Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 109903 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109903 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Wymack went so still Neil thought he'd turned to stone. "Neil, the fuck is on your face?"
Neil wrested his glove free and touched bare fingers to his skin. He didn't feel anything, so he caught at the sink and tried to get to his feet. Wymack let him try once on his own, then got up and hauled Neil upright. Neil wasn't ready to see his reflection again. He was less ready to see the "4" tattooed on his left cheekbone.
Wymack wasn't expecting his violent reaction. That was the only reason Neil succeeded in throwing him out of the bathroom. Neil dove past him and ran for the kitchen. By the time Wymack caught up with him he'd already pulled a knife from the wooden block on Wymack's counter. Wymack seized his wrist before Neil could take the knife to his own face. Neil fought like a caged beast, but Wymack slammed his hand down on the counter until Neil lost his grip. Neil scrambled for the knife, but Wymack dragged Neil to the floor with him. He got both arms around Neil and held on tight, and there was nothing Neil could do but exhaust himself trying to get free.
"Hey," Wymack said at his ear, sharp and insistent. "Hey. It's all right."
It'd never been all right. It'd come close in fleeting patches, in stolen moments with his teammates and in their last-second wins, but it'd always been overshadowed by this awful truth. Every time Neil blinked he remembered a little more of his Christmas vacation. Every time he moved he felt Riko's hands and blades and fire on his skin. He'd let Riko take him apart time and time again because it was the only way to survive, because bending should have kept him from breaking, but Neil didn't know if he could pull himself back together one more time. He wasn't strong enough for this. He never had been. His mother had held him up but she was gone now.
"Neil," Wymack said.
Neil, Wymack called him, even when he looked like this, even with his father's face and his father's eyes and the Moriyamas' number on his face. Neil, Wymack called him, and more than anything Neil wanted it to be true. He stopped fighting to get free; the hands that had been trying to wrench Wymack's arms off him now held on for dear life.
"Help me," he said through gritted teeth.
"Let me," Wymack shot back, so Neil closed his eyes. Wymack said nothing else until Neil's labored breathing finally smoothed out. "What the fuck happened? Last I heard you were spending Christmas with your uncle."
"I lied," Neil said. "Andrew's coming back to us on Tuesday, all right? If Easthaven hasn't called Betsy yet to arrange his ride they will soon."
"They called yesterday," Wymack said. "What does Andrew have to do with this?"
"Everything that matters," Neil said.
"That's not an answer."
"I'm sorry."
"Shut up," Wymack said, so Neil subsided. They sat in silence for a couple minutes more before Wymack said, "Can I let go of you and trust you to behave, or are you going to try and cut your face off again? I want to check on your stitches."
"I'll behave," Neil said.
"Forgive me if I don't trust you," Wymack said, but he let go.
They got back to their feet. Wymack meant it when he said he didn't trust Neil, because he took Neil back to the living room and out of eyesight of the knives. Wymack gestured at Neil to shed his shirt, but Neil couldn't move well enough to get it off. Wymack eyed him for a moment, then left to get his cooking scissors. He brandished them at Neil in a question, and Neil nodded. He held perfectly still while Wymack cut his shirt off of him.
Wymack didn't say anything about the scars. He didn't say anything about how many bandages Neil had wrapped around his chest and abdomen or how many bruises showed around the gauze. He just checked Neil over with a clinical eye and poked at every line of stitches for weaknesses. Neil stood silent and still and let him work. He'd ripped threads loose on his side, down near his waist, but that gash was almost healed anyway. Wymack pushed at Neil's skin to see if it would bleed and came back with clean fingers.
Wymack peeled off blood-crusted bandages and dropped them on the coffee table. He surveyed the damage, then left. Neil heard a drawer snick open and closed, and the faucet cut on for a couple seconds. Wymack came back with a wet wash cloth and a small first aid kit. Neil tried to take the cloth from him, but he couldn't close his fingers tight enough to hold onto it. Wymack pushed his hand out of the way and scrubbed dried blood from Neil's skin. It hurt, but Neil gritted his teeth and stayed silent.
It made him think of long nights on the road, of catching his breath in safe houses all around the world. For a moment Neil remembered how his mother's fingers felt on his skin. He remembered the bite of needles moving in and out as she threaded his broken body back together. The new heat crawling up his throat to prick at his eyes was grief. Neil blinked it away as hard as he could.
"One day we're going to talk about this," Wymack said in a low voice.
"After finals," Neil said without looking at him. "After we beat the Ravens. Then I'll tell you whatever you want to know. I'll even tell you the truth."
"I'll believe that when I see it."
Wymack carried the dirty bandages and washcloth out of the room. Neil sank onto the couch and looked at Wymack's bottle of scotch. Wymack's empty glass sat off to one side. It took no work to fill it and less to knock it back. The heat was familiar, as was the harsh aftertaste.
"I thought you didn't drink," Wymack said from the doorway.
"I don't," Neil said, "unless I have to. We used alcohol as anesthetics because we couldn't risk going to the hospital." The words burned his lips more than the whisky did. Neil put the glass down and let his fingers linger on the rim. He didn't let go until he was sure his hand wasn't trembling, and then he traced the ugliest of his scars with his index finger. "Too many questions. Too much lost time. It was safer to drink away the pain."