Page 203 of Whisper

Kris rested his forehead on the edge of his sink. The world was spinning, had spun since Dawood had disappeared, since he’d seen the plate of eggs and the empty studio and his missing laptop. He couldn’t drag in enough air through the way his heart had caved in, crushing his chest. “Fairfax.”

“I’ll meet you there, Mr. Caldera. Go to the emergency room. I’ll have a nurse waiting to collect the samples.”

Collect the samples. He’d showered, but there could still be traces of Dawood on him, under his fingernails.

There absolutely still was Dawood inside of him. Absolutely.

His stomach lurched again. He clutched the edges of his sink, bile racing up his throat.

“I’ll drive,” Dan said softly.

The drive to the hospital was the quietest ride of Kris’s life. Not even the flight home from Afghanistan with four bodies in the same plane had been so silent. Dan’s electric car, his Bolt, barely hummed, barely made a single noise. Kris picked at the sleeves of his sweater.

Dan sat ramrod straight, driving like he was an instructor at The Farm, solid, definitive motions to every turn, every lane change. Kris finally gathered the shards of his courage and glanced his way.

Dan looked like shit. Like he’d been up all night, maybe drinking. Dark circles hung beneath his red-rimmed eyes. His knuckles were white where his hands clenched the steering wheel. He breathed slowly, in and out, like controlling his breath was the only thing holding him together.

Finally, they arrived, and Dan pulled up to the front of the ER, set out his CIA placard, his ‘don’t fucking tow this car’ sign. Sighed, and sat back in his seat.

“I thought, last night, you’d just picked someone up,” Dan breathed. “I thought everything you told me two days ago was bullshit. I thought you were just playing me.” He looked down. Toyed with his key ring. Inhaled brokenly. “I thought you’d finally ripped my heart out enough for me to move on.”

“Dan—” Tears bubbled up from within Kris, from the ragged parts that remained. “I meant it. I did. I wanted—” He couldn’t do this. God, he couldn’t do this. Pitching forward, Kris howled into his hands, sobbed into the tear-soaked wrists of his sweater. “I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t understand anything. Any of this.”

“I don’t either.” Dan reached for the door handle. “They’re waiting for you inside. And we’ve got to get back to Langley. Ryan is waiting for us.”

He tried to be brave, walking into the ER. Agent Spalding was there, texting someone and waiting with a nurse. They motioned for him to follow them down a long hallway to a closed room in the back.

Kris hesitated. “Dan,” he mumbled. “I don’t have any right to ask you for anything. Not anything, I know that. But…” Tears streamed down his face, a river rushing over his cheeks, down his jawline. “Will you stay with me?” His hands twisted in front of him, destroying his sweater’s wrists.

Dan’s eyes slid closed. For a moment, he didn’t breathe. It might have been easier if Kris had asked him to carve his heart out with a spoon, offer it up to Kris on a golden platter. “Yes,” Dan sighed. “You know I will.”

They made the long walk to the exam room together. Dan pulled out his phone and turned it off.

Inside, the nurse asked Kris a lengthy health history, including a list of his recent sexual partners. In front of Dan, he detailed his and Dawood’s four orgasms, his blow job from the Marine over the Atlantic, and a one-night stand in Estonia with a drunk British soldier. Dan sat, stone-faced.

The nurse asked him to strip, and then took photos of bruises on his wrists. A bruise blooming on his hip, the shape of a palm, squeezing.

“All of these were consensual,” he whispered. “I thought—” He sniffed.

“I need to swab for DNA,” the nurse finally said. She passed over a hospital gown, open in the back. “Please take off your briefs and lie facedown. I’ll be back soon.”

He shook as he undressed, almost fell over. Dan steadied him. Held him up. Guided Kris to the exam bed and helped him lie on his stomach. Grabbed a blanket from a stack on the shelves and spread it over Kris when Kris couldn’t stop trembling.

“Thanks.” Slowly, Kris reached out with his fingers, spreading them across the cheap plastic of the exam bed, inch by inch, until his index finger grazed the side of Dan’s hand.

For a moment, it seemed like Dan was going to break down, was going to split in half and sob, let out every ounce of agony Kris knew he was holding on to. Agony Kris had given him, had dropped into his lap, a giant ball of twisted anguish straight through the heart. He tried to pull his fingers back. What right did he have, reaching for Dan and his care? What right did he have asking for help, for comfort, when all he did was hurt Dan in return?

Dan grabbed his fingers, linked two of his through two of Kris’s, holding on like their fingers held the universe together. Kris could feel Dan shaking, trembling, his entire soul quaking within him.

Knocks sounded at the door. The nurse slipped back in. “All right, I’m going to make this as quick and painless as possible. Three swabs, and then we’re done.”

Kris buried his face in his and Dan’s linked hands.

Dan wrapped his other hand over Kris’s head and pressed his lips to Kris’s temple.

“Ryan is waiting for us.”

“Fuck.” Kris wilted in Dan’s passenger seat. “This day just gets worse and worse.”