Page 10 of Split You Open

“I’m a nurse, remember? I’m just getting out the stuff you’ll need.”

Oh. Right…

Blair pulls out gloves, tweezers, gauze, antiseptic wipes, and bandages. The needle and thread are the last items she grabs.

When she’s done, Blair sits back and looks up at me. “When were you shot?”

Quickly, I wash my hands with soap and water, then drag on the new pair of latex gloves. When I look up at her, Blair is watching me intently. I try not to let her state of undress, or the old scars on her stomach that look a lot like the single one on my leg, distract me as I prepare to tend to her wound.

What I can’t ignore is the heavy sag of her shoulders or the dullness in her eyes that I’ve never seen before. I don’t like it. It’s like when Santi goes unusually quiet—it’s how you know something is seriously fucking wrong.

“When I escaped prison,” I tell her matter-of-factly, hoping to distract her. “They got me in the meaty part of my upper thigh.”

Her eyes narrow just a little as she asks, “How’d you escape prison?”

“Are you mocking me right now?”

“I would never mock you, Rhett.”

I glare at her. “Yes, you would and you’re doing it now. It’s the way you’re saying it.”

“I’m not!”

“Here I am, about to patch you up, and you’re sitting there mocking⁠—”

“Rhett!” Blair giggles. “I swear I’m not. I really believe you did it, just tell me how!”

I can’t help but smile. Blair smiles back.

“It’s not all that exciting,” I warn as I indicate for Blair to let me see her arm. She lifts it gingerly for me. “I was being transported on a bus and managed to get out of my cuffs. I caused a scene and a riot broke out. The cops on the bus couldn’t control us. The driver got hurt and veered off the road, and after the vehicle tipped, I slipped away from the chaos. As I did, a cop noticed and shot at me. It wasn’t enough to slow me down and she was immediately overpowered by one of the inmates.”

Looking back, I feel bad leaving her to fend for herself with such a rough crew.

But I had to get out of there.

“I don’t remember seeing a scar when I—” Blair cuts herself off.

She doesn’t need to finish that sentence. We both know what she’s talking about.

“Yeah, I think shock helped me have a steady hand when I was stitching myself up so there’s minimal scarring,” I admit. “It also helps that I have hairy legs. That helps cover the scar too.”

Blair snorts her amusement, but the sound is weak. It's only when I take her arm that I notice the slight tremor in it. When I glance up at her face, the dark circles under her eyes are emphasized by the tension bracketing her mouth and creasing around the edges of her eyes. God, she’s probably in agony. Yet, she didn’t complain once the entire ride.

Not even when we had to steal another car.

Fuck, when I’d been shot, I’d been a swearing, weeping asshole.

“The second time I got shot was a little over four years ago. It was just a graze across my hip, so I didn’t have to pull the bullet out. But that wasn’t the authorities,” I continue as I start to wash the blood off her arm. “This guy was sitting in his window and saw me on the roof of the building beside his. I guess he thought I was a threat and shot at me. I don’t blame him. Covered in dried blood from my last kill, dirty, and half-starved—I probably looked sketchy. I was lucky he didn’t have better aim. Ledger witnessed the whole thing from wherever he’d been hanging out and came to investigate.”

I pretend to ignore the way Blair stiffens at Ledger’s name. That’s a fresh wound the two of us have yet to come to terms with. I think we’re both ignoring the horrific yet inevitable truth for as long as we can. The person we both trusted with our lives has put us at risk on purpose.

Who the fuck does that?

“Wait, that’s how you two met?” she asks after a moment. “On a rooftop?”

I nod.

“So, he just… saved you then brought you to Gnarly Pines?”