I let her be.Soon after she shut the door to the bathroom, I heard the water in the sink running.I stayed in the main room of the apartment after she shut the bathroom door.At first I figured she needed a minute to herself.The meeting with Lana had been a lot.Seeing her sister’s entry in that ledger, the word “Special” underlined twice in Carl’s cramped handwriting, had to have gutted her.I leaned against the kitchen counter and gave her space.
The water ran nonstop for a full five minutes.So I straightened and looked toward the bathroom door.Something didn’t feel right about the situation.She had to be hurting, and I knew I couldn’t leave her in there alone with her pain any longer.
I pushed off the counter and walked over.The door wasn’t locked or even shut all the way.I didn’t knock because I didn’t want to startle her.Instead I put my palm flat on the door and eased it open just enough to look inside.
The bathroom was small, the kind of utilitarian space built into the smaller warehouse apartments most of the guys used.All of us had been in prison for one thing or another and we were kind of used to the minimalist way of living.A sink against the far wall under a mirror with a light bar across the top, a toilet, a shower stall with a frosted glass door were pretty much it.She had her back to me, her shoulders hunched.The water ran hot enough to steam the mirror at the edges.
She used a wash cloth to scrub her nails, getting under them as best she could.Then she got more soap and started using the washcloth to scrub the backs and palms of her hands.
With a start, her gaze landed on a nail brush I kept on the cabinet next to the sink.We all tried to keep ourselves clean and free from oil and grease in case we were needed at Haven.Greasy fingerprints were not welcomed on the walls and counters.She picked up the brush and doused it with liquid soap before starting to brush her nails and the backs and palms of her hands all over again.
The cut on her palm had been bandaged fresh by Nadine that morning, but Veda had removed it and scrubbed that palm just as vigorously as she did the other.
I leaned in the doorway and watched her.Her grip on the plastic handle was white-knuckled, the muscles in her forearm corded with tension.
“You’re gonna hurt your hand worse, honey.”My voice came out quiet.She didn’t look up.I moved closer to her but didn’t touch her yet.
“I can still feel the blood from the man I shot.”Her voice was flat and far away.She wasn’t talking to me so much as she was talking at the sink, at her own raw knuckles, at the memory of what she’d done in that apartment.I also knew from experience that she was focusing on the second most horrific thing to happen to her in a short period of time to keep from focusing on her sister’s fate.
I put myself in her peripheral vision, so she’d know I was there without having to turn.I figured the best thing to do was roll with it for now.
“The first one stays with you,” I said.“That’s a fact.”
The brush paused for half a second, then resumed.
“Before I hooked up with Knuckles and he brought me into Kiss of Death, I was with a gang in the underground.I’d been with them maybe eight months when we had a confrontation with some kid who tried to jack the truck at a rest stop.”I leaned against the vanity and crossed my arms over my chest.“He was maybe nineteen and tweaked out of his mind.Unfortunately, he also brought a piece he’d probably stolen from his daddy’s gun cabinet.”I hated talking about this part of my life.It was partly why I’d adopted the cheery persona I found hard to reach since I’d put this woman on the back of my bike in that alley.“He got off a shot before I could stop him.Missed me by about six inches.The bullet embedded in the wooden post by my head.I shot before I thought and didn’t miss.It’s why I went to prison.”
She still didn’t look up from her hands.“Hardly seems fair,” she said softly.What worried me most was the lack of emotion both in her voice and in her features.“You going to prison when he shot at you first.”
I couldn’t help the slight lift of the corner of my lips.“Yeah, well, just because he was trying to jack my ride didn’t negate the fact I was running drugs.Only thing that saved me from a harsher sentence was the fact I had a squeaky clean record before that incident.
“I threw up after.Right there on the asphalt next to the body.”I paused.“I’ve got your back, Veda.I’ll give you everything you need to find the answers you want.”
She looked at me in the mirror, her face bare and exhausted and stripped of every defense.The steam had fogged the bottom half of the mirror now, so our reflections floated above a white haze.
She held my gaze in the mirror for a long moment.Her hands were still under the running water, the brush forgotten in her grip.
Then she shut off the water.The sudden silence filled the small bathroom.She let her hands drip without reaching for a towel, water running down her fingers and her abraded knuckles beginning to bead in places with fresh blood where she’d scrubbed too hard for too long under the hot water.
“I watched you last night,” she said.“With the Steel Serpent prospect.I was out walking when you caught him on the fence.”
I hadn’t known she was there.That meant she’d seen everything.Including the fact I’d killed that prospect.She’d watched me end a man’s life in the dark between the warehouses and she’d never made a sound.
I kept my face still.“Did it bother you?My killing him?”
She met my eyes in the mirror.Her voice didn’t waver.“No.That bastard got what he deserved.”
She said it with steel in her voice, the same steel I’d seen in the alley when she’d told me if I tried to hurt her she’d kill me.More importantly, Veda had lost that vacant look.She still had some fight left in her.
We held that gaze for a long moment.The steam on the mirror kept spreading, fogging the edges of our reflections until only our eyes were clear, locked on each other through the haze.
She turned away from the sink to face me directly this time.Not through the mirror.I could see the pulse beating in her throat, a quick steady rhythm that matched the beat in my own chest.
Then she reached for me.Her wet fingers closed on the front of my shirt, right over my sternum.She bunched the fabric in her fist and pulled me to her.
I closed the remaining distance between us by turning into her.I cupped her face in my hands, my palms settling along the line of her jaw.I felt the tension in the muscles of her neck.She’d reached her limit, and needed something to relieve the pressure inside herself she had no hope of expressing because she didn’t have a frame of reference.
I tilted her head up and waited.
