Page 13 of Tater
Eagle lingered for a second, like he might say something else.
“What?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Just wanted to see you with my own eyes before I left. Makes it easier to tell the others you’re not dead.”
“How touching,” she said.
“Don’t get used to it,” he said. Then, he was more serious, “You know they’re gonna blame you.”
“The Hades Hellhounds?” she asked. “Or our boys?”
“Both,” he said. “Different ways.”
“I can take it.”
“I know you can,” he said. “That’s what scares me.”
Before she could unpack that, he stepped out and closed the door behind him.
The med room felt bigger and smaller at the same time without them in it. The hum of the light grew loud again. Somewhere down the hall, a bike revved, brothers shouting over each other. The scent of coffee drifted in, mingling with alcohol wipes and old sweat.
She turned her head, slowly, carefully, to look at her side.
The bandage was tight. She lifted the edge with her fingertips, just enough to see.
The wound was ugly — angry red with darker crusted edges where the bullet had kissed through. But in the center, faint threads of gold light ran like veins, spreading out, shallow but real, knitting bone and muscle in patterns no doctor’d recognize.
“You’re gonna leave a mark, huh,” she whispered.
“Many,”the dragon said.
“Good,” she said. “Then I don’t forget.”
Ren let the bandage fall back. The dragon’s warmth spread wider, curling through her chest, her ribs, and her leg.
“Why’d you keep me alive?” she asked it, not for the first time.
“You’re mine,”it said simply. “AndI’m his.”
The thought jolted Ren.
“You like him,” she murmured. “That’s new.”
“He keeps you breathing,”it said.“He doesn’t run from fire. He doesn’t try to cut me out. And he is not afraid to bleed.”
She thought of Tater in that clearing, boots sliding in mud, eyes wide when he saw the bodies. His hands on her face. The way his voice had cracked when he said her name.
“Yeah,” she said. “He’s something.”
The dragon settled, its presence heavy and content for once.
Ren’s eyes drifted shut again.
This time, the sleep that came was thick but not empty. It was threaded with memories — flashes of older fights, older scars.
Different med room, different night. A bottle to the face in a bar two towns she’d put three guys down and the fourth had caught her off-guard with glass. Woke up on the same cot, lip stitched, eye purple, shoulder wrapped.
Tater had been there then too, leaning in that same damn chair, boots propped on the edge of the bed.
