Chapter 11: Until I Say

The bullet had stopped under the skin, just beside his shoulder blade.

I could feel it with two fingers, a hard small knot.

"It's close," I said. "I can get it."

"Bianca's grandmother has a sewing kit. Use the tweezers and the whiskey."

"I know what to use."

I found a bottle of anisette in the cupboard and poured it over the scissors, the tweezers and my hands.

Then I rolled a dish towel and put it between his teeth.

"Look at the wall," I told him.

He looked at the wall.

I cut, and he made a low sound against the cloth, and I kept going.

The bullet came out into the tweezers, dark and bent, and I dropped it into a saucer.

My own breath came out as a sob.

"Done," I said. "I'm sorry. It's done."

He spat out the towel.

"Don't be sorry."

I threaded the needle with white thread and closed the cut in six small stitches, my face a few inches from his skin.

His shoulder was hot, and under my fingers I felt every muscle in his back go taut.

He was holding himself perfectly still.

I tied off the last stitch and didn't take my hand away.

I laid my palm flat against his bare back and felt his heart pounding through the bone.

"Lucia," he said, very low. "Your terms."

"I know my terms."

"You said not once."

"I said not until I say."

He turned on the table, slowly, with his good hand braced behind him, until he was facing me.

His chest was bare and streaked with blood and lamplight.

His eyes were dark, and he did not touch me.

"Say it, then," he said.

I stood between his knees, with the needle still in my hand.

Everything in me wanted to hit him again.

Everything in me wanted the rest.

"I'm so angry at you," I said.

"I know."

"You watched my hands shake on that wheel the whole way here."

"Yes."

"I want to hate you."

"Then hate me."

"I'm trying." I put the needle on the saucer. "I'm saying it. Touch me."

His good hand came up to my face.

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