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I hoist her up into my arms and she yelps. It reminds me of our first night, when she told me she’d rather step on broken glass than have me carry her. But she’s already stepped on something broken, and I will not be argued with. Maybe she senses that. Because she doesn’t even try to fight me now. Doesn’t snap at me, or try to stop me. She doesn’t fully give in and hold onto me, either, instead crossing her arms in an X over her chest, fists up by her shoulders, like a corpse.
I carry her up the stairs, vaulting two at a time, until I’ve reached my bedroom. I set Deirdre down on my bed then mutter, “Stay here,” as I stalk into the bathroom. I know there’s a first aid kit in there somewhere. I find it under the sink after a minute of searching then return to the bedroom.
Only to find Deirdre gone.
“For fuck’s sake.”
I hear sounds coming from her bathroom, rummaging and clattering. First aid kit in hand, I move quickly to that room. In her bathroom, she’s bent over at the waist as she shoves things around under the sink, her injured foot hovering an inch off the ground as she digs for, presumably, the very thing I’ve got in my hand.
“Looking for this?”
At the sound of my voice her head whips back and she gives me an accusatory look over her shoulder. Her hair, that was damp before, is drying in furious orange waves. It looks like a bonfire, tendrils flashing and flickering as she ignores me and snaps her head forward again, continuing her search in the cupboards under the counter.
I watch her, a muscle pumping in my cheek. I’m not one to get stressed easily. Usually, I’m cool, collected, weighing every option with the detached precision of a surgeon. I thought I’d be relieved to get Deirdre under my control, like something inside me that appeared one and a half years ago would somehow be satisfied and I could get back to my fucking life. But with her here, all I feel is like I’m on the verge of a goddamn stroke. I watch her, so angry and so small, babying her foot like a wounded deer. If a deer had pride and a temper that was the prettiest and most irritating thing I’d ever seen.
Deirdre’s face is mostly hidden, and my gaze goes to her foot. Her bleeding foot. In the kitchen, the chunk of ceramic had kept it stoppered well enough, but not anymore. Dark rivulets run down the length of her toes, falling onto the stone floor in slow but steady drips.
“You’re bleeding all over the floor,” I tell her, striding into the bathroom and standing directly behind her.
Her reply is slightly muffled, her voice bouncing around between the bottles of crap under the sink. “I’ll clean it up.”
For some reason that reply annoys me.
“Rosa will do it.”
She lets out a harsh breath, pulls her head out of the cupboard and straightens. She doesn’t turn around to look at me, instead focusing on my reflection in the mirror ahead of us.
“I’m not going to make Rosa clean up my blood!” she snaps at my reflection.
“Why not? She’s cleaned mine up plenty of times,” I reply.
“Yeah, well, I’m not like you,” she practically spits.
I stare at the two of us in the mirror, red and black, beauty and scars, and I am fully fucking aware of that fact. Fully aware that she is on a completely different plane of existence than me, and the fact I’ve dragged her here at all, dragged her kicking and screaming into my darkness, is a crime against nature and order and all things good in the world.
The worst part is, I do not fucking care.
“Sit down,” I growl, jerking my chin over at the toilet.
“Just give me the first aid kit and go,” she replies irritably.
That’s not going to happen. She may think that I just want to hurt her, but the reality is that watching her blood seep out of her body is notching my blood pressure up another level every time my heart beats. I’m not going to let her slap some tiny bandage on there and call it a day.
“Sit down or I will fucking tie you down.”
Her eyes flare.
“You already took off my door and now you’re threatening to tie me to the toilet? Are you insane?”
“If I am, it’s because you’ve made me that way.”
She lets out a sharp, angry laugh at that, and suddenly I have a bone-deep urge to know what her real laughter sounds like.
“You’re telling me you were just a normal, psychologically healthy man before I came along? Yeah, I call bullshit on that, buddy.”
The casual use of the word buddy throws me so off-balance I’m glad she’s started hopping over to the toilet all on her own without needing my help. Shaking my head stiffly, I follow her. Buddy. Fucking buddy. If a man called me that he’d lose a goddamn finger.
Or five.
