Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
“Stop.” I put up a hand as I shake my head. “I don’t want to hear anymore.”
“Sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize. It just pisses me off when I think about how they made you fight like that.”
“Cort?”
“Not Cort. Them, Irina. Them.”
It’s dumb. But it’s what everyone says, isn’t it? Them. We don’t know who ‘them’ is, we’re just very, very fuckin’ sure there is a ‘them.’ Because there has to be someone to blame for all this fuckin’ evil. There has to be.
“It’s gonna need stitches. But let me clean up the kitchen first. Just sit tight.”
She watches me as I get out a broom and dust bin to sweep up the glass. “Why do you keep maraschino cherries in your fridge?”
I stop sweeping to look at her. “Why did you want to eat them in the middle of the night?”
“I asked my question first.”
Do I answer her? Or blow her off? It’s a stupid thing to worry about in the grand scheme of things. So I sigh. “I like them. I’m not really into sweets, but the cherries remind me of home. Of my mother, specifically. Because before all this child trafficking shit became a family tradition, I think my parents actually loved me. I felt loved, at least. We always had a jar of cherries in the fridge when I was a kid because my father liked to have an ice cream sundae after dinner. Wow.” I pause and shake my head. “That feels like another reality ago.”
Irina is staring at me, still holding the dishtowel tight around her foot, that one knee pulled up to her chest. She softens. “I don’t think I’ve ever had an ice cream sundae. I know what they are, and I’ve had ice cream, of course. But what a weird thing.”
“What’s so weird about it?”
“It just never occurred to me that mothers might make ice cream sundaes at home for dessert.” Then she laughs. “I didn’t even know what dessert was until I came to Miami. I’m sure there’s a word in Portuguese for it, and in Russian too, but I don’t know what they are.” She lets out a breath. “I come from another reality too, I guess.”
“Did you just suddenly have a craving for them in the middle of the night?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking about you and my head was kinda spinning, so I came down for a drink, but then I saw that jar and I had this burning need to taste one of those cherries. They look so fake.”
I smile and lean on the broom, concentrating on the first part of her confession and not the second. “My kiss distracted you, didn’t it?”
“All of them, yes. Three different kinds of kisses in one night.” She pauses here, her smile falling a little. “It was a little confusing.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.” But that’s not really true, is it? “Well, maybe it was. Wasn’t the whole point of kissing you last night so you’d have a point of reference?”
“Was that the point?” She’s looking at me with earnest eyes. So young. So innocent. Which such a contradiction because she’s never been a child and she’s killed nine people in death fights.
“I dunno. Was it?”
She doesn’t answer me, just looks down at her foot. The blood is seeping through the towel now, so I finish sweeping and get the vacuum to make double sure I got all the glass.
When I’m done with that, I pull out a hemostat and a suture packet from my little kit and position her on the counter so I have a good view of the bottom of her foot.
I peel the gauze away, eyeballing the cut. “It’s gonna be twenty or thirty stitches at least, Irina. It’s a slice, not just a cut.” In fact, it’s almost a perfect half-moon, starting at the highest point of her arch and coming up the side of her instep.
She’s been silent since that last comment I made, but when I pull the suture out of the sterile package with my hemostat she sucks in a breath. “I hate stitches.”
“Do ya wanna go to the hospital?” She looks at me like I’m crazy and I just laugh. “What?”
“You can’t stitch it yourself?”
“Of course I can. I’m just asking if you’d like a professional. It’s kinda serious.”
“Please.” She huffs. “This little cut is nothing. Just do it. I trust you.”
“Would you like a drink then? I’ve got vodka. I’ve heard Russian girls are into that.”
She’s smiling as she shakes her head. “No. Maybe some painkillers instead?”
“I don’t have anything good, Irina. Just ibuprofen.”
“I’ll have some. Four, please.”
“It’s not gonna help much.”
“It will later.”
I open a cupboard to my left and shake out a few pills from the bottle. She takes them from me and swallows them without water.
I take a small bottle of ninety-nine-percent alcohol out of my first-aid pouch and pour half of it over her wound. Then I take a breath and start stitching. She doesn’t make any noise, but her body is tense when I slide the curved needle under her skin and pull the suture tight, so I start talking to distract her. “Davis gave me this kit.” I nod to the black leather pouch sitting next to her on the counter. “Up until then, no one patched me up. The guy who dropped me off at the fights wasn’t even the same guy who picked me up. It was just random people. And none of them gave a single fuck about how bad I was bleeding when it was over. They just took me back to camp and left me there.”