Page 184 of Under Your Scars

Her cheeks are flushed, and her eyes are hazy and fucked out, like I’ve sent her to heaven.

It’s where she belongs, after all.

CHAPTER 57

THE SILENCER

Elena still seems…off. Something is bothering her, and it’s taking everything in me not to reach down her throat and just pull out whatever she’s not telling me.

Did they touch her? Are there injuries I haven’t seen? Did they threaten her family?

My mind goes through every possible scenario, none of them good.

Elena is still bleeding from her hand, and with her hair still dripping wet, she leaves our bedroom to say goodnight to Caroline.

Elliot is lingering in the hallway, his skin gray, looking like he’s one heartbeat away from passing out. He’s wearing a jacket zipped up all the way to his neck, making him look stiff and awkward.

Nice of him to show up.I haven’t seen him since the morning before Elena was taken. Beth said he had a work emergency.

But what could be more important than your daughter going missing?

“Let me see,” he whispers, grabbing Elena’s bleeding hand. She seems shocked by the action, stumbling when he grabs her. He blinks rapidly a few times before squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head as if trying to shrug off an intrusive thought. “Doesn’t look like there’s any glass fragments. Come on, I’ll stitch you up.”

“How do you know it was glass?”

Elena’s question has Elliot’s eyes flickering to me and then back down to her hand. He chuckles, cutting himself off with a wince that sounds painful. “Sweetheart, I’ve been a surgeon longer than you’ve been alive. I know what a laceration from glass looks like.” He throws his arm around her shoulders and leads her to his guest bedroom. He sits Elena down at the small desk against the far wall, and I grab a chair and sit next to her, placing my hand gently on her thigh in a gesture of comfort.

From his backpack, Elliot pulls out an entire hospital supply closet’s worth of medical supplies. Gauze, sutures, needles, vials of local anesthetic. Weird shit to keep in a backpack.

Maybe it’s a surgeon thing. We’re the type of men that like to be prepared. He has Band-Aids, I have bullets.

He begins to delicately clean Elena’s wound, and I watch. Maybe I’ll learn a thing or two. Most of the time, if I’m hurt, I stitch myself up. It’d be nice to have a scar in a straight fucking line for once.

Midway down the line of stitches, Elliot’s hands begin to tremble, and he starts to blink rapidly again, shaking his head every few seconds.

The second half of Elena’s stitches are slightly crooked.

“Elliot,” I warn. He looks up at me, disdain clearly on his face. I tilt my chin down in a subtle nod. He has to tell her.

But he shakes his head. “Not now.”

“Yes,now.”

Elena’s gaze flickers between us, her eyes finally settling on her father. “Dad?”

He gives me another death glare and purses his lips before beginning to wrap her hand in gauze. His shoulders slump as he takes a deep breath. “All those years of smoking finally caught up to me.” Elena stiffens in her seat as he finishes his sentence. “Stage four metastatic lung cancer. It’s spread to my liver and brain. I have a tumor pressing against my optic nerve and I will lose vision in my left eye completely within a month.”

Elena’s mouth hangs open in shock. “What?”

“I started having blurring vision and tremors when I was in the OR. Weakness. Fatigue. Hallucinations. Bloody mucus when I cough. Beth took me to the doctor, and I lit up like a Christmas tree.”

I close my eyes and let out a deep breath. Not exactly how I would have told my own daughter that I’m dying. You’d think as a doctor he’d know better.

Instead of questioning him further though, she roughly pulls her hand out of his and faces me.Fuck. Her eyes are already red and glassy, and full of accusation. “How long have you known?”

“Angel—”

“How long?”