Page 8 of Heartbeats Amidst Chaos: Part 1

She was silent, her eyes searching his face for a long moment. Elio searched hers right back, noting the perfect slant of her nose and cheekbones. His eyes ended up at her mouth. He couldn’t help it. It was a mouth that begged to be kissed—thoroughly. He wondered who had done it last and felt another surge of jealousy.

I’m going to be her next kiss and her best,he abruptly determined, choosing not to worry about how exactly he would accomplish that feat.

His lascivious thoughts blanked when Rissa abruptly reached up, unpinned her name tag, and inserted the pin into one of his handcuffs, snapping it open as if she did it every day. He felt his mouth fall open as he immediately brought the hand over to his other, massaging his wrist.

Rissa held out the energy bar.

“Here,” she said. “I’m not going to feed it to you.”

Hesitantly, Elio took it. Rissa held up the water bottle and then nestled it into the bed next to him where he could reach it.

Her movements were still sharp and anxious. Something was up.

“Are you alright?” Elio asked as his stomach groaned for nourishment. “You seem upset.”

“I am,” Rissa admitted bluntly. Her eyes studied Elio, searching his face and scars and occasionally dropping to his bare chest above the thin hospital blanket. He relished her glance, almost feeling it like the gentle brush of fingers over his skin. He took a bite of the energy bar, waiting patiently for her to go on. Instead, Rissa turned the question on him.

“Aren’t you?” she asked. “You’re the one who was left entirely without care for eight hours while I. . . It wasn’t my intention,” she said after a slight pause. “The nurses I asked to check in on you just didn’t do it.”

Elio shrugged, popping open the water and taking a long swallow. He glanced at the door, wondering how long the cop would be gone and if Rissa would get into trouble if he was still unhandcuffed when he returned.

Could I get her to unlock the other one?With both hands free. . .His thoughts trailed off.What? Was he going to just make a run for it straight through the hospital?

I can figure out the route to the garage entrance,he thought.If I could make it to a vehicle before anyone came after me, I might be able to make a clean getaway.

He looked at Rissa, gauging how open she would be to a request to free his other hand, how generous she was willing to be, and realized she was waiting for his answer to her question and comment about her coworkers.

“I mean, can you really blame them?” he asked. “If Iwasthe bomber, I wouldn’t want to take care of me either.” He paused, frowning. “I mean, if I was a nurse and there was a bomber—you know what I mean.”

Rissa’s face inexplicably softened as he spoke. He looked at her, thinking about the fact that she had not once hesitated to take care of him—hers had been the first face he saw clearly after entering the hospital, and the only one he had seen marked with actual concern.

“Not everyone is as genuinely. . .goodas you seem to be,” he said. Rissa flushed and glanced down. Elio ate the rest of the energy bar in one bite, watching the play of color across her cheeks and wondering about her reaction. He decided the outwardly cool and judicial doctor really was as warm and soft as a shared bed—on the inside.

Maybe shewasthe key to getting him out of here. He felt almost guilty for thinking it, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

Sometimes, you have to break a few hearts to make a good showing, his grandfather often said.

The fact that he had mentally quoted his grandfather’s cold-blooded life motto made Elio feel ashamed, and he found himself backtracking as fast as his still-somewhat-foggy brain could manage. He couldn’t use the one person who had been decent to him against her will.

But if he didn’t, who was there to use?

He needed an excuse to get up off this damn bed and out of this fucking room.

“Hey,” he said. “Do you think they’re gonna let me have my phone call? I should probably let my lawyer know I’ve been accused of a mass bombing.” He tried to say it in a lighthearted way but not too dismissively. Rissa was sharp. There was no doubt about that. And she turned all her powers of discernment on him in that moment.

“You still maintain you didn’t actually do it?” she asked suddenly.

Elio sobered. “Yes,” he said.

She watched his eyes for the merest flicker of uncertainty, the telltale tics of a liar. Elio knew them as well as anyone, and he maintained eye contact, as hard as it was. Just a second before, he’d realized that she’d changed her top; it was a little smaller, embracing her modest breasts a bit more snugly, and the neckwas a little lower, showing a perfect triangle of lightly tanned skin that dipped away just where the material began.

Elio did not look at any of those things.

After a second, Rissa nodded.

“You’re entitled to a phone call,” she said, and her doctor’s voice was back—her “I’m-going-to-make-this-happen-or-else” voice. “And I think youshouldcontact your lawyer. You should refuse to speak to the detectives until he is with you.”

Noting that his first was gone, she handed him another energy bar, almost absentmindedly, giving her head another decisive nod that set her glossy ponytail swinging.

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