Page 9 of Dirty Game (Broken Blood #1)

The room is very quiet now.

The only sound is my breathing and the slow drip of blood from Rosalynn’s arm.

She’s still standing, still clutching the knife.

I cross to her, making sure to approach from the front, slow and open.

She flinches when I get close, but doesn’t back away.

I reach for her wrist—the one that’s bleeding.

She doesn’t resist, but she doesn’t let go of the knife either.

“You’re safe,” I say, and this time I mean it.

I grab the knife from her fingers, careful not to cut us both. Her hand stays in the gripping position, even after the blade is gone.

I drop the knife and pull a handkerchief from my pocket, wrap it around her wound.

It’s superficial, but blood always looks worse on her pale skin.

She watches me with a weary attention, watching every move.

I look around at the bodies, the carnage, the legacy of violence that I’ve inherited and improved.

“Sorry about the mess,” I say.

Outside, the hallway is empty except for the one guard crumpled on the floor.

“We should go get you checked out.” I wait for her to speak.

She doesn’t.

I watch the rise and fall of her breath, the tremor in her hand, and know that she will never forget what she saw here.

She finally shakes her head. “I couldn’t let them get in the safe.”

“Why?”

“Because… I wasn’t sure you’d come, and this all feels like a bad dream.”

Nodding, I open the door, and she steps back inside cautiously.

The first thing I notice when the adrenaline dies is how small she looks.

All the fight drained out, just a slip of a girl who was holding a kitchen knife like it’s the only thing keeping her upright.

Her hands are shaking.

The cut on her forearm is shallow but wide, beading red along the edge, but most of the blood isn’t hers.

It’s spattered up her wrists, dried in crusted lines along the joints of her fingers, painted in dull streaks across the pale blue of her shirt.

Her hand shakes, just ever so slightly, as she looks around the room.

She watches the bodies cooling on the floor, eyes wide, unblinking. I watch her.

“Rosalynn,” I say. Her head snaps toward me so fast I half-expect her neck to break.

She doesn’t answer, just stares. Maybe letting her back in here was a bad idea.

I crouch in front of her, take her right hand in both of mine.

Her hands are clenched tight, and I notice more damage from the fight.

There are bits of hair caught under her nails, and a stripe of scarlet curling up her other wrist.

I pry her fingers open, one by one.

It takes time, but they finally relax and open.

Her palms are a bloody mess from her nails cutting into the soft skin.

I look up and meet her eyes.

Blue, ringed with red from unshed tears.

She’s holding them back with the kind of effort that could move planets.

“Come with me,” I say. My voice is a low note, a suggestion rather than an order. “You’ve seen enough.”

She follows.

We take the back hallway, away from the carnage and into the private bathroom that nobody uses but me.

The air is cold in here, but it feels nice, calming.

I flip the tap, let the water run until it’s as hot as it’ll go.

I wet a cloth, squeeze it out, and start cleaning the blood off her hands.

She doesn’t speak, just stands there and lets me do it.

I work methodically, the way I do everything—wrist to knuckles, then fingers, then under the nails.

She winces once when I hit the cut on her forearm, but doesn’t say a word.

There’s something obscene about the intimacy of it.

Cleaning another person’s blood off someone’s skin, holding their hand steady while you do it.

I have to fight the urge to be gentle. I don’t know if she’d recognize it.

When her hands are as clean as they’re going to get, I bandage the cut with a first aid kit in the drawer. She watches me, silent.

The bathroom smells of bleach and heat and old sweat.

I want to say something, but the words stick in my throat.

I dry my own hands, then reach up to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear.

It’s a stupid gesture. A human one.

She blinks at the touch, and I realize I’m shaking as badly as she is.

“You protected what’s mine,” I say. The words come out harder than I mean them to.

She looks at her hands, flexes them, then—voice so thin it almost breaks—“I am what’s yours.”

It takes a second for her to realize what she’s said.

The horror on her face is almost comical. I want to laugh, but I can’t.

She tries to back away.

I catch her face in my hands, thumb tracing the line of her cheekbone.

I hold her there, not tight, just enough to remind her she’s real and I’m real and this moment is happening.

“Yes,” I say, “You are.”

I lean in slowly, giving her every chance to pull away.

She doesn’t move a muscle.

Our lips meet, barely—more a question than a kiss.

Her breath hitches, and for a moment I can feel her pulse through her mouth, fast and terrified and alive.

When I pull back, her eyes are huge.

She looks at me like she’s waiting for the punchline or the axe.

I let go of her and step away. My hands are steadier now.

She stands there, alone in the middle of the tiled floor, and I know I can’t touch her again… not yet.

Not unless I want to break everything between us.

Because the truth is, once I have her, I will never let her go.

I watch her as she leaves the room, the imprint of her mouth still burning on mine.

Next time, I don’t know if I’ll be able to restrain myself.

If the rest of her tastes as good as her mouth does, I’m a doomed fucking man.