Page 38 of Red Rooster

She held his gaze a long moment, clearly unhappy, then jerked a single nod and sat down on one of the beds. “But if I hear you fall down,” she said, reaching for the remote.

“You’ll set me on fire?”

She heaved a dramatic, put-upon sigh, and Rooster managed to smile through the pain.

When he was shut inside the bathroom, he sagged back against the door a moment, letting the cheap wood hold his weight. Pretending he didn’t hurt too badly was exhausting, and now, away from her wounded, woodland creature eyes, he felt the last of his energy give out.

His strength bled out from the top down, and the shakes came rushing in to fill the gap. His hands shook, but so did the big muscles in his legs, and arms, and chest. His breath hitched in his lungs and his eyelashes fluttered. His teeth chattered, and his thoughts flickered, on and off, an old radio station at the county line.

Five years ago – almost six, now – he’d lived with the agony of his screaming nerves day to day, moment to moment, the only relief the few hours he managed to find in the bottom of a bottle. Constant pain was the sort of awfulness the human body could adapt to.

But after Red, after she’d been able to turn the dial down and take the pain from a roar to a faint whisper, managing it during the breakthroughs rendered him helpless.

He estimated he had about ten minutes before he was reduced to the fetal position, so he turned on the shower, cranked the knob to hot, and stripped with clumsy movements.

He didn’t intentionally seek out his reflection in the mirror above the sink, but the scars grabbed his attention, the way they always did. In the last five years, he’d managed to regain the muscle he’d lost after his discharge and then some. Lowered pain levels meant he could run, and lift, and push his body in a way he hadn’t thought he’d ever be able to again. His shoulders and arms and chest looked huge in the dinky hotel bathroom, shadows defining the sharp cuts of muscle, veins standing out in his wrists and forearms.

But Red hadn’t been able to erase the scars, all the pink patches and craters down the left side of his body that marked the places where shrapnel had carved away little slivers and chunks. The muscle tone in his left leg looked off, his body compensating for the places where tissue had simply been lost, unable to be replaced.

He was still square-jawed, and tanned, hair still wheat-colored where it fell nearly to his chin. But he wasn’t sure anyone from his old life would have recognized him. He looked like a fugitive, and maybe that’s what he was.

Slowly, gripping the handrail mounted to the tile, Rooster stepped over the lip of the tub and into the shower, hissing as the hot water hit his oversensitive skin like needles. The pervasiveness of the pain never ceased to amaze him, the way it could make every inch of his body ache and throb. He shut his eyes and bowed his head, breathing slow and uneven as the heat slowly began to soak into him, the jets easing some of the tension in the back of his neck, the steam loosening his lungs.

He was weak as a newborn foal when he finally shut the water off.Almost there, he thought, toweling clumsily.Almost there. He tripped putting on his sweats and nearly bashed his head on the counter.Almost there. Shirt, socks, token scrub at his wet hair with the towel.

He walked like a gnarled old man, tiny shuffling steps, through the door and into the room.

Red sat against the headboard of the nearest bed – the one he always took so he could be closest to the door, a shield between her and whoever might try to come after her. A silent way of her acknowledging that he was a dirty liar who did in fact need her to work her magic. The brat.

She turned around when he approached, expression pinched with worry. “Oh Rooster, why did you wait so long?”

“It’s not…that bad,” he lied. Liedbadly, voice jumping and catching.

She scooted to the edge of the bed, positioned so she’d be on his bad side when he lied down. She patted the stacked pillows. “Come on.”

Getting onto the bed was aprocess, one that left tears standing in his eyes. He blinked them away and breathed shallowly through his mouth, teeth clenched against the litany of curses that waited on his tongue.

When he was reclined against the pillows, Red knelt by his hip and reached to very gently push his sleeve up. Her own sleeves were singed at the edges, the delicate lace detailing charred and crumbling.

“You ruined your dress,” he said, sad for her. She’d spent hours bent over the thing with thread and needle, humming an old Bee Gees song to herself.

Her smile was warm. “Worth it. Now hold still. Where does it hurt the worst?”

“Everywhere.”

She nodded. “Thanks for not lying that time.” And put her hands on his arm.

It was the same every time, but he always managed to forget; it always shocked the air out of his lungs, bowed his back off the mattress. Her power hit him like a train. The forceful shove that pushed the pain back into his marrow where it belonged; that chased agony back to the root of all his nerves and pinned it there.

He closed his eyes and thought, like always, that he must be on the floor, all the way across the room. Must have gone through a wall. But when he opened his eyes again, he was lying on the bed, his body warm and humming, brimming with energy.

And Red knelt over him, red hair falling in tangled curtains around her face, her skin pale and her mouth slack, eyes vacant with exhaustion.

Shit, he shouldn’t have let her do this. She was still worn out from the show, and she’d pushed herself too far. Was now drained. He should have waited, should have put his foot down. Damn it.

Rooster reached with arms that no longer shook and caught her around the shoulders, eased her down to lie beside him, her head on his shoulder.

Her hand settled, limp, on his chest, right over the steady thump of his heart. She let out a quiet little sigh. “I’m alright.” But it was just a thready whisper, sleep pulling her under.

Rooster cradled the back of her head, the small, fragile shape of her skull. “It’s alright. You go on to sleep.”

“’Kay.”

The last of the tension left her as she drifted off, her body relaxed against his.

He stared mindlessly at the TV screen, listening to the normal hotel sounds around them, straining for the barest whisper of a threat.

One didn’t come – not tonight – and he eventually fell asleep, lulled by the gentle rhythm of Red’s breathing, the press of her slender rib bones against his own.