The Vanishing Season (The Collector #4)(54)

“It won’t.”

“Then if you don’t mind being left alone a minute, I’m going to trade places with Mercedes. She’s better with the first aid stuff.” There’s a question in her eyes, not fully hidden by the glasses she wears only when she’s beyond tired.

“Neither of us hit each other. Neither of us threatened each other. He’s just . . .”

“It’s been a very bad day.”

“Yeah.”

Mercedes brings her first aid kit with her, whistling at the devastation. “Well, you two scared the absolute shit out of each other.”

I blink away the sudden sheen of tears stinging my eyes. Turning off the tap, I hold my hand out for one of the soft, thin kitchen towels draped over her arm. I can’t do much more than pat around the blisters without risking tearing.

Mercedes studies the burns, then looks up at me. “You promise me that—”

“I swear to fucking God, Ramirez, if he’d meant it, he would no longer have a dick.”

“You realize it’s not just for your sake I’m asking this, right?” Her fingers are so gentle as she spreads the cool burn cream—so, so gentle—but it still hurts like a wicked bitch. “He’s terrified. Eddison is a furious kind of person. He is never not angry. But for all that rage, he has never once been violent to a woman we haven’t arrested, and only then when there wasn’t a choice.”

“He wasn’t being violent to me.”

“And I believe you, but he was being violent around you, and I know you love him, but you need to step back a moment and realize that. He was being violent around you, and that is not nothing. But I’m asking for his sake, too, because you know damn well he’s afraid you’re just saying that to calm him down.”

Between the two of us, we manage to dress and bandage the burns that are now throbbing, but I haven’t eaten since lunch, so I don’t trust my stomach to take any painkillers. As I head to Bran’s room to grab a shirt, I can hear Mercedes picking up the cabinet doors and muttering in Spanish. I find a soft, long-sleeved shirt, the logo faded from age, back when the Rays were still the Devil Rays, and tug it over my head, adjusting the sleeve carefully around the bandage.

“Do you need me to drive you home?” Mercedes asks when I get back to the kitchen. She’s on her knees between the stove and the island, mopping up the water.

“No, I’ll be fine.” I glance at the back door, think about the timing of her question. “You don’t think I should try to talk to him again tonight.”

“He’s freaking out. And as soon as we can calm him down from this, he’s going to freak out about Faith and he’s going to get worked up, and then he’s going to remember what happened to you when he got that worked up and he’s going to freak out more. If you’re here, he’s not going to feel reassured, he’s going to feel guilty.”

“He’s going to feel guilty anyway.”

“Yes, but are you really up for spending the entire night reminding him that it was an accident, given that you’ve already been a little bitchy to me and Cass about it?”

I scowl at her. “You’d be worried if I wasn’t a little bitchy about it.”

“Naturally, because then you’d be seriously hurt.” She sits back on her heels and tosses the soaked towel into the sink, where it lands with a dull splat.

“You’ll call me if I’m needed?”

“I promise. Go on. Morning is going to come too early as it is.”

I swing through a Sheetz on the way home, because even though I’ve got food in my kitchen, I really don’t feel like doing anything with it. Especially not if it involves boiling water. Not tonight. But when I get to my building and park, I see a familiar car a few spaces down. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Sure enough, when I get up to my door, there’s Vic, leaning against the wall and looking grim. He eyes me and raises his eyebrows. “Are you pissed at him or pissed at me?”

“Right now I’m fucking pissed at everything,” I retort, and slam my key into the lock hard enough for it to squeak worryingly. Calm the fuck down, Eliza. Last thing you need tonight is to call the locksmith. “Which one of them called you?”

“Cass. Then Eddison. Then Mercedes. Then Eddison again.”

I glare at him, but he has the nerve to chuckle.

“We check in on each other, Eliza. Now, how bad is it?”

“I’m not in the field right now anyway.”

“That is not actually an answer. Do you need me to drive you to urgent care?”

“No.”

“Would any of the others say I need to drive you to urgent care?”

“No.”

“Are you going to bite my head off if I keep pushing?”

“Yes!”

“Good.” He pushes off the wall and kisses my cheek. “If anything happens during the night and you need to go in, have one of us drive you.” He sticks his hands in the pockets of his coat and strolls down the hall to the stairs.

By the time I’m inside and have wrestled out of my coat and bag, my food is stone cold. Fuck it, I’m going hungry.

I’m itching for a smoke, but Shira and I have these rules for each other, and one of them is that it must be no less than two weeks between smokes, no matter what’s going on. Everything is tidy, I don’t have enough dirty clothing to do laundry, and even the grout in the bathroom is clean thanks to a bout of insomnia last week. Once I secure my gun in the safe, there is literally no busy work for me to do.