It was the rush of blood to his face that made him suddenly realize that he was angry. It had been so long since he’d let himself feel like that, or screamed, or cursed, or broke things, or released all that pent-up energy inside of him. It was a thought that made him close his eyes and will the flames back into submission. Flames unchecked—like tempers, like pride—rose and consumed, driven only by selfish destruction. Tamed fire was much more productive.
Patience, he reminded himself. It wasn’t a virtue he’d had to practice lately. His flock of injured souls didn’t know what they were doing, and it was easy to forgive them. Years had passed since he’d spoken to someone who could talk back to him, could curse at him, could shout at him. When he opened his eyes, he could see the girl for what she was: alone and scared, just like Penny had been.
“Not insane,” he said quietly. “Just . . . ” If he listened too closely, he could almost hear Penny’s screams still ringing in the dark coils of his inner ear, could almost feel the sting of her fingernails against his arms, his face, and the warmth of her spit in his eye. It made him shiver before he could stop himself.
He looked up into Luke’s bruised and bloodied face, the one empty eye socket that oozed milky puss, the broken teeth in his blackened gums, the spidery blue veins webbing his sagging jaw. “How can I not pity them? They’re misery incarnate.”
The muzzle of the shotgun clicked as it dipped down to the pavement. The girl squinted behind her, at the fringe of trees and the orange haze of the sunset tinting the fog around them. She wobbled on her good leg, and the toes of her injured foot pushed against the ground to stabilize her. She gritted her teeth and sucked a sharp breath through them. She glanced back at him with a softened frown and cleared her throat.
“Look, this is how this is going to work,” she said. “I need that first aid kit. And a place to stay for the night. I’ve got my own food, if you don’t want to share. I get that, so don’t worry about it. I’ve got a little ammo I could give you in exchange, or . . . ” The frown shifted to a hard, motionless expression that seemed to draw her eyes further back into her skull. “Or maybe we can work out something else.”
“I don’t want anything from you,” Shepherd said. “I don’t need anything.”
The girl hoisted the shotgun up so that its muzzle pointed toward the darkening sky, resting against her shoulder. “Sure, you don’t. Just name it. I’m not a prude, so you don’t have to be embarrassed.”
Shepherd looked at the scrawny girl and felt a pang in his chest. She’d been alone for a long time. Alone and very conscious of it. Was Penny like this now? Hardened? Ruthless? Did she know how to pull herself back like that, to disconnect, to escape when there was no one to protect her?
“I don’t want anything from you,” Shepherd said. “Your company is enough. I haven’t spoken to anyone in years. It’s just nice to hear a voice that isn’t my own, and . . . ” He wasn’t sure if he should say anything, but the girl’s doubts shaded her face, and the pang in his chest made him bold. “You remind me of my daughter. That’s all. You can keep your gun and your belongings. I won’t hurt you or trick you. I can swear that in the Lord’s name, if you want. I take my oaths seriously.”
The girl watched him beneath her drooping eyelids, but after a moment, her gaze fell to the ground and she nodded. “Fine. But I’m only staying for one night.”
Sometime in the slow, hobbling trip back to the tower, the fog dissipated, and the evening’s long, wet shadows stretched like steel bars across the asphalt. The girl refused Shepherd’s help as she limped along, despite the sweat pearling on her brow and the lancing wince that crossed her face every time she put too much weight on the injured foot. But despite that streak of stubbornness, she seemed to trust him, at least to a degree. She made no protest other than a hunched-shoulder glance at Bart and Mary as he lead her past them and into the tower. She didn’t ask about the floors they bypassed, moving up to the second highest, and even allowed him to carry her up the final flight of stairs and into the furnished living room.
Her arm over his shoulder felt like a broken wing—thin and fragile beneath the thick bulk of the jacket she wore. She was light, too, and for a moment he allowed his imagination to think she might be an angel sent to give him some kind of message.
He lowered her on the sofa bed he slept on, and sat down beside her. A sigh whistled through her teeth as she gingerly slid her sneaker off, revealing the heel to ankle gash glistening with dark, oozing blood.
“I was following the river,” she said as she settled back and moved her foot onto his lap for closer inspection. “There was a . . . a metal bracket or something. I don’t know. It was hidden in the tall grass.”
She twitched when he put his finger near the inflamed laceration. The pale skin was red and swollen; grains of dirt lined the tender edges. Yellow bruising spread out and up the leg.
“How long have you been walking on this?” Shepherd asked.
“Two, maybe three days, I think.” The girl’s face had gone ashen and she swallowed hard. “Do you . . . do you have some water or something? I think I’m going to throw up.”
She lay quietly, eyes closed, as Shepherd brought her a cup of water and then retrieved his first aid kit. He put on his reading glasses, the kit’s rubber gloves, and carefully lifted her foot back onto his lap.
“I’m going to have to clean this,” he said. “It may hurt.”
The girl grimaced and shrugged. “I can handle it.”
He used the antiseptic wipes to clean out the dirt and gathering puss. The girl’s teeth clicked from time to time as she clenched them, but she said nothing—not a curse, not a whine, not a whimper. But when he tossed the first wipe away, he saw that her cheeks were wet.
His heart ached, watching her fluttering, moist eyelashes, her averted gaze. His own foot tingled along the ankle, and his stomach turned. In the semi-light of the room, and with her hair brushed back, her face struck him with its similarity to Penny’s. In another life, at another time, she could have been mistaken for a daughter of his. Maybe she and Penny might even have been friends, confused for sisters—or twins—while shopping at the mall or volunteering at the hospital. The angle of her nose was like his; her eyes, slightly wide set and pale, could have been Anne’s.
Anne. Shepherd looked down at the blood smeared on the rubber gloves, and the room suddenly spun. The last time he’d had blood that red, that fresh, on his hands . . . His throat tightened. Little trickles of blood dripped down his palms and onto his pants. The antiseptic on the second wipe was wet, and its liquid blurred the red streaks on his fingers, turning them a softer, fading pink.
He tried to be gentle as he continued, but judging from her occasional twitches and hisses of air, he knew he didn’t always succeed. When had he last been near someone who could feel anything, could wince, could ache, or sting, or whisper curses under her breath? The skin he worked on blushed deeper with the irritation. His hands trembled. The silence between them, pierced only by her involuntary reactions to his touch against the wound, crept under his skin and festered into a film of nervous energy.
“Where are you from, originally?” he asked, noting the crack in his voice when he spoke. “Around here?”
The fabric of the sofa hissed as she shook her head against it and sighed. “I can’t really talk right now,” she whispered. “I’m barely holding it in as it is.”