“OK, I’ll make you a deal: you shut up about my credit score and swear to tell no one else about it — even though I don’t give a flying fuck about what the number is, or really even fucking understand it, I’m just tired of your gloating — and I’ll tell you why I wanted the money.”
I nod, chastened. “OK, deal.”
“I need it for my mother. She’s in debt. A lot of debt. And I’m the only help she’s got. I’ve disappointed her a lot in life, I know she’s not proud or happy about the decisions I’ve made, but I can’t let her down. I have to come through. She raised me all on her own and, if I don’t come up with the money, she’ll lose her home,” he says. He looks so different as he speaks — smaller, scared, and uncertain. This isn’t a problem he can fight his way through and it’s shaken him at a deep level.
He might be out of his element, but this is my realm of expertise. And I know all about what it’s like to try to overcome a loved one’s disappointment; working at some no-name bank at a job that’s barely more than a predatory payday loan salesperson is not how I saw my life turning out. It isn’t how my dad saw things turning out, either.
“OK, Blaze, I’ll help you.”
His grip on my leg tightens at those words. And his downcast look turns hopeful. “You will?”
I nod. I intend it to look confident but, with the alcohol burning through my veins and turning my cheeks a furious red, I feel the nod come across as a sloppy wobble.
“I will. I’m sure there are a lot of options for your mom, things that maybe you or her haven’t thought about, and we can sit down and sort things out together. Even though it seems complicated, there are rules that we can use, these sort of things — loans, bankruptcy, foreclosure — all work inside a defined legal framework, so I am certain we have options. Do you have any of her information here with you?”
He squeezes my leg again. Gentle. And fixes me with a concerned look. “I’d like that, Tiffany. But we can talk about it later — you need to get some sleep.”
I let his words sink in. He’s right. My eyelids feel like they’re lined with lead, they’re so heavy. I’m drunk on cheap jet-fuel-strength whiskey, I’ve lost a fair amount of blood, and I’m suffering the adrenaline crash that comes from being held up at gunpoint and whisked away on the back of an outlaw’s motorcycle; to say I need a little sleep is an understatement.
“OK, I’ll take a nap. Then we can talk about your mom,” I say, frowning as the words come out more slurred than I intend. This whiskey is no joke and my cheeks flush even more in embarrassment at how unintentionally drunk I am.
My eyes shut before he even releases my leg and sleep takes hold of me in an inexorable grip. My chest fills with a deep sigh and I squirm and shuffle into the crevasses of the old couch, hunting for the perfect nook in the cushions.
The air leaves my lungs in a sough as darkness fully subsumes me. At the fringes of my consciousness, I hear a deep voice. “Sleep easy, Tiffany.”
Hours pass in seconds.
And then flaming pain and a sick worry in the depths of my stomach rends my slumber to pieces.
I sit up, not by choice, but because every muscle in my body contracts in agony as a miserable howl rips my lips open.
I’m drowning in icy fire. Sweating, shivering, inflamed and freezing.
Blaze bursts through the front door of the cabin, his cellphone clattering forgotten from his hands.
“Tiffany, what is it?”
I don’t answer, can’t answer.
One calloused hand tenderly touches my forehead. There’s a sucking sound as he takes a quick intake of breath. Worried eyes look down at my foot. I follow them.
My foot is angry red and swollen, with a black hue starting to color the inflamed veins that spiderweb from the wound.
“Infected,” he says. A whistling sharp intake of breath. “Bad.”
“How bad?” I gasp, forcing the words out between teeth clenched so tight they feel like they could crack.
He peels back the bandage and kneels to inspect my foot. Darkness crosses his face, and he grimaces.
“If you don’t get to a hospital, you will die.”
Chapter Four
Blaze
Her oval face becomes the most perfect, pretty mask of shock I’ve ever seen; no matter what she might suspect — and she’s not dumb, I’m sure she suspects the truth — hearing that you’re on the pathway to death always hits like a punch to the gut.
“I’m dying?”
I put on a hand on her shoulder. She’s soaked in sweat and shivering. This is way, way beyond anything I’ve got the talent to manage, and that is saying a lot.
“Your wound is infected. Bad. I don’t know what it is — viral, bacteria, whatever — I just know that, with the symptoms you’re showing, you need a full-fledged doctor to take care of you or else I’ll be digging a six-foot-deep hole back behind this cabin.”
“You wouldn’t really bury me out here, would you? At this crappy cabin? It’s so gross.”
I can’t help it — I laugh. Even on the verge of death, she’s still got a stick up her butt.
“No, I’d take you to a cemetery. One of the nice ones. You’d have the finest tombstone and the best hole in the ground you could ever imagine.”
She rests back against the couch,
