“Oh, hi,” I mumble, assuming it’s the nurse coming to check on me. “Thanks again for the?—”
A masculine throat clear lets me know that this is definitely not a gray-haired old nurse with half-moon spectacles.
This is Matvei.
He fills the gap in the curtain, shoulders squared, one hand white-knuckling the fabric. His blue eyes are black again. His jaw is set so hard I can see the muscle ticking under his stubble.
“Tell me again you’ve never seen me before,” he growls. “I dare you.”
9
CASS
My mouth opens.
Nothing comes out.
Which, for me, is basically a medical emergency.
Matvei steps all the way into the curtained bay and pulls the fabric shut behind him. The little metal hooks scrape along the rod like nails on a chalkboard, raising goosebumps on the back of my neck.
The whole time, he doesn’t take his eyes off me. Not once.
“Say it,” he snarls again.
“Say what?”
“Say you’ve never seen me before. Look me in the face and say it.”
I open my mouth to say it again. I really do mean to. I had the balls to do it ten feet away while on a rolling gurney in front of two paramedics, so surely I can do it here, in private, withnothing but a crinkly blue curtain between us and the rest of the world.
But once again, the words won’t come. My tongue sits there in my mouth, useless. A wet, pink lump.
“That’s what I thought,” he says, nodding with savage satisfaction.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“That smug thing. Theah-ha, I caught youthing.”
“I did, though.”
“You know what?” I decide. “You can leave whenever you want. The curtain’s right there. Don’t let the— the fabric smack you in the ass on the way out.”
Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t move.
I pick at the edge of the hospital blanket. The fluorescents are doing me no favors; I can feel the swelling on my cheek throb in time with the buzzing bulb overhead. I can only imagine what I look like from his angle. Like a rotten slab of beef.
“How did you even find me in here?” I mutter.
“I followed the gurney.”
“Stalking is a crime, you know.”
“I don’t think you mind. In fact, I’d say you’re flattered by the attention.”
A long second passes. He’s looking at my face. Not at my eyes, but at myface, the bruise and the stitches, the mess that’s hidingunder the medical tape. I don’t like how it feels to be under his microscope.
