Page 6 of Queen of Ruin

It doesn’t take long for the roads to become familiar again and I’m pulling up outside my apartment within thirty minutes of leaving the crime scene.

Fuck, it’s a crime scene.

I murdered people.

What are the chances I’ve just helped some escaped serial killer? Or worse, some truly God-awful criminal who will cut my throat the second she’s back on her feet? Hard to imagine her like that while she’s unconscious in my arms, but as I carry her into my apartment, it’s difficult to control those thoughts.

Am I doing the right thing?

I really should call the cops.

Placing her on my bed, I return to the stolen car and drive it a few miles from my apartment, then leave it with the keys inside and walk away. If anyone traces that car, they won’t find it outside my building, and the walk back to my apartment gives me time to decide what to do.

If I get back there and she’s dead, I’m calling the cops. If she’s alive, then I’m calling an ambulance and then the cops. I’ll tell them she threatened my life, held me at gunpoint, and I only killed those two men in self-defense.

I’m sure the words of an ex-addict will be treated as gospel.

My heart’s calmer and my thoughts less tangled by the time I let myself back into my apartment and am greeted by utter silence. No signs of life, no woman waiting behind the door to attack me.

She’s exactly where I left her on my bed, splayed in the same position she landed and completely out cold. But alive, thankfully, and relief blooms in my chest as the soft touch of air from her nose tickles the back of my wrist.

Definitely alive.

“Okay,” I murmur to myself. “It’s not the first time you’ve had to patch someone up. It’s fine.”

It’s fine.

I repeat it like a mantra in my mind while seeking out my stashed medical kit from the kitchen and set to work. The last person I patched up was Tech after he met the unfriendly side of a knife, and before that, it was Trudy from the bar when a glass shattered in her hand. Before that… it was mostly myself.

Can’t afford drugs if I have to waste the money on medical bills.

But I’ve never seen anything like this.

The deep gash on her forehead leading up into her hair takes my immediate attention. It’s not deep enough that bone is visible, but it’s enough that my heart pounds and my fingers tremble as I do my best to clean the area, pull skin together with multiple butterfly stitches, and tape it down with gauze. She needs a real doctor, but every time I think about calling 911, her panicked words ring in my ears.

“Okay,” I breathe out, half wishing she would wake up before the next stage.

She doesn’t.

This woman is beaten to hell. Her blood-soaked T-shirt almost falls apart in my hands when I cut it off, and the bruises beneath are enough to turn my stomach. Some are fresh and others slightly yellow from age, but all of them cluster around her gut. I wash her with warm water and a sponge, then spend twenty minutes tending to all the small scratches, lacerations, and cuts over her body and arms. Burn marks litter one shoulder and deep gouges at least a few days old tear down her back, and they weep as I clean them and stitch them the best I can. More bruises litter her hips and thighs with some very clear handprints that make my blood run cold.

The more I tend to her, the more I lose all understanding of what could have happened to her. This doesn’t look like any beating I’ve ever seen, nor does it look like someone who escaped from the police. Her fear of the authorities suggests they’re the culprit, but if I didn’t know any better, I’d say she’d been tortured.

The sun peeks through the curtains by the time I’ve stitched up every wound, cleaned every scratch, covered every laceration, and gently manhandled her into one of my old T-shirts. Her underwear remains untouched, but that doesn’t mean she’ll take kindly to my removing the rest of her clothes when she wakes up.

If she wakes up.

What do I do if she doesn’t?

If she’s unconscious forever, how long do I care for her before I cave and call the police?

Exhaustion weighs me down all the way to the bathroom where I tear off my blood-stained T-shirt and gaze blearily at my bruised body in the mirror. That seatbelt mark is gonna bruise badly, and that fucker who kicked me? Bastard must have had steel-toed boots because I’ve taken beatings before, and none have been like that.

“What the fuck,” I murmur, turning on the tap and running my hands under the lukewarm water. The pipes shudder in the wall and cold follows, then more warmth and finally, hot.

I stare down. Blood stains my palms, catches in the wrinkles of my knuckles, and splashes up my wrist where her hand gripped me so tightly for a woman so injured.

An imprint of her fear.