“Do you need help?” Michael asks, sitting at the table with me.

“Maybe.” I have a reasonably high pain threshold, especially when I’m in control of the pain and I can stop at any time—that’s not the problem. The problem is coping through the pain and being able to see what I’m doing properly at the same time. Common sense would suggest that Pippa help me out right now—she’s a psychiatrist, yes, but she went through general training just like I did in the beginning. It’s how we met. She knows how to cut and stitch, and she would undoubtedly know how to check and see if there are any bullet fragments in my arm. But I don’t ask Pippa. I don’t want to be anywhere near her right now. Thankfully she’s not stupid enough to even offer to help. I can’t believe I even thought about sharing Ben and Jerry’s with that woman not an hour ago.

I hand Michael the scalpel and the cleaning wash and give him directions. He listens intently and then sets to work. About what I said a moment ago—the whole I have a high pain threshold comment? Yeah, I may have massively overestimated myself there. The room starts spinning as soon as he puts pressure on the laceration.

“You okay? You look like you’re going to throw up.”

I might throw up. I might pass out, but I grit my teeth and let him continue; we need to get this done. Once the wound is clean, Michael holds up a small mirror—the kind you get in a make up compact—and a flashlight, while I dig around inside the cut with the tweezers. It feels like there are a thousand shards of glass in there, piercing me, burrowing their way deeper with every light nudge of the blade. It’s agony. It’s pure, burning fire racing up and down my whole body. I manage to pull out two tiny slivers of metal, but it still feels like there are more in there. After twenty minutes of trying and failing to find anything else, I’m covered in sweat and I feel like I can’t breathe.

“Sloane, let me do it,” Pippa says. My back is to her, so she doesn’t see me clench my jaw, staring down at the tabletop at my blood that’s pooled and splattered everywhere.

“I can try,” Michael says. “If you want me to. But she’s the better option.”

I close my eyes and put down the tweezers. I’m so mad; I can’t even do this one thing without her riding in to the rescue, fixing things. Fixing the mess I’m in. “Fine. Come get it over with,” I snap.

Pippa’s face is entirely blank as she takes Michael’s seat and picks up the blade. “Do you want a drink? Some alcohol?” she asks.

I shake my head.

“Okay, get ready.” She slides the flat edge of the scalpel into the wound and begins to dig. The pain lances through me, white hot and so intense that it short-circuits my brain. I can hardly see. Definitely can’t think anything other than, fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck!

My vision’s so blurred I can barely focus on the twisted curl of burnished silver metal Pippa extracts from deep inside my arm.

My heartbeat is a living, breathing, thumping pressure all over my body. And then everything is black.

“I’m really sorry,” Lacey mumbles. These are the first words she’s said that aren’t Mallory related since I had to throw her over my shoulder. She’s lying on the backseat of the boring as fuck Chevy I’ve ‘borrowed’—I actually will send Michael back with it later. She’s been quiet for the past twenty minutes while I’ve driven around, assessing the lay of the land, looking out for any suspect DEA cars that might have followed Michael back to the apartment. Lacey’s small hand slips up into the front between the passenger and the driver’s seat, and it rests there on top of the console. I take it and give her a squeeze—it’s alright. It’s okay. It’s not your fault.

This is the language we speak in sometimes: a gentle shoulder bump, a quick and tight squeeze of a hand. Our actions communicate more than either of us could effectively convey with words. I’ve never questioned this. It’s how things are between people like Lacey and me.

“Are we nearly home?” she asks softly.

“Yes. Just arrived,” I tell her. I get a weird sense of déjà vu as I pull into the underground parking lot, and the reason for the distinct memory replay suddenly hits me. I haven’t been to this apartment building for at least a month, but I was here today. Andreas Medina. Andreas fucking Medina cuffed to a chair, shot in the leg, and locked in one of the utility rooms, and my friend Cade out there somewhere, being held by one seriously pissed off Mexican gang lord. Fuck. I haven’t forgotten about Medina or Cade, but time did kind of slip away from me. Medina said nightfall. If he wasn’t back by dark, then Cade is pretty much as good as dead.

I park, collect Lace from the backseat, ride up in the elevator to the apartment with her, but I don’t go in when we get there. “I just have to take care of something,” I tell Lace. “I’ll only be fifteen minutes. Michael and Sloane will already be inside.” In all honesty, if I walk through that door right now and lay eyes on Sloane, I’m going to be screwed. I’ll want to stay put with her for the rest of the night, not let her out of my sight, and Medina will have starved to death and pissed everywhere by morning. No, better to go let him go to the bathroom, feed him, make sure he doesn’t dehydrate and die from the network of slightly leaky, vastly outdated heating pipes down there. It’s sweltering even during the coldest of days, and he’s been sweating it out for hours now. Perhaps the rise in temperature will have given him added incentive to talk.