Page 84 of Pretty Broken Things

She flinches away from me, and curls back up into a ball with her knees to her chest.

Jen rushes in the room followed by Shane.

“You scared me. I thought someone was dying,” Jen sighs.

I try to reach for her arm again, but she scrambles away from me. She’s never done that before. Not even over the last year when most of our interactions was hate fucking.

Jen puts her hand on my arm. “Ford, you need to move back.”

She crouches in front of Tessa. “Tess,” Jen says cautiously. “Are you okay if I touch you?”

Tessa is here, but only physically. It’s like she’s retreated somewhere deep inside herself.

Jen reaches out slowly, and when Tessa doesn’t recoil from her she takes her wrist in her hand. Every move Jen makes is slow, and she watches Tess for her reaction. Jen pushes back Tessa’s sleeve, and there’s no blood.

“Oh, Tessa,” Jen says, almost in tears.

Tessa seems to wake up, and she pulls her sleeve down. I can’t see what Jen saw where I’m standing, but judging by Jen’s reaction, it’s not good.

“The other one,” I demand.

Tessa glares at me, and that’s the most show of emotion I’ve gotten from her since Sin brought her to the house. This is too important to leave it alone.

“Now, Tessa,” I order her.

“Please,” Jen adds much more sweetly.

Tess nods, holds out her arm, and turns her face away from us. I move as close as Jen will let me. Very carefully, Jen lifts her sleeve away from her skin. The blood has soaked through her black t-shirt and made the fabric stick to her skin. Once it’s out of the way, there’s a fresh slice next to several faded ones.

“Is that rope burn?” I ask Jen.

Tears are spilling from her baby blue eyes, and she nods once.

She clears her throat and falls back on her training. Luckily, Jen is in school to become a nurse. “Shane, go grab the first aid kit.”

He rushes back with a red bag Jen has stocked full of things I thought we’d never use. Pulling things out of the bag, she grabs a bag of saline. She flushes the wound and frowns. “I think this needs stitches.”

Tessa shakes her head vehemently. “It’ll be fine.”

“I’ll bandage it for now, but if it doesn’t stop bleeding in an hour I’m going to have to stitch it up,” Jen says in a tone that prevents arguing.

“No hospitals?” Tessa asks.

Personally, I’d like to check her in to get help for her mental health not just the slice on her wrist.

Jen and I aren’t on the same wavelength apparently when she promises, “No hospitals. I’ve got everything I need right here.”

“Just do it then. As long as I don’t have to go to the hospital again,” Tessa mumbles.

“When were you in the hospital?” I ask her.

Her eyes widen. She clearly didn’t mean to divulge that to us. She doesn’t answer though.

“Can I have my phone?” Tessa asks Shane. She’s shutting me out, but it’s nothing I haven’t done to her.

Shane hesitates in answering. No one wants to get on Sin or Lucien’s bad side. Hell, their good side isn’t all warm and fuzzy either. Since it’s more than clear they expect me to watch her, I decide to give her a little bit of freedom.

“Let her have it,” I tell him. Turning to Tessa I say, “Put it on speaker and leave the door open. I’ll get a monitoring app downloaded later.”

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