidocaine bottle and draws up the syringe to fill it up, injecting the anaesthetic at the corner of the stab wound.
I hiss. Fuck.
“I said don’t flinch.”
“It’s not something I can control — fuck, fuck, Holly, be gentle, shit.”
She glances up at me through her lashes. I forget how to breathe. “Say please,” she says.
“Please, Holly. It hurts.”
The corner of her mouth twitches upwards before flattening again.
She puts the syringe down and dabs the cold, wet cotton pad over the raw edges of my wound, though now the sting is a welcome distraction from the way my breath hitches as she leans in.
A few seconds later, I can feel the numbing sensation begin to take effect, a welcome relief from the throbbing pain.
She threads the needle with steady fingers, the tip of the needle catching the moonlight filtering in through her window.
Once the anaesthetic takes hold, she doesn’t hesitate.
“Stay still.”
So commanding.
She positions the needle’s curved tip just beside the wound.
The metal pierces my flesh with a wet pop.
I feel the thread pulling through my skin, slick and warm with blood, as she drags it taut.
The edges of the wound gape open wider for a moment, flesh stretching grotesquely, before collapsing together under the tension of the suture.
My vision blurs for a moment, but her focus never wavers.
She pierces the opposite edge of the wound.
My stomach heaves as I hear the thread cutting through the meat of my body, each tug sending a tremor through my frame — fuck.
Fuck, fuck, FUCK! The needle twists, coming through the other side.
I wince, a low groan slipping from my lips.
“Stop being so dramatic.” Holly’s cool breath fans my burning skin.
My eyes flutter open. She ties the first knot, her fingers slick with crimson as she pulls the thread tight.
Blood seeps around the sutures, oozing thickly down my side.
“If you hadn’t pissed me off so much, maybe we wouldn’t be in this position right now. ”
Sweat drips down my temples. “But I like this position.” The pain starts to fade like background noise, overshadowed by the overwhelming sensation of being so utterly and irrevocably drawn to the feeling of Holly’s breath against my skin. “You look good on your knees for me.”
My remark is met with a sharp jab of the needle to the side of my torso.
After that, it’s pretty much a blur. Her hands move quickly, looping the thread again and again, each knot dragging the jagged edges of the wound closer together.
Again and again with a practiced motion, snug against my severed flesh.
I feel like I’m coming undone in her hands. “Do you do this often?” I ask.
Her brows furrow in concentration as she leans in to cut excess thread with her teeth. She doesn’t look up. “Stitch up men I’ve stabbed for stalking me? Yeah, every Friday like clockwork.”
“And here I thought I was special.”
“A special type of idiot,” she mumbles under her breath.
By the time she reaches the last knot, sweat is dripping down my bare chest, mixing with the blood.
Holly leans in, inspecting her work, her breath warm against my gore-slicked skin.
A lock of hair slips loose from behind her ear, brushing against her cheek as she comes closer.
She adjusts her position, her collarbone peeking out from beneath the edge of her white crop top, and that’s when I see it — a faint scratch, no longer than an inch, just above her clavicle.
It’s small, barely visible against her skin.
My body reacts before my mind can catch up. I reach out, my fingers brushing against the soft curve of her collarbone. “Did you know those people tonight?”
Holly’s head jerks up, eyes wide with surprise as my thumb gently runs over the scratch. She stays frozen for a beat, her gaze darting between my face and my hand. “What?” Her tone is clipped but she makes no attempt to pull away.
“The people I dug two graves for,” I murmur, my thumb still tracing the scratch like it might break open if I press too hard. “Did you know them?”
She frowns. She hesitates. She swallows once. Then, like a door slamming shut, her features harden. Her jaw sets, her eyes turning cold and distant, a wall thrown up so fast it leaves me reeling.
Her hand shoots up, slapping mine away from her collarbone.
Not as hard or as forceful as I’d expected.
“Of course, I did.” She’s stitching me up again, her focus sharp and unrelenting, but her movements are rigid now, as if I’ve unsettled her.
“Fred was my childhood best friend who I hadn’t seen for over a decade.
Must be why I rammed his head in with a brick. ”
I bring my thumb to my mouth, running it over my lips savouring the taste of her. “Mm, a smashing reunion.”
She shoots me a look.
“What? That was the first appropriate joke I’ve cracked all night.”
Rolling her eyes, she goes back to pushing the needle into the edge of my torn skin. “No, Theo. I did not know him.”
“What about the girl?”
“Why are you asking me all this?”
“Because I think whoever it was that asked you to come to that building tonight, is the same person who asked that man to come there too. I think this person wanted to frame you for the woman’s death in the hopes her little boyfriend would kill you for it.
It would explain the gun and his maniacal rage. ”
“Why the hell would someone want to frame me for some random woman’s death? And who?”
The name Nate Lawson flashes in my brain over and over again. “That’s what I can’t seem to figure out. Which is why I thought that if you knew her, we could connect the dots and dish something out.”
A pause.
“I didn’t exactly know the girl, but…”
“But?”
“She did look familiar.”
My eyes narrow. “How so?”
Nothing. Silence.
“Holly.”
