Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 78329 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78329 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
“Well,” he states, voice calm. “There she is.”
The men behind him chuckle. My throat tightens. I try to swallow and it feels like swallowing sand.
“What, what is this?” My voice is thin, but it’s mine. “Why am I here?”
The president takes a slow step closer, stopping just out of arm’s reach. “You saved our enemy once,” he begins and I’m confused..
The words don’t make sense at first. They slide right off my brain like water off glass. I blink at him.
He tilts his head, like he’s surprised I’m not already putting it together. “Now you save our brother.”
The room feels like it tilts. My pulse spikes. “I don’t—” I start, then stop, because my mouth can’t keep up with my thoughts. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He sighs like I’m being difficult on purpose. “The Hellion you took home,” he says. “You kept him from bleeding out on the pavement.”
My lungs forget how to work.
Miles.
The memory flashes so bright it hurts: blood on my hands, his weight against my shoulder, the panic that night when I thought he might die in my living room, and the way he looked at me afterward like I’d done something holy.
They know.
They know about him. About that night.
My fear shifts—sharpens—because this isn’t random. This is connected. This is a chain of choices and consequences, and somehow I’m the link they decided to yank.
“I’m a nurse,” I state quickly, because my brain grabs for the one thing that might matter. “I’m not a doctor.”
The president’s mouth curls. “Oh, we know what you are.”
He gestures with two fingers, and a man behind him tosses something onto the table with a slap.
A folder.
My stomach drops again. My name is on the front. My badge photo printed out like a mugshot.
They did their homework.
The president leans closer, voice low enough that it feels like he’s speaking directly into my bones. “You’re gonna fix him,” he says, “and stitch him like the trash you cleaned up before.”
My skin prickles.
“I can’t,” I stammer. “I can’t treat someone outside the hospital. I’m not licensed—”
Laughter erupts around the room, sudden and cruel. It hits me like a shove. Men snort, shake their heads, grin like I just told the best joke of the night.
The president smiles wider, and there’s nothing friendly in it. “Peaches,” he mutters sweetly but it’s all wrong, like the nickname is a hook he’s sliding under my skin. “Ain’t one man here worried about your credentials.”
My stomach twists.
“Please,” I whisper, and I hate the word the second it leaves my mouth, hate how small it sounds. “If your friend is hurt, take him to the ER. I’ll—”
He cuts me off with a sharp flick of his hand. “Our brother can’t go to a hospital,” he says. “He needs the bullet removed and stitched up.”
Bullet.
The word lands heavy.
My mind tries to sprint away from it. Bullet means bleeding. Bullet means internal damage. Bullet means a hundred things that can go wrong, and I don’t have imaging or sterile supplies or a surgeon on standby if it goes wrong.
And I’m not a doctor.
“I can’t do surgery,” I state, forcing my voice to stay steady even as my hands shake behind my back. “I’m a nurse. I can assist. I can stabilize. But removing a bullet, that is above my skillset.”
The president’s expression doesn’t change. “Then you better learn quick.”
A man on the couch laughs. “Hell, she done it before.”
“No,” I state, because that’s not what happened with Miles and they’re twisting it on purpose. “I didn’t remove anything. I stopped the bleeding. I cleaned and dressed the wound. Basic stitches.”
“That’s what you’re gonna do,” the president says, and his voice hardens on the last word. “But removing the bullet first.”
He turns his head slightly, and one of the men steps forward, holding up a phone.
On the screen is a photo of my grandfather.
Not the same one as before. This one is closer. More recent. The pajamas he wore just yesterday.
His face fills the frame. His eyes look wide, scared, confused. The angle is wrong, like it was taken quickly. My heart drops into my shoes. “What did you do?” I whisper.
The president watches my reaction like he’s tasting it. “Otherwise,” he says softly, “I kill your grandfather and you, and no one even misses you.”
The words burn.
Not because they’re true now—God, I know they aren’t true now—but because there was a time when they would have been close enough to truth to make me flinch in a different way. A time when Grandpa and I were just two people in a small town trying to survive, invisible unless we caused trouble.
Back then, the only person who would have noticed fast would’ve been Josie.
Now—Now there’s Miles.
There’s Raff and Josie and their kids. There’s a whole mess of people who somehow wove themselves into my life, making it bigger without asking permission.