Page 69 of Never Fall for an Angel

Take a walk in my shoes when Mila Carpenter’s around.

I carry her through the front door and straight to the kitchen table. She doesn’t look up when I sit her down in a chair, tug her coat off her arms, and cross the room to get the first aid kit from the bathroom.

All but a week here, and I’ve had to use the fucking thing on her twice.

“It’s just a scratch,” Mila mumbles when I return to the table.

It’s not, but I let her think that.

I grab a rag and wet it with cool water, crossing back to her at the table. I tug a chair up beside her and pull her between my legs, my knees on either side of hers.

I reach for her hand against her chest, but she refuses to give it to me.

“Let me see.”

“I don’t want to.”

I swear to fucking God.

“Mila. Let me see,” I try again, gentler this time, when I really just feel like breaking something.

She swallows past the lump in her throat and finally relents, slowly holding her hand out to me, dripping in blood. I take her delicate fingers in mine, turning her hand to the light and she shuts her eyes, looking away.

“You don’t like blood, now.”

It’s not a question.

“Blood is blood,” she replies cooly, a shiver moving through her. “It’s how it gets to the surface that bothers me.”

Something about that pisses me off.

“If we’re going to coexist together on this island, I need you to be honest with me,” I tell her, wiping the blood from her fingers.Her wrist isn’t bleeding anymore, but she will need stitches on at least one of the gashes.

She’s silent, staring at the table beside us instead of at her hand.

“I was . . . afraid you’d hurt him.”

Fuck.

She looks away, her cheeks red and swollen from the tears still fresh on her face, and I’ll admit, the sight of them makes me want to burn the world to the ground.

“I overreacted,” I murmur, pouring peroxide over the cut. She winces and bites her bottom lip. The words taste like battery acid on the back of my tongue. Admitting you fucked up always does. “I’m sorry.”

She pauses, her brow furrowing.

“Did you just apologize?”

Little brat.

I pull out the needle and thread from the kit, threading it through and aligning myself to place a couple stiches.

“This will hurt,” I tell her, and she finally meets my gaze with her pretty gray one.

“Okay,” she breathes.

I’ve given stitches to myself and others so many times I’ve lost count. The sight of blood has never bothered me. Especially not after seeing bullet wounds, people getting stabbed. Murders.

The sight of blood on Mila’s soft skin, though, is something else entirely.

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