Page 37 of Protecting His Finch

Meanwhile, I’m having the opposite reaction. I’m in a T-shirt, but I can feel sweat starting to bead at my brow and on the back of my neck.

I’m doing my best to grit my teeth through the fever swoop of discomfort, but Finley must see it on my face because she asks quietly, “Are you okay?”

“Fine.” I smile with my teeth. I don’t want to interrupt her game.

“What time is it?” Tasha asks, and Sid pulls out his phone, hands it to her. She nods and then says, “It’s been long enough—you can take another painkiller. I left them by the bed.”

I shake my head. “I’ll be alright.”

The pain is a lot, but painkillers make me hazy. As much as I’d like to sleep to take the edge off, I don’t want to be unconscious, not if Jacobi or another one of Rossi’s henchmen comes barreling through that door.

Finley hugs the blanket. “I hate to be a party pooper, but I am getting tired—should we call it?”

Tasha and Sid say good night before heading to their room—the master upstairs. Finely and I are in the two flanking guest rooms. Tasha leaves me with antibiotics (I do take those) and some fresh gauze to pack the wound and insists that I holler if I need anything.

I retire to my room and close myself in the bathroom. I haven’t had a chance to really inspect my wound just yet, so I decide to do that now. I chuck my shirt and peel off the bandage wrapped across my chest. The gauze is crusted brown underneath, and threads of cotton cling to my damage. When it’s finally all off, I ball up the mess and toss it in their small trash bin.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been shot. Once, in Iraq, I took some heat during a shootout in the mountains. I’d nearly been in the clear, too—my team and I had leveled the area. It’d been an unmatched fight, a dozen or so ISIS fighters against my small squad of five. But it’d been me, Jacobi (then Captain) and three other elite fighters, and we’d picked them off one by one. Help arrived in the form of a helicopter, but by then the place had been picked clean. I’d been climbing into the helicopter when I felt it rip through my leg—a metal bee buzzing through air and then burrowing into flesh and muscle.

The squad had pulled me into the helicopter, and someone took care of the last fireman, but I was too busy gripping my thigh and gritting through the pain to pay much attention to it. Jacobi put his hands around the wound and put pressure on it, which made my lungs seize with the pain of it. “Lucky bastard,” he’d said, and I hadn’t known then what he’d meant, because I’d felt the fucking opposite of lucky.

But he was right. I was a lucky bastard. Turns out the bullet was centimeters away from my femoral artery. Just a hair to the left and I might’ve bled out before we even made it back to base. Instead, I got to hobble around on crutches for a couple of weeks.

And now, staring at myself in the mirror, it hits me—I’ve gotten lucky again. The hole itself is small, smaller than a dime, a black spot in my chest. It’s damn close to my heart.

So many near misses. It’s nearly like someone wants me alive. And for what?

For Finley. That’s the only good reason I can think of. So I can keep her alive through all of this.

I shed the rest of my clothes, flip on the shower, and hop in. It’s a claw-foot tub, porcelain sides, and I try not to linger, but I do lather up generously and wash off the wound. It stings to touch, but I feel better having rinsed the crust and fever sweat off.

I kill the shower, get out, and dry off. I’m only out a minute before I hear a small knock on the door.

“Can I come in?” That’s Finley’s voice, soft and sweet.

I’ve got my foot hiked up on the toilet, toweling off my leg, and I reset, wrapping the towel around my hips. “Go ahead.”

Even with permission, she only cracks the door open, peeking her head in. Her eyes sweep me before coming back to my face. “I thought you might need a hand. With the whole…chest-hole thing.”

“Thank you.”

She steps in fully now, closing the door behind her. “I’m not a doctor, so…tell me where you need me.”

I hand over the gauze. “I just need you to wrap this around me.”

“Like…on the wound?” When she says it, her cheeks get pink, and I can see her staring into the hole in my chest.

I remember her thing about germs, and I realize that touching my open wound might be pushing it, so I say, “It’s fine, actually. I can maneuver—”

“No!” she says quickly. “I want to.” Then she washes her hands, vigorously, with soap, before drying them clean. When she takes the gauze now, she unravels it with purpose, her lips a thin line of determination. “Hold still.”

I do. Her hands are steady as she works, and I lift my arms slightly so she can wrap me up like a mummy.

“Does it hurt?” she asks.

“Only when I breathe.”

She pity laughs. I appreciate her for it.

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