Page 24 of Alchemy of Secrets

Holland’s heart started racing again. Or maybe it had never stopped.

She bolted out of the bathroom and skidded to a halt.

Gabe was still there, sitting on the steps. He’d moved the package behind him, while he sat in front of it, one hand clutching his wound, the other his gun.

Holland took a ragged breath.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked. His mouth screwed into a frown as he looked at her. “Did you think I was going to leave with this?” He nodded toward the package.

She wanted to tell him no, but there had been so many other lies tonight, she didn’t want to tell even a tiny one. “I thought about it.”

“You still don’t trust me?”

“I don’t know,” Holland said honestly. Earlier in the night, it would have been an easy no .

It still felt like it should have been—given what she’d learned about Jake and Adam, it seemed wise not to trust anyone, particularly any man she found attractive, until he went through a rigorous lie detector test or confessed all his sins under the influence of a truth serum.

But Gabe had taken a bullet, he’d protected the package, he hadn’t left her.

And she didn’t want him to leave.

She wasn’t sure if that was trust, but it was something. It was enough to make her feel just a little nervous as she stepped toward him.

Gabe moved to the right, closer to the railing, so that she could sit beside him on the stairs. He was still wearing his cobalt-blue suit coat, and from the way it fit him, it was clearly expensive. It felt that way, too, fabric smooth under her fingertips as she reached up to help him take it off.

“You shouldn’t,” he said.

Her fingers froze. “I shouldn’t what?”

“You shouldn’t trust me. I’m not a good person.”

“Have I given you the impression that I think you’re good?

” Holland tried to say it like someone who still wanted to stab him, but then she made the mistake of looking at him.

Really looking at him. This might have been the first time she’d done so under the light, and she was right, Gabe’s eyes were dark, and he had a scar on his right cheek, just below his eye.

It was exactly like the one Holland had pictured in the car.

She told herself it wasn’t a stretch to imagine that a man like Gabe might have a scar on his face.

But there was something about the scar that made her feel as if she’d seen it before, not just imagined it.

For a second, she had a flash of his face, leaning close, eyes pained and red as they looked into hers.

Then she saw his actual eyes narrowing, as he caught her staring.

Holland quickly looked away and focused on helping him with the jacket. The shirt underneath looked as if it had once been pure white, but now it was covered in blood. So much blood. One of his broad hands was over the wound, and she had no idea what would happen when he moved it.

“What do we do next? Or what do I do now?” she asked.

She hated to admit it, but she was starting to feel a little faint just looking at the blood.

“Do I take off your shirt and then have you move your hand from the wound? Or should you move your hand and then we take off your shirt? Is there an order to this?”

Gabe looked at her darkly. She felt as if he’d expected a little more, like maybe he’d expected her to be January, who wouldn’t have been flustered by blood, or by Gabe as he peeled her hand away. “I’ll take care of my shirt. You work on getting a needle and thread.”

Holland’s fingers shook as she opened the kit. Everything inside was neatly and disturbingly labeled with things like When you don’t want to go to the hospital and In case of poisoning .

And suddenly Holland felt certain that her sister had known something like this would happen. She grabbed the When you don’t want to go to the hospital pouch and quickly tore it open.

There were more pouches inside, with gloves, cloths for antiseptic cleaning and surgical numbing, terrifying little pliers, and scissors and needles and thread that made her think of fishing wire. Only she knew it wasn’t fishing wire. It was stitching wire.

She needed to distract herself. “I’m guessing my sister doesn’t really collect rare books?”

“That’s a question you need to ask her, not me.”

“Can you give me a hint? Is she an assassin? Are you two in a kidnapping league?”

“We don’t work together.” Gabe said this as if it was important.

“But you told me—” Holland actually couldn’t remember what he’d told her in the car, either because of the trauma from the ride or because of the blood before her now. All she could recall was that Gabe and January hadn’t dated.

“I work freelance. I’m good at acquiring difficult-to-find things. Now,” Gabe said sharply, clearly wanting to put an end to any future questions, “grab one of those antiseptic cloths to clean the wound.”

Holland did as instructed.

Gabe lifted his hand from the wound and there was so much blood and flesh and—

She had to close her eyes. She wasn’t January. She couldn’t do this. She wanted to do it, but her eyes wouldn’t open.

“Hey,” Gabe said. “Sweetheart, look at me.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Don’t look at my wound,” he said, surprisingly gentle. “Look at me .”

She heard Gabe set down the gun, and then she felt his hand on hers. “You can relax.” His hand felt warm as he guided her fingers toward the wound. “It’s not my time to die.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes. I do.” His voice became even softer. “I know it, the same way you know the time you’re going to die.”

Holland’s eyes cracked open. “You talked to the Watch Man?”

Gabe guided her hand to set down the antiseptic cloth. “It’s not my time tonight.”

Holland flashed back to the way he’d driven the car, as if accidents were things that happened to other people. “That’s why you were driving like a maniac earlier.”

“No, that’s just how I drive,” he replied. And she swore she saw the edge of his mouth inch up. He patiently instructed Holland to put on gloves, then use the wipe to numb the flesh around his gaping wound.

She still didn’t want to look at where the bullet had ripped through him, but after what Gabe had just told her about the Watch Man, she didn’t feel quite so nervous.

Now she was just terribly curious. She wanted to ask what his time was, but that felt like too intimate a question.

Then again, Gabe was sitting in her house, shirtless, as she carefully stitched up his bare skin.

“What time did he give you?” she blurted.

“All that matters is, it’s not tonight.”

Holland sewed another stitch. She thought the wound looked better already. Some of the color had returned to Gabe’s face. But there was now something tragic in his eyes. “Did the Watch Man tell you something you can do to get more time?” she asked.

“Why? You worried about me?” He said it as if he possibly possessed a sense of humor. But the corners of his mouth moved down, as if being concerned for him was a very bad idea.

“I’m just curious, since right now I feel like my whole life depends on doing what the Watch Man told me.”

“You want to know if there’s another way to get more time?”

“Is there?”

“Not that I know of. But—” Gabe drew out the word slowly, as if debating whether he should say what he was thinking. “Your situation might not be entirely hopeless.” He looked over his shoulder, at the brown paper package from the Professor.

Holland probably should have opened it as soon as Gabe was stable. She definitely should have been rushing to open it now. But for a second all she could do was stare.

“What are you waiting for?” he asked.