She doesn’t so much as glance at me as she pulls the suture tight, the last knot tying the wound shut. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t know her.”
“Holly, if you won’t open up to me, I’m not going to be able to help you.”
“Good thing I don’t really want your help then.”
“But you need it.”
“What I need is for you to shut the fuck up and leave my apartment before I rip these sutures off again.” She pulls the last length of thread, snapping it between her teeth and stands up. “There. All done. Now leave.”
“No.”
She sits back, her eyes finally meeting mine. “No?”
“No.”
“Theo, you are not staying over.”
“Why not?” My gaze falls to her wrists smeared with my blood. Mine.
“Because you said you’d leave after I fixed you up.”
“Actually, I said no such thing. But I did enjoy feeling your hands all over me.”
“Get out.”
“Not until you tell me why you’re so adamant on me leaving when you’re clearly in danger.”
“Maybe because I don’t want to share a room with my fucking stalker? How about that? Now please, get the fuck out.”
“I need a better reason.”
“Because I said so.”
“That means nothing to me.”
“Because I will kill you if you don’t.”
“Try again.”
“Because I can’t sleep around untrustworthy people!”
“Oh, right. That’s me?”
Her jaw tightens, and her eyes narrow into a blazing glare. “I don’t need your protection. I can take care of myself.”
“I’m sure you can. But do you always have to?”
This seems to disarm Holly. Her eyes soften, her spine still a rigid rod.
Her lips, pressed into a thin, tight line, falter and soften, just for a moment — as if her resolve is finally beginning to crack under the weight of her frustration.
She looks at me — really looks at me. Everything about her countenance is steeped in regret.
Her eyes flit away, the tip of her chin dipping just a fraction.
A blush blooms on her neck, delicate as a rosebud, and my chest tightens with a curious tug.
Not fear. Not even fascination. It’s something warmer.
Something wholly and completely different.
“Please leave,” she insists.
“Holly, you’ve begged me to leave twice in the past minute. You’re obviously not in the right frame of mind. I cannot leave you alone.”
“I did not beg you to do anything —”
“Saying the word ‘please’ qualifies as begging, Hollister —”
“Don’t call me that —”
“You’re being unnecessarily stubborn —”
“I’ve never done this before!” she blurts.
I frown. “What? Sleep?”
My sarcasm doesn’t strike any nerves this time. Instead, Holly takes a breath as if the next few words are really hard for her to say, “No, I’ve…I’ve never had a man sleep in my apartment before.”
Her words hang in the air.
Something deeper than the thrill of getting a rise out of Holly stirs within me. “Holly,” I say, my voice soft. “I promise you’re safe with me.”
It’s hardly a promise, but a statement of fact. Of course, she’s safe with me. I’d die a thousand deaths before letting anything bad happen to her.
A harsh scoff leaves her mouth. “Says the man who’s been stalking me for the past three — no, two and a half years.”
“Precisely. Who better to protect you from your stalker than your other more superior stalker?”
“Fuck your protection.” She turns the other way.
I reach for her hand. My fingers brush lightly against the inside of her wrist, and she stops, her shoulders tensing.
When she turns back toward me, her expression is unreadable but her eyes flicker with something raw and unguarded.
Her chin lifts a fraction. There’s a tremor in her fingers.
Her eyes soften and for a moment, her walls crumble.
But then I feel the shift in the air. I see the way her fingers fidget with each other, the way her eyes flicker towards my mouth before darting away again.
She's trying to push me away, to maintain this fortress she's built around herself, brick by brick.
But I see the cracks too, the places where the mortar crumbles, where the light seeps in.
An eternity passes before she finally speaks. “You’re sleeping on the floor.”
The victory is small and fleeting but a victory, nonetheless. “That’s too bad,” I respond, my voice teasing. “Your bed would be so much more comfortable.”
Her glare returns, although it lacks its earlier bite.
“That was a joke.”
“It wasn’t funny.”
She pushes me aside and fishes a bottle of painkillers from her drawer, throwing it towards me.
I catch it with my right hand, grinning, even though the action just sent a throbbing pain up my torso.
“The pills are for the pain. I don’t want your stupid whining to wake me up at night.”
“Oh, bless. You’re worried about me.”
Holly’s only response is, “Choke on your spit and die.”
I pop two pills in my mouth and swallow them down without any water, watching as she turns off the lights and climbs into her bed.
She doesn’t shower or change into clean clothes or even give me a goodnight kiss.
No, it seems as if my love is too exhausted for any of that tonight.
Fifteen minutes pass by and Holly’s exhaustion has gotten the better of her. She’s fast asleep. Snoring blissfully.
Sleep for me comes in snatches, punctuated by the throbbing pain in my abdomen and the soft rustle of Holly’s breaths and light snoring.
At some point during the night, the pain gets too much, and I sit up to watch Holly sleep.
She is lying so sweetly. Innocent Holly.
Precious Holly. My Holly. I shift closer, my heart thudding fast and hard and I crave to touch her hair.
But I don’t. Instead, I just continue watching her.
One hour passes. Then two. Her dreams twitch under her closed eyelids and I wonder if there’s a small chance she’s dreaming of me.