Page 22 of Toxic
“Follow us to the infirmary,” one of the officers bites out before Salvatore throws his weight again, trying to free himself from the officers’ hold. He has bandages, some bright red with fresh blood. Was he the one Gracin got into it with? “Damn it, you big bastard, calm thefuckdown.”
Grateful for the distraction, I follow the team of officers as they wrestle Salvatore through medical and onto a gurney. My fingers shake as I push them through my hair. When had my life spiraled so spectacularly out ofcontrol?
Salvatore calms down by the time we reach the infirmary. He allows the officers to muscle him over to a hospital bed where he sits as though it's his throne.Gracin follows silently behind me, and I gesture for him to get my kit from the storage closet as I snap ongloves.
“You all right here?” one of the officers asks as the others shackle the inmate to the bed. When he sees Gracin coming back from the cabinet, he startsshouting.
The doctor who oversees both medical and the infirmary and the nurses blows in as he often does when he remembers to do his job. With cold precision, he swipes a wipe over Salvatore’s shoulder and then presses the needle into his skin. Salvatore tries to fight the sedative, but he’s no match for its potency and succumbs within a few minutes. The doctor gives me instructions to check on his previous wounds, bandage the new ones, and monitor him for any change until he can bedismissed.
The officer waits in the doorway until I look up from checking the bandages. “Yes, I have it handled. You can go,” Itellhim.
“You sure?” the officer asks, his eyes going to Gracin’s intimidating form at thebedside.
I roll my eyes as I strip off an old bandage to replace it with a fresh one. “I’m sure. Let me domyjob.”
When we’re alone again, I turn to Gracin and meet his gaze over the unconscious inmate, the words bubbling free of their own accord. “What do you want from me?” I ask. “Since we’ve met, you’ve turned my life upside down. I want to know why. What’s yourendgamehere?”
His body goes preternaturally still. How does he do that? How is he in such phenomenal control when it feels like I’m fallingapart?
“Tessa,” he says, his voice a low rumble. “I think we bothknowwhy.”
I busy myself with cleaning the blood from Salvatore’s brow so I don’t have to answer his question. Then I say, “Help me turn him so I can change thesebandages.”
I don’t want to ask why he won’t just leave me alone. I don’t want to get involved. The questions are burning me up, but I bite my tongue to keep them from demanding an actual answer out of him. As I clean and bind Salvatore’s wound, I repeat over and over in my head that it isn’t my business. Do my job, get out. Do my job, get out.Once I’ve patched Salvatore up, I’ll keep my head down and finish out my shift. Then I’llbefree.
“Can you throw these away for me?” I say absently and thrust a handful of soiled bandages in Gracin’s general direction. My mind is so thoroughly focused on the task, I don’t realize that he hasn’t moved to do what I ask right away. When I look up, ready to reprimand him for not doing his job, Ifreeze.
At first, I don’t understand what I’m seeing. It’s as though the connection between my eyes and my brain is experiencing a disconnect. Gracin, who had to move to the other side of the bed to help me flip Salvatore, is holding a pair of medical scissors in his right hand. The blunt tip is pressed into Salvatore’s neck and a bead of blood forms, spilling down the side of his throat and into the shadows towardhisback.
What seems like hours pass, and the weight pulling on my neck and shoulders lifts, allowing me to meet Gracin’s eyes. I’d seen them closed down before, like the day I first met him in this very room. But this expression is worse. My first instinct is to run. To get as far away from danger as fast as possible, but I can’t leave my patient. Part of me, the part that submitted to his touch, can’t leave him, either. Not withoutunderstanding.
“What are you doing?” My breath is harsh, and my head is roaring. “Get your handsoffhim.”
Those same hands that brought me such pleasure are steady as a surgeon’s and prepared to kill. I can’t let himdoit.
I wait for him to say something, make demands, beg, but he does nothing except stare at me with an unreadable gaze. His body telegraphs his intent before he ever moves a muscle, but I’m not fast enough to stop him from plunging the scissors into Salvatore’s neck in one efficient, deadlystrike.
Ascreech tears free,and I lunge forward to staunch the bleeding, but there’s too much, and it’s coming too fast. Asleep as he is, Salvatore doesn’t so much as twitch as Gracin rips the scissors away and his life slowly slips through my fingers. Seconds tick by before Salvatore jerks once and then goes still again, significantlystill.
With dark red smears of blood covering my hands and seeping into my scrubs, I stumble backward. All I know is that I need to get away. Away from what just happened, away from Vic, this place, Gracin.Justaway.
I spin, intending to do just that when Gracin comes up behind me and braces me against his chest. “Not so fast,” he says into my ear, and I shiver against him, feeling both too cold and too hot at the same time. “We’re notdoneyet.”
“Please don’t kill me,” I say. I guess Vic hasn’t beaten all the begging out of me after all. “Please, just let me go. I won’t sayanything.”
“Oh, I know you won’t.” His hands cinch down around my arms. “You’re gonna stay real quiet-like while I take care of our man here. If anyone comes in, you tell them you’ve got it handled, just like you did before. Can you do that, littlemouse?”
My insides turn colder than the ass-crack of a Michigan wintermorning.
“You bastard,” Iseethe.
“Awe, now, don’t be so upset. Just do as I ask, and no one else willgethurt.”
If I had something in my hands, I would have thrown it at his carefully blank face. My thirst for revenge quiets when I hear the squeak of sneakers against the tile floors and all the blood drains from my face. Someone’s coming. I shove my feelings aside and try to figure out how the hell I’m going to get out ofthismess.
“Hey, Tessa, are you okay?” Annie’s voice calls from down thehallway.
My shoulders are tight and I blink rapidly as my mind races for an exit strategy. As if he can sense the direction of my thoughts, Gracin’s armstighten.