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"Good idea. You need to get some salve on these cuts," she told me, reaching for my arm the way both Cy and Sugar had done earlier, dropping it over her too-small shoulders, and actually fucking hauling me up. She was a lot stronger than she looked. "Breathe," she reminded me as each step made a shooting pain spark up my side, making me hold my breath. "You'll get a lung infection if you don't. And you don't even want to know how bad the tea for that tastes."
Split lip and sore gum be damned; I fucking smiled at that shit. Because it was cute as fuck. Yeah, cute. There was no manly word that was anywhere near as accurate as that one.
Cute as fuck, that was what she was.
With her healing teas.
And her house full of critters.
"No no no," she chided when I tried to make it toward my bed. "You can rest when you're taken care of," she informed me, leading me toward the bathroom.
All business.
Not falling to pieces.
"Here, lean against this," she said, propping me up near the sink cabinet. "I need to get this," she said, reaching behind her, jacking up the back of her skirt, and coming back with the gun I had given her earlier, "out of my panty waistband. It's been irritating me for an hour," she declared casually, putting it down on the sink before turning it on to get the water hot. "What?" she asked, catching me watching her with my brows furrowed.
"Is this a front?" I asked, jerking my chin at her.
"Is what a front?"
"This cool, collected thing?"
Her head tipped to the side slightly, lips curving up somewhat. "What? Because I'm not some badass military lady," she started, clearly meaning Lo, "I must be some hysterical girl who wrings her hands and cleans out your cuts with her tears?" she asked. "This isn't even that bad, buddy," she informed me, making a smile pull at my lips. Buddy? "I once had to treat Babcia's arm after she had a mishap with a chainsaw. It was hard to keep food in after that," she informed me, going to squat down to look into the cabinet. "Alcohol, alcohol, peroxide. You do realize you should only treat with alcohol or peroxide right after you get the cut, right? It eats away healing flesh. Alright, this is useless," she declared. "I have to get my own bags. Here, sit," she demanded, leading me over to the toilet, putting the lid down, and helping me lower down. "I'll be right back."
Then, I shit you not, this woman calmly and determinedly went in search of her supplies like patching me up was an every other day occurrence.
How the fuck was I going to be able to let her go?
That was all I could think about while she was gone.
And I never did come up with an answer to it.TENReyI walked out of his room, closing the door with a quiet click, and leaning back against it, half-collapsing onto it, trying to suck in a steadying breath.
I wasn't lying to him.
I had cleaned up Babcia's arm after the chainsaw thing.
But this was somehow worse.
I wasn't even sure why.
Maybe it was simply the fact that the chainsaw incident was an accident, and this was done purposely. Someone or, more accurately, someones beat the hell out of him.
It was a hard reality to accept. Well, not for everyone, surely. But for me. Because this wasn't my world. Then again, it was. It was everyone's world. I kept informed. I knew about all the atrocities happening in our country - and around the world. I knew that people could be pure, undiluted evil, were capable of doing unspeakable things.
I guess I had simply never been faced with it.
It was proving hard to do with a composed face.
But that was what he needed from me.
When I had walked into the compound and saw him, I saw the pain, sure, but what was more dominant on his face was fear, worry. He didn't know how I was going to react, if I was going to be angry, upset, hysterical.
And, quite frankly, he was too hurt to be worrying about silly things like if I could handle the situation. I was handling it. No one had treated me with kid gloves. Smith told me, point blank, that my worries were justified, that this woman and her goons were almost certainly putting a world of hurt on Reeve. When Lo called about me needing to uproot my life, she had done it clearly and concisely, informing me that I was going to be in danger for a while, and the only way to ensure that I would be okay, was to take my animals, and move into the compound.
A lot was going on.
And I was dealing.
