Article 5 (Article 5 #1)(48)

It crackled with static. I was so intently staring at it that Chase’s clumsy attempt to remove his jacket caught me off guard. I slid over to assist, glad for the distraction.

“I forgot,” I acknowledged guiltily. “Here, let me help.”

He lowered his hands, and I tentatively released the zipper, biting my lip as I pulled the jacket off his right shoulder. He’d replaced the flannel shirt for warmth, but the sticky blood had formed an adhesive, binding the shredded fabric to his skin. My empty stomach turned.

I had seen it happen and now remembered just how easily the metal had sliced into his flesh. Chase allowed me to touch his arm, gauging his condition from the expression on my face.

“You need to take off your shirt,” I told him, instantly blushing. It wasn’t like I’d meant anything intimate by it; I’d seen him hundreds of times without a shirt when we were kids. Maybe not after our friendship had changed into something different—we’d never gotten quite that far—but still. There was no reason to be embarrassed. No reason whatsoever.

He didn’t try to lift his injured arm, and I wondered just how much damage had been done in the hours his wound had gone unattended.

When he struggled, I slid between his knees, and tried to act like my fingers freeing each wooden button down his chest had no effect on my drumming pulse. He nodded a curt thanks and then stared out the window.

The same voice from the previous night filled the kitchen, erasing the static over the radio. Though it was stupid, I felt like we’d been caught doing something we shouldn’t.

“Colonel David Watts, covering Region Two-thirty-eight. It is Thursday, March tenth. Here begins the daily report.”

It had been only a day since I’d been at the reformatory, I realized. It seemed months ago.

I left Chase momentarily to click off the stove and place the pot of soup on the table. Wispy ringlets of steam swirled into the cool kitchen air.

Colonel Watts discussed continuing efforts to secure the Canadian and Mexican borders from the “traitors to the cause,” Americans trying to escape, and reported that there was still no information regarding the missing uniform truck in Tennessee. I finished helping Chase out of his flannel. He was wearing a thermal underneath, and when I pulled it over his head, his undershirt came off too, along with the pathetic wrap he’d managed to secure around the wound.

I’d never seen Chase like this before, and what I’d imagined paled in comparison. Hard lines of muscle cut into the copper skin of his shoulders and collided into his broad chest. His abdominals were perfectly sculpted; the slight indention of a V disappeared beneath the denim waistline.

My fingertips tingled. I wondered if his skin felt as smooth as it looked.

“Hand me the pack. There’s a first-aid kit in there,” he said. I jumped at the sound of his voice, and then flushed so darkly my cheeks must have been purple.

What had gotten into me? We’d just broken into a house, and I was preparing to look at a knife wound. Nothing about our situation spelled romance.

I’m just tired, I told myself, even though I knew I wasn’t. When I bent down to retrieve the bag, I flattened my hair against my face, hoping that it would hide my mortification.

He found the first-aid kit and opened it on the counter beside the cooling soup. I laid out the materials I would need: a handful of gauze, a miniature bottle of peroxide, and a damp towel. Then, as gently as I could, I pressed the cloth against the wound, mopping up the blood that had painted his skin. The cut was deep and spiraled from the inside of his bicep around his shoulder.

I knew what I had to do, and I knew he wasn’t going to like it. I drenched the gauze in peroxide.

“Sorry,” I whispered, just before pressing the gauze over the wound.

He swore furiously, nearly knocking me over. His teeth were bared; I could hear the sharp intake of breath through his mouth.

“I said sorry.”

I collected myself, having been flung into the table, and wiped up the new blood bubbling to the surface. I found a clean part of the rag and applied pressure to the cut. The wound was so long I needed both hands. It took me a moment to realize he’d caught me by the elbow with his good arm and was still holding on.

“You probably should have had stitches,” I said with some remorse. “I know it stings, but it’ll ease up.”

“It burns like hell.”

“Don’t be a baby,” I gibed. He shook his head, but his expression was lighter than before.

There was a dark bruise forming on the bottom of his jaw, and an even larger contusion on his side that I hadn’t seen before. I touched it gingerly with my fingertip, and he hissed.

“Did he break a rib?” My fear of Rick was burning into anger.

“No,” Chase said, still wincing. “But you may have.”

“What?”

“Swinging that stick around. You clocked me in the side.”

My eyes grew round, and my mouth dropped open.

“Relax. You hit him at least twice.” He chuckled at this.

“Oh. Good. I think. God, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Just remind me not to meet you in a dark alley.”

I half smiled.

When the bleeding had stopped, I closed the wound with several butterfly Band-Aids from the kit, hoping this would be enough. I wrapped clean gauze around his entire arm, securing it in place with heavy white tape.