Page 113 of Cruel Lies

"I’ll kill them," Nash muttered under his breath, his eyes never leaving the Surgeon’s skilled hands as he pressed the scalpel to the edge of Harper’s gunshot wound and widened it, prodding her as she screamed, looking for the bullet. "I’ll fuckingkillthose two twatbags who thought they could hurt our girl and get away with it." He broke free of Rowan’s grip and whirled on the spot, marching from the room as he muttered about the creative ways he’d cut Clyde up and feed him to Bonnie, one body part at a time.

"Go with him and make sure he doesn’t burn down half the city looking for them," Lilly ordered Rowan, and just like that, the three of us were alone in the kitchen, and Lilly was rolling up her sleeves, moving to Harper’s head as she put her hands on the other woman’s shoulders and held her in place for the next part.

Her eyes met mine overtop the girl who’d successfully twisted up my insides and morphed me from who I thought I was to someone I could barely recognize.

"Hold her down while the Surgeon goes fishing. This part sucks."

Sure enough, Harper seemed to come alive with a vengeance as the Surgeon stuck his hemostats in the open wound andgripped the bullet, yanking it from where it’d buried itself in her muscle and tissue.

Theclangof metal on metal as he dropped the bullet in the sink would stay with me for a long time.

"One down, one to go." Surgeon rolled her up off her back slightly, whistling low as he nodded to himself. "Maybe not. Looks like this one went clean through."

"Internal damage?" Lilly asked, her hands tightening on Harper’s shoulders.

Surgeon shook his head. "She was lucky. I have to stitch her up, but that’s the extent of it. They got her in the fleshy bits. She could do with a transfusion, though. Maybe a bag of blood?—"

"She’s O neg," I muttered almost absently, the memory like a fleeting figment of my imagination.

"I’ll make some calls," Lilly muttered, marching off to her office, leaving me alone with the Surgeon.

Who immediately turned to me and smiled in that friendly, sympathetic way guys do when they see a part of themselves in someone younger.

"You’ve got a hell of a woman here, Pretty Boy," he remarked, wiping the blood from Harper’s wounds on his shirt. "I don’t know how she managed to hold onto the back of a bike in her condition, but she’s lucky Jackal found her when he did. A second more, and she might’ve bled out."

"Can I take her upstairs?" I asked quietly, my fingers itching to touch her again.

All that time spent denying myself, fighting the instinct inside me that ached, begged, pleaded, screamed at me to set it free, the same one that I’d buried so deep I thought I’d never have to see it again, wasted in a heartbeat.

The Surgeon nodded, his smile softening. "She’s gotta get stitched up, but after that, I’ll help you make her comfortable, and then it’s a waiting game. I can hook up a bag of bloodwherever you want. I daresay Rowan can take it out when he gets back, but I can show you as well, how to remove the IV?—"

"Wouldn’t be my first rodeo," I mumbled, fingers twitching at my sides. "Probably not my last, either."

"Suit yourself," he snapped, his dismissive attitude grating on my nerves. "Can you stitch her up, too, or should I stick around and handle that part?"

"Sorry."

"I know you are. Just try not to forget that others are human, too. You can care for her and still be a decent human being, Angel."

I glanced up in shock. "I didn’t know anyone even knew my name here."

His shrug was dismissive. "I know a lot more than anyone knows about. Just don’t spread that knowledge around."

An hour later,Harper was in my bed, not a trace of blood left on her, several new bandages covering the stitches Surgeon had laced her up with. Her black hair splayed out on the pillows like a fan, a halo, framing her face as the bag of blood Detective Keehn brought over slowly dripped into her veins.

She’d be okay in a few days. The stitches could come out in a week or two, provided she stayed put and healed.

All of this was a relief to me, and yet . . .

A gnawing worry still tore at my insides.

I couldn’t leave her, no matter how badly I wanted to.

I wanted to run from these feelings, wanted to separate myself from her, wanted to forget the way I felt when I saw her covered in blood, when I saw the red on the pavement and knew it was hers. I wanted to cease feeling like my heart might burst if she opened her eyes and smiled at me.

I didn’t want to love Harper Daniels. But life rarely gave me what I wanted.

I could have had the Surgeon and Lilly dress her in one of Rowan’s oversized shirts, or maybe even one of Nash’s. Instead, I’d pulled a pajama set of my own out of the closet and offered it up, the buttons in the front making it easier to slip it over her unconscious body.

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