Page 5 of Buried Past (First in Line #3)

"Don't." The man's voice was raspy. "Please."

He didn't look at me with the flat, predatory stare I'd learned to recognize when called in to treat gang-inflicted bullet wounds. There was none of the cold calculation of someone who hurt people for money or pleasure or the sick thrill of power.

I saw fear.

"You fled a hospital," I said. "You're bleeding all over my kitchen. I'm supposed to—"

"I know… what you're supposed to do."

The words came slowly, like dragging them through mud. "But I'm…"—he swallowed hard—"I'm asking. Don't."

The honest simplicity of his request nearly floored me. No lies. No manipulation. No desperate story designed to earn my sympathy. Just a direct appeal from someone who had nowhere else to turn.

I started to reach for my phone and then stopped.

"Why did you come here? How do you even know where I live?"

He winced. "From the ambulance. McCabe. I—Seattle Fire, it said—on your jacket."

His gaze dropped to the blood pooling between us. His breath caught.

"Your name… You weren't… you're not nothing. I needed…"

He trailed off, eyelids fluttering.

"You needed what?"

"Someone who wouldn't… wouldn't ask questions."

He was right to expect that from me. I didn't want to know who had shot him or why he'd been roaming through Seattle in the middle of the night or what kind of life left a man with that many scars.

I wanted to help him. It was the same way I'd wanted to help every other broken person I'd pulled from wreckage over the years.

After helping him to the couch, I walked to my bathroom and pulled out the first aid kit I kept under the sink.

When I returned, he was trying to work the bloodstained shirt off over his head.

"Let me." I dropped the first aid kit on the coffee table and knelt beside him.

The fabric peeled away from his skin with a wet sound that made my teeth clench. Underneath, his torso was a map of old violence—thin white lines across his ribs, a puckered scar below his left collarbone, and burn marks along his shoulder.

The fresh wound cut across his right side, just below the armpit. Deep, clean edges had been made by something sharper than a bullet. This wasn't the entry wound from the hospital—it was new. Someone had opened him up with surgical precision.

"They should be doing this in a hospital," I muttered, pulling on latex gloves.

He said nothing.

I opened a package of gauze and soaked it with saline solution. The antiseptic smell filled the space between us, sharp and clinical. When I pressed the gauze to his wound, he sucked in a breath but didn't flinch away.

Slowly wiping his skin clean with steady strokes, I worked from the outside as I'd been taught. His pulse hammered against my fingertips when I checked the carotid artery—fast but strong.

"Whoever did this knew what they were doing." I reached for the suture kit. "The angle, the depth. They were trying to finish what the bullet started."

"Yes."

His voice was flat, matter-of-fact, like we were discussing the weather instead of torture techniques.

I threaded the needle, testing the tension of the surgical thread between my fingers. The wound would need at least eight stitches, maybe ten. It was close work that would put my hands inches from his face.

"This is going to hurt."

"I know."

I positioned myself on the couch beside him, one knee braced against the cushions for stability. The smell of the hospital soap still clung to his skin, mixed with sweat and the metallic scent of blood.

The first stitch went in clean. His jaw tightened, but he kept perfectly still while I worked. His breathing stayed controlled and measured. This wasn't his first time.

His eyes met mine as I pulled the thread taut. Dark brown, almost black in the lamplight, with flecks of gold that I hadn't noticed in the ambulance.

I bent closer to tie off the stitch, my forearm brushing against his chest. His skin was warm, almost feverish, and his heart beat rapidly under the thin layer of muscle and bone.

Three more stitches. Four. Each one brought my hands closer to his face, until I was working with my wrist resting against his shoulder and my breath fogging the space between us.

He was dangerous. Had to be, with scars like that and a fresh blade wound. Someone wanted him dead badly enough to follow him to a hospital and finish what they'd started.

"There." I tied off the final stitch and sat back on my heels. "That should hold."

He flexed his shoulder experimentally, testing the pull of the sutures. "Thank you."

I stripped off the gloves and started packing up the first aid kit, suddenly aware of how close we were sitting. I watched how the lamplight caught the angles of his face and cast shadows across the hollow of his throat.

"You should rest. You've lost a lot of blood. How long since you left the hospital?"

"Six hours… or so." He made no move to lie down. He watched me with those dark eyes, like he was trying to memorize something.

I moved to help him stretch out on the couch, hands steadying his shoulders as he changed position. The stitches pulled tight against his skin, and he moved slowly, wincing.

"Easy." I guided him down until his head rested against the throw pillows.

As I started to pull away, he touched my wrist with his fingers. Not grabbing—just resting there, warm and sure against my pulse point. His thumb brushed across the tendon.

I knew that I should ask who he was. It would have been wise to demand to know what kind of trouble he was bringing into my home.

Instead, I watched the rise and fall of his breathing, and how his eyelids grew heavy as exhaustion finally replaced fading adrenaline.

I reached for the blanket draped over the back of the couch—soft wool that Ma had knitted years ago, back when she still believed I might settle down and need domestic touches. I shook it out and settled it over the man's chest, tucking the edges around his shoulders.

His eyes opened one more time, finding mine in the dim lamplight. "Matthew."

I didn't know his name, but he said mine like it meant something.

"Yeah?"

He didn't say more. His eyes had already closed, and his breathing deepened into the rhythm of real sleep. His hand slipped away from my wrist, fingers curling against his chest under the blanket.

I should've felt relief. Instead, I felt the quiet press of something else. Not fear exactly. Not yet. It was the knowledge that I'd invited a stranger into my home, and now there was no turning back.

I stayed there momentarily, kneeling beside the couch, watching the steady movement of the wool rising and falling with each breath. His face had relaxed completely, erasing the tension carved into his features since he'd appeared on my doorstep.

And suddenly, I saw Farid. I'd failed him. I hadn't been fast enough. And now someone else was bleeding in my apartment, trusting me again.

Somewhere above me, the faint murmur of Mrs. Kaminski's television resumed—some late-night courtroom drama humming through the ceiling.

Life was still happening outside this room. But in my apartment, I'd made a choice I couldn't undo.

After I turned off the lamp, it left only the kitchen light to cast long shadows across the living room. The weight of what I'd chosen settled over me in the darkness. I'd crossed a line when I pulled a stranger inside and locked the door behind us.