Page 20 of Scythe & Sparrow
Rose lets go of my wrist only to whack me on the arm and then lean back, her smile slowly fading. It takes me a moment to realize mine has evaporated too. The ease of her touch makes it hard to hold on to words I shouldn’t say. It’s a struggle to quell the sudden urge to tell her how beautifully her skin glows in this light, or how funny and unique she is, or how grateful I am for the warmth of her touch, her presence. Just like I try not to think about how she’s naked under this plush robe. The hand she rests on her lap is the only thing keeping it from falling completely open.
“Maybe you’ve got a little vicious streak hidden away in you, Dr. Kane,” Rose says, and my thoughts of her body give way to images of Matthew Cranwell’s barn. I can still feel the weight of the wrench in my hand, the burn of rage in my veins. I don’t know if it’s something about my expression that changes, or if she just senses the shift in the air, but Rose grabs my hand. She opens my palm and lays a damp sponge there. “But you’ve got a kind streak too. And I like them both. Equally.”
Rose’s smile is soft, her eyes warm. I try my best to smile back. To focus on the simple actions of care and healing. I clean her wound with a gentle hand, each press of the sponge against the incision a ritual. I seek comfort in giving it. The man I chose to be when I entered medical school? That’s still the man I am.
But she’s right. Maybe I do have a vicious streak. And I need to remember that. Because it doesn’t seem so disconnected from the rest of me anymore.
TA-DA
Rose
“How does it feel?” Fionn asks as I swing next to him through the sliding hospital doors, my brand-new fiberglass cast wrapped with black tape. It encases my entire lower leg, all the way from my knee to the ball of my foot, replacing the temporary brace now that my stitches are out.
“It’s okay. A little weird, but I’ll get used to it.” Fionn smiles and I try to do the same in reply, but I’m still feeling a little too queasy to put in much effort. I made the mistake of watching as he clipped and tugged the first two sutures free of my flesh. I had to look away as he took the rest of them out.
But I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. The stitches probably just brought back the memory of all that pain and adrenaline. Fuck, that was gross. I remember sitting on the floor of his clinic, cutting the bottom of my pant leg so I could get a better look at the injury. The last thing I recall before waking up in the ambulance is the splintered bone that jutted from the split skin. And that’s it asidefrom a hazy moment of seeing his face haloed by a bright light, an image that might be nothing more than a dream.
“You sure you’ll be okay for a couple of hours while I finish up here?”
“Yeah,” I reply, squinting down the road in the direction of downtown Weyburn. “I feel like I’ve hobbled around most of Hartford now. It would be good to explore someplace new.”
Fionn watches me, a crease notched between his brows as his eyes scour my face. Sometimes, I feel like there’s a heat in his gaze that lingers in my skin. And then with a blink, it always disappears, as though he’s shuttered it away, keeping that little flame hidden in the dark. “Be careful?” he says, as though it’s a question he’s not sure he should ask. Though he tries to keep his tone clinical and detached, I still sense a thread of worry woven in the notes.
“Definitely. It might do me some good to move around,” I reply.
“Any trouble whatsoever, call me.”
“Yeah, of course. I’ll be fine.”
With a flash of a smile that seems to do little to reassure him, I swing my way across the parking lot of MacLean Memorial Hospital toward the empty sidewalk that will lead me to the shops. I glance back toward the entrance before turning the corner. I don’t expect Fionn to be standing there, his arms crossed over his white coat. But he is. And I don’t expect my heart to turn over when he raises a hand to wave at me. But it does.
I give him a nod, and then I keep going.
By the fifth block, I start to regret my life choices.
I’ve gotten pretty good at maneuvering around with my crutches. The wholetick-swing-steprhythm is almost musical. But there’sonly so much crutch-music a girl wants to make before it becomes crutch-torture. My armpits are starting to chafe. The bistro a few blocks in the distance might as well be miles away. I need to rest for a minute, preferably somewhere with air-conditioning and maybe an iced latte.
I squint at the sandwich board of a store on the next block.SHIRETON HUNTING AND FISHING SUPPLY.
That’ll do.
I hobble my way to the small brick building, the first in the businesses that stretch along both sides of the tree-lined Main Street. When I pull the door open, the scent of leather and rubber and synthetic pine greets me. There are high-visibility orange vests. There’s camo print in every format of green and beige blobs. Fishing rods. Hooks and bait and fake fish and plastic worms. And knives. Short. Long. Serrated. Smooth. Matte, powder-coated in black. Shining silver, polished to a mirror finish.
The shop owner is a grizzled-looking old man with buzzed white hair and trenches of wrinkles that cut patterns through his skin. He looks up from his fishing magazine and gives me a nod as he flicks a glance down to my cast. I’ve become used to the repetitive questions and I have a practiced response ready to slide off my tongue. But he doesn’t ask. He just gives me a curt but not unkind “Good morning,” dips his fingers into a tin of snuff, and slides a pinch of the mahogany tobacco between his lip and lower teeth before he returns to his magazine.
I hobble down one of the long aisles and lose myself in the cool air and the rows of glass cases, taking my time to appreciate the finer details of every blade.
“… didn’t I tell you that? I thought I fucking told you that,”a man snarls at the end of one of the aisles, his body hidden by a rack of waders and waterproof jackets. “You are so fucking stupid.”
I glance toward the front desk, but I don’t think the shop owner heard, or if he did, he doesn’t let on. The man on the phone snaps out a few more disparaging comments as I creep down the aisle next to his. When he temporarily halts his tirade, I hear a woman’s muffled voice on the other end of the line, though I can’t make out what she says. Only the tone. Placating. Pinched with fear.
“I don’t fucking care, Naomi.”
My spine goes rigid. I’m standing in front of a stack of waders hanging from an aisle rack, but I’m not really looking at them. Instead, I’m picturing the nurse, Naomi, and the way her smile never reached her eyes when I pulled her cards at the hospital. I’m seeing the dullness of the light in them, like they were too haunted to shine. I’m hearing her voice, the thinnest thread of hope in her words when I asked what the Ace of Cups meant to her.To take flight.I know exactly who this man is. What he’s done. And where he needs to go.
A burst of wicked glee explodes through my cells. I glance down at my cast. Maybe my bad luck wasn’t so bad after all.
“It’s your problem,” the man continues, snapping me back into the moment. “And if you’re not careful, I can make it evenmoreof your problem. Unless you suddenly don’t care if those photos of you make their way around town …?” There’s a quiet plea from the other end of the line. “I told you already that I’m going out tonight, and I swear to fucking God, if you aren’t there when I get back, I’m going to—”
