Page 96 of The Trust We Broke
“There is no version of you going to Harvard that is unambitious. Harvard Law is as ambitious as it gets.”
I shrug. “Not if you intend to help low-income folks or victims of injustice. Apparently, that makes me a pathetic waste of talent, according to my father.”
He lets his hands slide over my ass. “You know what I need?”
“What’s that?”
“Something to take my mind off shit. Help me out, Love Bug?”
I smile as my fingers slip beneath the hem of his T-shirt. “Love Bug?”
“Yeah, you got so much love inside you, you gotta share it around.”
“Done,” Greer says, snipping off the end of the thread. A sharp antiseptic tang lingers in the air. “It was a clean laceration, not too deep, but deep enough that glue or strips wouldn’t hold it well. So, you have five stitches in total, with a fine nylon suture. The scarring will be minimal. Come see me in five days, and I’ll take them out.”
“I feel like I deserve a sticker or something,” I say.
“I’ll give you something for being brave,” Grudge says.
Greer laughs as she steps away. “As long as it doesn’t involve water anywhere near her stitches for twenty-four hours, then you can do whatever you want. After that, you can gently clean it with a mild soap and water. But do yourself a favor: no scrubbing, no makeup, and definitely no picking. We’re trying to minimize scarring.”
“I don’t know. A few scars might help my clients take me a little more seriously.”
She rolls her eyes. “If it looks redder, more swollen, or gets hot, if you start to notice pus or any kind of drainage, come see me again right away. Come to the house if you want to. It’s a sign it’s infected.”
Grudge takes both my hands and helps me sit, and I admit, after lying down for a few minutes, I feel woozy sitting back up. The world spins a little.
“Let’s get you to my room so you can lie down again,” Grudge says.
I shake my head. “I’m fine. Just moved too fast. And I’d feel a whole lot better if you’d just get on that bed and get your head and hands looked at. I’m not going to argue with you about this.”
Grudge studies me for a second, and whatever he was thinking of saying is bitten down. He looks outside the ambulance and sees Butcher chatting to Wraith.
“Butch,” he shouts. “Do me a favor and take Luce to my room.”
Butcher strolls back to the ambulance. “C’mon, Lucy, let’s get you settled.”
The two men help me out of the ambulance. “I’m not so badly injured that I can’t get out of?—”
“Shut up, Lucy,” both men say at the same time.
I bite back a grin. “Fine.”
Grudge hands Butcher a key, and he takes it.
“What happened, from your perspective, Lucy?” Butcher asks as he takes my elbow and walks me inside.
I start when we first saw the truck pull in. Butcher doesn’t need to know what we were doing beforehand, but from the wry smile on his lips, I think he already knows. In replaying it for him, I get to process it a little more.
“They said one thing you might like to hear, though, Butcher.”
Butcher leads me down the corridor to a room near the end. “What’s that?”
“They said, ‘Guess Butcher didn’t make the wrong choice putting you in charge, did he?’”
Butcher grins and then opens the door before handing me the key. “I didn’t. I have every faith in him. Just…Lucy. If you’re not staying, for any reason, don’t do this dance with him again.”
“I’m staying, Butcher.”
