"Ethan?" Calvin's voice drifts behind me. "You're bleeding."
"Not my blood," Ethan says and then yelps. I glance over my shoulder to see Calvin pulling Ethan's shirt aside to reveal a bleeding graze along his shoulder.
"A bullet?" Calvin asks.
"Bullets?!" I spin back to Kon and press both my hands to his abdomen. “Tell me what happened right now!"
"What is this?" Kon's brow lifts as he glances down at the rose petals now tickling his chest.
"What? Oh." I pull my hands away. "It's dumb."
"Tell me."
"Well… all the ladies I hired are giving the generals roses as a token of affection, and I thought to add to the cover, I'd get you one. I had a blue one dyed after I saw the dress and wanted to give it to you."
"It is beautiful." Kon reaches for it with a blood-stained hand, and I immediately snatch it out of his way.
"Tell me what happened," I demand, gazing up at him. "Why are you bleeding?"
"It is nothing for you to worry about," Kon says, but he hisses and drags air through his teeth when I set the rose aside and apply pressure to his wound.
"I worry," I mutter softly. "Because I care." And because without Kon, there will be no way to save my family.
Despite that, the worry that fogs my chest is real.
Despite my best efforts, affection bloomed in me for Kon and I hadn't planned for it at all.
It surges up now as he lifts his hand and grazes his knuckles against my cheek, then tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.
"You look beautiful."
I glance up at him through my lashes. "Less compliments, more truth please?"
Kon sighs and then hisses again as I resume cleaning the ragged gash with the antiseptic Ethan left behind.
At some point, Calvin escorted Ethan out of the kitchen to tend to his own wound, leaving us alone.
"There were some bold idiots on my travels," Kon explains. “Yes, there was some shooting and Ethan was grazed. He did not realize it because of adrenaline. I, on the other hand, leaned out of a broken window with little care for the glass."
"That's so stupid," I mutter. "You hurt yourself."
"I did," he admits. "But I am alive. I survived. Ethan and I survived."
"Did anyone die?" I know what 'survived' means.
Kon's breath hitches and his chest lifts as I finish cleaning the gash and begin applying some butterfly stitches to the wound.
"I lost one car," Kon says and his voice deepens with the weight of those words. "I lost three men. Good men."
"I'm sorry." My fingertips skim over his skin and I glance back up at him. "That must be horrible."
"It is a fact of this life," Kon replies.
"No, don't say that."
"Why not?"
"Because…" My hands tremble as I press the last stitch over the wound and then cover the area with white gauze. "Because it makes it sound like death is an inevitability and no one is safe from it. Which means you aren't safe from it. Which means the next time you go out, it could be your car that gets lost and then I'll be…" My voice turns waspish as I speak without taking a breath. Applying the last of the tape to hold the gauze in place, I finish and finally look up at him. Shadows cling under his angular features from the low kitchen light and my mouth runs dry. "I don't want you to leave me alone."
