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“Alright.” I’m watching the van, seeing the men load Finn inside. “Are we going now?”
—
The safe house is some distance away—in another state, I think. It’s dark by the time we get to the small cabin nestled away far from a main road, the car that I rode in following the van with Finn. Theo assured me that a doctor wouldn’t be far behind, and all I can think about is the possibility that Finn might not still be alive when I get out of the car.
I’m opening the door before it even fully comes to a stop, tripping over my feet in an effort to get to the van. One of the security team steps in front of me, blocking my path, and I open my mouth to tell him exactly what he can do with himself before he gives me a tired look.
“Just give us some room, miss,” he says. “We’ll get him into the house, and then you can see him.”
As much as I know he’s right, it’s hard to back down, hard to watch as they take Finn inside the cabin. This feels too familiar, memories that I can’t bear to think about crowding in. I press my hand to my mouth as I start to follow them inside just as a door slams, and a man who I think must be the doctor gets out of a car, following all of us into the cabin.
It feels like a bad dream. The bedroom is upstairs—a sort of large loft overlooking the main floor of the cabin, and that’s where they take Finn, laying him atop the bed made up with quilts. He doesn’t move, and I see burns on one side of his face, his body so limp that it’s hard to believe he’s alive.
“You’re his—”
The voice of the man, who I’m assuming is the doctor, startles me, and I nearly jump out of my skin, whirling to face him.
“A friend,” I manage, and my chest clenches. I’m not even sure that that’s what I am to Finn now, not after the argument we had. “I’m going to take care of him while we’re here.”
“Alright.” There’s no argument, just quick acquiescence from the doctor. He moves past me, up the stairs, and I hang back, terrified of what he’s going to find and what he might say. Afraid that it’s worse than even what I’m thinking at this moment.
The answer, by the time he’s done examining Finn, is that most of the injuries are thankfully superficial. Once he regains consciousness, I’m told, he needs to be kept awake for as long as possible to watch for signs of a concussion, and to keep the wounds clean and bandaged. “He might have hearing damage,” the doctor tells me as he packs up his things, leaving pain medication and the items I need to take care of Finn behind. “Watch for that. If anything changes—if he doesn’t wake in the next forty-eight hours or so, if he starts to run a high fever, if you see any signs of internal bleeding—call me. I’ll be up here as soon as I’m able.”
And with that—I’m left alone with Finn.
Not alone, exactly. There’s plenty of security here, Nikolai’s and Theo’s both, but they give Finn and me space, spreading out downstairs and outside. I sink down onto the edge of the bed, looking at Finn’s bruised and dirty face, and my heart aches.
“Finn?” I reach out, gently touching his hand, remembering the conversation we had just this morning in his apartment, the way he did the same thing, reassuring me. It feels like it’s been such a long time since then, like this morning was weeks ago, and tears fill my eyes, blurring my vision as I look down at him. “Can you hear me?”
There’s nothing—no response. The only sign that he’s alive at all is the slow, shallow rise and fall of his chest, and I swallow hard, getting up to go into the attached bathroom and get a washcloth to clean his face.
Gently, I clean the dirt and soot away, avoiding the cuts and bruises. Part of me is glad that he’s unconscious, so he’s not in pain, and at the same time, I wish he’d wake up so I could be certain that he’ll be alright. I wonder if this is what he did with me, cleaning me up after what happened with Matvei, sitting next to me while I was unconscious.
“I’m glad I can take care of you, too,” I say softly as I clean up the rest of him. The doctor removed his shirt, leaving him in just his jeans, and I have to force myself not to linger over the ridged surface of his abdomen and the smooth, muscled expanse of his chest, my fingers aching to trace patterns over his skin. All I can think is that he almost died, and I wonder if this is what he felt when he saw me in the room at Matvei’s. I can forgive him for how angry he was with me earlier, if this is how he felt.
“Just wake up,” I whisper as I set the washcloth aside, looking down at him. “And then—”
Then, what?I crawl into bed next to him, careful to keep enough space between us so that I won’t hurt him. What could possibly come of this? I can’t deny that I have feelings for him, and I know how he feels about me. It’s been evident for a while now. But what does any of that matter?
Finn lives a dangerous life. I know all too well what that kind of life can take from us both. I see the evidence of it right in front of me, right now. I can’t lose someone I love again.
The only choice that I can see is, once Finn is well enough, to leave Chicago like I planned. To leave all of this—including him—behind.
No matter how much it hurts, losing him would hurt so much more.
—
The doctor wasn’t exaggerating when he said forty-eight hours. For the next two, almost three days, Finn is in and out of consciousness, half awake just long enough for me to get water, pain medication, and a little broth down him before he passes out again. There’s no fever, and when I call the doctor, he says the flickering in and out of consciousness is expected, so long as he doesn’t stay out entirely for too long. I don’t know how to be certain if Finn has a concussion or not, but I describe his pupils to the doctor, and he seems to think Finn is alright.
I’m not so sure. In the moments where I do manage to grab small fragments of sleep, I dream about Jamie, about the horror that I saw, about the nights alone when he was gone—then it all shifts to Finn, to seeing him crumpled on the sidewalk, and I wake gasping and shaking, switching on the light to make sure that Finn is still breathing.
And I’m not the only one clearly haunted by some kind of memories. In his momentary fits of half-lucidity, Finn calls out for me sometimes—sometimes by Asha, sometimes by Felicity—but he calls for someone else, too, someone named Caroline. He mumbles the name, the letters blurring together, but when he’s not reaching for me, he’s reaching for her.
It hurts more than it should, hearing him call out for another woman. But what have I ever given him to make him want to call out for only me? All I’ve done is tease and taunt and then withhold what he really wanted from me, because I’m too afraid to get that close to someone again. Even now, I’m terrified of what Finn makes me feel, and I tell myself over and over again that I won’t let this go too far. I won’t let myself fall in love with him completely. I’ll take care of him, and then I’ll leave.
Sometimes, I can tell that what he’s dreaming about is more erotic than sweet. I managed to help him change clothes once security brought clothes and toiletries to the cabin for us both, getting him into pajama pants and leaving him shirtless so his wounds don’t chafe—I catch more than one glimpse of his restless dreams arousing him, his cock stiff beneath the blanket as he restlessly moves in his sleep.
During those dreams, he always calls out for me. I don’t know how that makes me feel. I’ve wanted him since the very beginning—but that’s not a possibility for us. I know what would happen if we went that far. I know there would be no going back for either of us.
