This is why I’m here. What I’ve been fighting to obtain for the last fifteen years.
Lifting the chain over my head, I settle the locket between my breasts. Right where it belongs.
A rush of happiness envelops me like Mom’s hugs used to. Warmth spreads through my entire body. I’m whole in a way I haven’t been for over a decade.
Mom.
I could leave. If I were following the plan, I would.
Find Dimitri, regroup, and move on with my life.
Max would eventually wake, or maybe he wouldn’t. Either way, not my problem.
But my legs don’t budge.
I stare at the man before me, my hand squeezed tight around the locket. Max sprawls on the couch, defenseless, his head tipped back and his throat exposed. The cut on his forehead drips blood onto his eyelid.
The hunter brought to his knees and left bleeding in my living room because he chose to save us both instead of only himself.
What the hell am I supposed to do?
What would Mom do?
I drop to my knees and reach for the laces on Max’s boots. He doesn’t wake up, though a few soft grunts come from above me when I graze his swollen ankle.
There’s no way I can peel the snow pants off without his help. He’s too ginormous to lift. But I succeed in loosening his belt to give him some comfort and in tugging his legs around on the couch so he’s sprawled out with both feet raised.
Elevation will help the sprain.
After some finagling, I get the parka off. Smoothing my hands over his sweat-wet shirt, I slowly undo the buttons and spread the fabric wide so I can drink in the sight of his bare chest.
The scars are worse than I imagined.
I’ve seen scars before. I have plenty myself.
But his…
He has the usual. Bullet and knife wounds. Burn marks. But all those circles…they’re different from the others.
A deliberate, systematic pattern indicative of years of abuse.
The size. The shape. The way the tissue healed wrong.
I dry heave, though there’s nothing to bring up.
Cigarette burns splay across his ribs, his stomach, his sides.
Someone held lit cigarettes against his skin and kept them there until they went out, until the stench of scorched flesh permeated the room. A form of torture that had nothing to do with extracting information and everything to do with pain and breaking down a child.
I trace one with my fingertip. All these years later, the scarred skin is still rough and puckered. No one ever treated these injuries.
He was eight, and he had no one to patch him up. No one to care about him.
I at least had Dimitri to give me salves and wraps.
During training, Dimitri took care to never cut me. Said he didn’t want me to have to deal with any permanent scars, though he gave me plenty of bruises throughout the years. Even after I started doing jobs, Dima made sure my wounds were properly tended. Thanks to his treatment, any residual marks I do have are faint.
But where I got bruises, Max suffered wounds that scarred from neglect.
