Page 46

46

Will

I ’d never seen a safe house bathroom double as an operating room before, but there we were.

Thomas lay slouched in the tub, a pillow between his head and the wall, his shirt off and eyes glassy. His skin was pale— too pale. Blood soaked the towel Sparrow had clamped to his shoulder, bright red turning dark and sticky.

I hated it.

I hated every second of it.

So I paced.

Back and forth.

Five steps, turn, five steps back.

I couldn’t stop moving.

Every time I stood still, I saw it again—the muzzle flash, the soundless flinch in Thomas’s shoulders, the way his legs gave out like his body realized what had happened before his mind did.

I was supposed to be watching his back.

That’s what we did—watched, covered, moved as one—and I’d let a bullet get to him. In our line of work, injuries were a matter of odds, but this didn’t feel like odds.

This felt like failure.

I glanced over at him. He slumped to one side as Sparrow cleaned around the wound with a cloth that had gone red far too fast. His face was pale, but his jaw was set. The idiot was stubborn as ever.

He was brave in a way I didn’t think I could be if our roles were reversed.

I wanted to touch him, just lay a hand on his shoulder, maybe, something to anchor him—or me, or both of us—but my hands weren’t steady enough. They hadn’t stopped shaking since we got him into the safe house.

I’d seen Thomas bluff diplomats and assassins, kneel in a puddle of broken glass to cover a drop, throw a knife left-handed to take down an enemy; but watching Sparrow press a gauze pad against his bleeding skin made me feel more helpless than I had in any of those moments.

Because I loved him, damn it.

And love, in our world, was the one thing that made us stupid.

It made us pace the floor like a caged animal, trying not to throw up. It made us count every breath and tally them like precious coins. It made us think ridiculous things, like whether he would be able to wear a shoulder holster on that side again, or if the scar would fade.

It made us afraid—bone-deep, soul -deep afraid—that tonight might be the last time we—the last time I —got to hear his voice crack dryly with some half-assed joke about field medicine.

I would’ve taken that bullet a hundred times if it meant he could keep talking.

He hadn’t let me.

That’s who he was.

It was also why I was going to keep pacing until Sparrow told me he’d live—or I burned a hole straight through the tiles beneath my boots.

“Emu,” Thomas said through gritted teeth, “sit down. You’re making me dizzy.”

“You’re bleeding through your damn ribs, Condor ,” I snapped, spitting his stupid code name like the vile lie it was.

“It’s a shoulder.”

“You bled on me, asshole.” I flicked him a bird, trying to lighten the mood, though clouds refused to part, not until I was sure he’d be okay. “You let them fucking shoot you . . . after I told you— ordered you—not to get hurt again. I’m allowed to pace without you giving me shit. Understood?”

Sparrow’s lips curled into a grin, but she held her tongue. Egret, lingering in the doorway, chuckled loud enough for the dead to hear.

Thomas grunted but didn’t argue.

Sparrow snapped open the rusted hinges on the field kit and laid it out on the tile like it was sacred—tools of the trade lined up on a faded towel that looked like it had been used to clean rifles before it cleaned wounds.

“I need hands,” she snapped.

I was beside her before I even knew I’d moved.

Thomas blinked at me, his lips twitching into a weak smile. “I told you not to pace, not to become my nurse.”

“Shut up and bleed quieter,” I muttered, kneeling.

Sparrow handed me the antibiotic ampoule. “Snap the top, draw it up, and wait.”

I did as she asked. The tiny glass bottle cracked at the scored line and gave way with a soft pop. The syringe sucked the liquid like breath. My fingers still trembled.

Thomas hissed when she pulled the gauze away again. The wound wasn’t as bad as I’d feared—but that didn’t mean much. The bleeding had slowed, but it was still oozing, and the tissue around the hole was raw and angry.

“Through and through,” Sparrow confirmed, her voice low but calm. “Didn’t shatter the clavicle. He got lucky.”

I gave her a look.

She arched a brow. “Relatively.”

Thomas looked between us like he was waiting for one of us to say, “Just kidding.” Instead, I pressed my free hand to his good shoulder and whispered, “Brace yourself, okay?”

Sparrow nodded to me. “Now.”

I slid the needle into his thigh, pushing the plunger slow and even. Thomas didn’t flinch, but I felt the tight curl of muscle beneath my palm. I didn’t look at his face. God, I couldn’t.

“Let’s wrap it,” Sparrow said.

I held gauze while she cut and bandaged, her fingers quick and sure. The whole kit smelled like rubbing alcohol and rust. My knees were killing me, but I didn’t move. I would’ve stayed there all night if it meant feeling the faint thrum of heat in his body, knowing he was still there.

Still mine.

When Sparrow sat back on her heels and let out a breath, I felt my own lungs move for the first time in forever.

“You’ll live,” she said, her voice all business. “The bullet passed clean through the meat. It missed the bone. You got lucky.”

Thomas snorted. “That’s what they always say before a limb falls off.”

“If it falls off, I’ll stuff it and mount it on a plaque,” Egret chimed in. “Next to Will’s dignity, which was, apparently, also shot through.”

I stopped pacing, spun, and squared with the far bigger man. “Seriously?”

