Stacey Kade - The Hunt

That, for some reason, seemed to convince her, though she didn’t seem happy about it. “Deliberately rubbing dirt in a wound seems foolish.”

“It’s a saying. A sports thing,” I amended, since people did more than say it. They actually did it.

She raised her eyebrows and shook her head, dismissing it, no doubt, as one of the many things we did that made no sense.

Gingerly, she pulled her arm out of the jacket sleeve, and though I’d been expecting signs of injury, this was far worse than I’d imagined. Her shredded left sleeve was plastered to her skin with dried and drying blood.

I inhaled sharply. “Shit, Ariane.” I knelt in front of her for a better look, the uneven floor tiles digging into my knees.

The tattered fabric had adhered to the entire underside of her arm, wrist to elbow. I couldn’t even tell where her injury was. But I knew there’d be no pulling her sleeve up without breaking open the wound that had caused all this bleeding.

“Are you, uh, wearing something under that?” I gestured awkwardly to her shirt.

“Are you trying to talk me out of my clothes?” she asked, her jaw tight and her gaze fixed solidly at a point over my head.

“No! I just…” I paused, looking at her tense expression and the way she was very deliberately avoiding looking down at her arm. “Do you have a problem with blood?” I asked, amazed.

“In this quantity? Just my own,” she said in that cool, detached tone that reminded me, of course, she likely wouldn’t have a problem with anyone else’s blood. She’d been trained to—

I pushed that thought away before I could finish it. “The problem is, I don’t want to make it worse by just yanking your sleeve up.”

She flinched.

“So I want to try to wet it and then peel it away from your arm. But I think that would be easier from the other direction. Like this.” I mimed the action of pulling my shirt over my head and down my arm.

She nodded reluctantly, her tangled hair sliding in front of her pale face.

“But if you’re not wearing—”

“It’s fine.” She wiggled her right arm into the inside of her shirt and hitched that side up to her shoulder.

Realizing belatedly that I probably didn’t need to be six inches away for this part of the process, I stood and turned my back. I could give her some privacy, at least.

I grabbed a couple of the small towels from the counter and soaked them in warm water, working very hard to concentrate on that, blocking my worst impulses that were urging me to watch her undress in the mirror.

“Okay,” she said a few moments later, and I faced her.

Her injured arm was carefully balanced on her leg, her discarded shirt piled on top of it. A white sports bra covered her breasts. Her hair was more tangled and mussed than before, and her shoulders were curved inward, her free arm wrapped around her waist protectively.

The tattoo on her right shoulder—I had been right about that all along, though also very, very wrong—was just visible.

I’d seen cheerleaders wearing little more than what she had on. But somehow it mattered more now that it was Ariane wearing it. I snagged one of the bath towels from the rack above her head and draped it over her shoulders.

“Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

I cracked open the first-aid kit and pulled out antibacterial cream, packages of gauze bandages, and tape.

“Gloves,” she said sharply.

I froze. “Is that necessary?” Even with the evidence right in front of me, I kept forgetting that she was more—and less—than just the girl who’d sat in front of me in Algebra II last year.

“I don’t know. They always wore gloves in the lab.” She lifted her chin, meeting my eyes defiantly. She was going to fight me on this, I could tell.

So I dug out the gloves and put them on before grabbing one of the wet towels from the sink and kneeling in front of her once again.

Slowly, inch by painstaking inch, I soaked the fabric and gently pulled it away from her skin.

She held very still, preternaturally silent. I didn’t want to think about what had happened in her early life at the lab to teach her that kind of stoicism.

Several angry slashes and ugly bruises decorated her wrist at intervals, but the worst was a thick gash across the meat of her arm, just up from her elbow. Her jacket should have protected her, but it was about ten sizes too big and had obviously fallen down or been pulled away by stray branches. “I really think you should have stitches, Ari,” I said, carefully tilting her arm toward the light.

“And somehow I think going to a hospital right now would be more dangerous,” she said, sounding slightly strained.

“They can’t have someone at every hospital and urgent care clinic,” I pointed out.

She shook her head. “It’s not worth the risk. Just patch me up. I’ll be fine.”

I disagreed, but short of bodily removing her from the room, which I doubted she’d allow, there wasn’t much I could do. I wiped away as much of the blood as I could, smeared the antibacterial cream on gauze pads, and applied them carefully, taping the edges to keep them in place.

“It’ll heal fast,” she said softly. “I promise. I’ll be better before you are.” She reached out and touched my face, her fingertip lightly tracing my stitches from the other night. “Not such a pretty boy anymore.” She gave me a sad but teasing smile.

I started to protest that that label had never applied to me, but then her thumb brushed the corner of my mouth and the air went electric. I turned my cheek into her caress, pursuing it. And when I pressed a kiss against the center of her palm, she caught her breath.

Her eyes were dark behind the blue-tinted lenses and seemed to be growing darker. Her gaze dropped to my mouth, and she bit her lip.

I swallowed a groan, and with my heart pounding too hard, I leaned in.

But then she dropped her hand and turned away.

Confused, I pulled back. “What’s—”

“I should…I want to shower. Get the GTX off of me,” she said with a forced smile, not quite looking at me.

My face flushed. “Sure, yeah, okay.” I stood up hastily. “Sorry.” I peeled off the gloves and tossed them in the garbage can beneath the sink.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” she said, pulling the towel tighter around her shoulders.

Except, clearly, there was. I backed out of the room, tugging the door shut after me.

Had I pushed too far? I didn’t think so. She’d been right there with me up until the end, when she’d withdrawn.

I shook my head, and walked the few short steps to the bed and flopped down on my back.

It would make perfect sense that she would want to clean up, after GTX, after the woods, after the Dumpster.

I made a face. I probably didn’t smell so great either.

But it was more than that. I was missing something; I could feel it. I just didn’t know what it was.

That was maybe the most frustrating thing about all of this. Ariane could hear what I was thinking at any time, if she wanted to. But I was stuck trying to puzzle her out with only the barest clues. I’d thought I’d had her figured out before, and I just kept discovering new facets and shadowed corners, previously hidden to me.

Though, honestly, if pushed, I’d have to admit that I actually kind of liked it, moments of complete and utter bewilderment aside.

Or maybe it was just that I really liked her , enigmas and all.

Ariane

THE SHOWER HAD GONE COLD a few minutes earlier, but I couldn’t convince myself to move. Hunched at the far end of the tub, with the spray hitting between my shoulder blades, I had my injured arm stuck out from behind the curtain to keep the bandages dry.