“What?” Egret raised both eyebrows. “You’ve been pacing like a Victorian father outside a birthing room. It’s sweet, adorable, even.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but—

“He cares,” Eszter said from the far corner of the room.

We all turned—except for Thomas. He craned his neck to peer past Sparrow.

She stood just beyond Egret, a tiny shadow none of us had noticed, arms crossed, chin lifted just enough to be defiant.

“Will’s afraid for Thomas,” she added. “So maybe don’t joke.”

Egret blinked. Once. Twice.

She’d caught our real names. When the hell had that happened? Lapses like that cost spies their lives and could be disastrous for anyone near enough to become collateral damage. We’d have to school the girl on using the right names—but for the moment, that could wait.

Screw tradecraft.

Everything could wait.

“You know.” Egret smirked at the girl. “For someone who barely talks, you’ve sure got perfect timing.”

Eszter smiled, and the whole room lightened. Even Sparrow chuckled as she pulled the needle through Thomas’s skin. She looked sideways at Eszter and winked. “Good girl.”

Thomas peered up at me, his lips curling, faint but real. “She’s got your fire.”

I didn’t answer.

I couldn’t.

Instead, I kneeled beside him and pressed my hand over his. His skin was warm and steady, unlike how clammy it had been in the cab. My own hand shook like a leaf in the breeze.

“Come on, let’s get you into the bed,” I said, amazed my voice held steady.

With Egret on one side and me on the other, we waddled our way through the bathroom doorway, down the short hall, and into one of the safe house’s two bedrooms. Eszter was placing the last of the clean towels atop already stacked pillows. A more perfect landing spot, I couldn’t imagine.

“Is this okay?” she asked in the sweetest, most sheepish voice I’d ever heard.

Thomas, his head lolling as we half dragged him in, grinned down. “It’s perfect, Eszter. You’ll make a fine nurse one day, if that’s what you want.”

If sunlight could pour through skin, it flowed out of Eszter at Thomas’s words. He reached a weakened hand out, but instead of gripping, she stepped forward and pressed her cheek to his palm. Egret and I stopped walking. The moment froze, and I was certain all four of us had to fight to contain our hearts from leaping out of our chests.

When Eszter pulled back, we propped Thomas up on her neatly stacked towel-covered pillows. His bandaged shoulder glowed pink under the flickering lamp, clean gauze layered thick beneath a torn undershirt.

His face was pale, eyes drawn with deep bags bulging beneath.

He looked like hell.

But he was breathing.

And for the first time since that goddamn shot went off, I let myself sit.

Sparrow pushed a chipped mug of water into his good hand and gave me a stern nod—the kind that meant he was stable for the moment, so I could stop hovering.

I didn’t move far. Just to the foot of the bed. Just close enough to touch him if I needed to. We were no longer just treating his bullet wound; we were tending my fragile heart.

“You should lie down, too,” Sparrow said to me, wiping her hands on a moist towel. “You look like you took the bullet.”

I shook my head but couldn’t speak.

She gave a small grunt of disapproval and turned away, muttering something about checking the locks and backup meds. Egret went with her, pausing in the doorway.

“Don’t let him bleed on the blankets,” he said. “We might need them for hiding under later.”

I flipped him off without looking back. Thomas laughed—a single dry crack that likely cost him something. He winced, shifting just slightly.

“Moron,” I muttered.

“I missed you, too.”

I moved to sit beside him, unable to tolerate the distance, and ran my hand through his hair, brushing it back off his forehead. He closed his eyes as though he didn’t want the moment to end, as though he needed the stillness.

So did I.

We’d been running too long.

From gunfire. From shadows. From the world that said we couldn’t be what we were to each other.

And tonight, everything I held dear had almost ended in a hallway, beneath a chandelier I couldn’t even remember.

“You saved her,” I said.

He opened one eye. “We saved her.”

“No.” I swallowed. “You went first. You always do.”

He reached for my hand with his good one. “So you can follow. That’s how this works.”

The way he said it, like it was the simplest truth in the world—I felt something in me shift, something old, something that had been cracked for months now. Only then, it fell back into place.

From across the room, Eszter padded over with a blanket she’d stolen from Sparrow’s supply. She handed it to me silently, then looked down at Thomas, her brows tight.

“You’re not allowed to die,” she said.

Thomas blinked at her. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Will won’t stop pacing if you do. I only have one nerve left, and he’s on it.”

That earned a bark of laughter from Egret, who’d been listening all the way in the kitchen.

Sparrow peeked in, a toothy grin splitting her face. “I think she outranks you now.”

Eszter folded her arms and looked back at Thomas. “He worries. That means he loves you. You should try not to scare him so much.”

Then she turned and wandered back to her quiet corner of the safe house without waiting for a response.

Thomas raised an eyebrow. “I’ve been scolded by a thirteen-year-old.”

“She’s not wrong.”

He chuckled. “No, she isn’t.”

We didn’t say anything else after that.

I sat beside him, watched the door, and counted his breaths.

“I’m okay,” he whispered after several minutes. “Promise.”

I squeezed his fingers and bit back tears that had threatened since we fled the mansion. “You’d better be . . . asshole.”