Isak levered himself onto his side, groaning. “Slow. Jesus! That hurt. You were slow, woman.”
My heart flip-flopped, half because he was alive, half because I… what? Liked being called woman? I frowned at myself. “Here.” I put out my hand out.
“Where were you when Assassin Cow was after me? Ouch, fucking ouch.” He climbed to one knee, balanced there with a hand on his side, a hand on the ground. “But thank you.” A stick thrust up from his shirt. Hell, no, that was through it, blood welling onto the cloth. “I landed on this. Fuck, it hurts.”
To my utter amazement, I was worried he might be badly hurt. My nemesis, hurt.
But he wasn’t quite that anymore.
I slung the rifle over my shoulder and leaned in to look more closely, then I helped him rise. He staggered, straightened with a grimace, then unbuttoned his shirt and slowly extracted that damn stick from his flesh.
“What! Wait!” Should I stop him? Could I?
It was straight and gleamed dark red, and about the length of a man’s hand. Only a little blood seeped from the hole. So neat was the entry wound, it might have been punched by a tool.
I might know first aid and CPR and all, but this made me nauseous.
“We need a doctor for that.”
“No doctors. The nearest is male.” So he couldn’t control him. “I will heal. You know I heal.” He leaned on me, and we returned to the house.
Maybe I did. The grazes from the cliff rescue had been gone in two days. “This could have penetrated something vital. Like your liver… or worse.”
“It hasn’t.”
“Huh. Antibiotics then.”
He grunted. “We have some. Got them off that pharmacist, in case of emergencies like this.”
I had no idea when that was, but I could see he would not budge.
Banjo whined at this human strangeness, at the slowness of our walking and the painful grunts from his master. He got in the way, but apart from stiffness he seemed fine. I would have him checked by the local vet, later.
Once we were inside, he limped to his food bowl and ate some kibble. That must be a good sign.
Isak sat on a chair and let me clean the hole, pick out the bits of bark and dirt and then bandage it.
Then he lay down in bed for a day and a night and a day.
The dog stayed with him, even sneaking up onto the quilt when he could – apart from allowing me to feed him and following Isak when he hobbled to the bathroom. Georgia came by to peer at the patient. She ordered in some men to haul away the carcass. We were not to blame apparently, as the cow was a known psycho.
If only we had been told. What’s done is done.
* * * * *
Dan: We found the vehicle. We stuck a tracker on it.
Jacob: Good. Hold on a sec. I’ll get orders.
Dan: Yep.
Jacob: Boss says keep watching. Find out everything you can. Addresses. Phones. People. He switches cars a lot so be ready for that if it happens. More to come.
* * * * *
When I least expected it, Isak rose like a miracle from bed and entered the kitchen, where I was puzzling over a recipe for something called Toad in the Hole. I’d found an ancient cookbook on a shelf above the fridge.
He picked me up, sat me on the kitchen bench and said quietly. “Thank you for saving me from the cow.”
I snorted. “Said so nicely too. You should not be lifting anything heavy.” So, I was the cow savior. I peered into his icy blue eyes and saw nothing new there, but his actions, his words, those were kind. “Who is in there now, Isak?”
“You said my name.” His lips quirked. “I like that.”
“I do too.” I was so screwed. “Strangely.”
I wasn’t sure of anything. I’d been waiting for some damning, horrible, evil thing to be done to me. It was his way. Always.
“I want to look under that bandage.”
While he stood in front of me, I sat on a chair in the kitchen and removed the dressing. This was a wound I would swear should have – according to Google – caused internal damage. It was now no more than a scab surrounded by dark pink tissue. A stick had gone in there. Any deeper and it would have been projecting from his back.
“Damn. So clean.”
“That’s me. Clean.”
I laughed. Ohmigod, I’d laughed at his joke. He made a joke. It felt like a milestone.
Your toddler took his first steps today? Well, my evil fucking monster guy made a fucking joke. Beat that.
Shirtless, he stretched his arms toward the ceiling, making his muscles lengthen and shift. He groaned in relief.
“Much better.”
I dared to reach and touch him, gently stroking over that wound. He shivered as if tickled, and I smirked.
“I found your weakness? Tickling. You are—”
He caught my hand and stopped me.
I looked up and whispered, “Like some dark superhero. That healed way too fast.”
“More like a supervillain.” Thoughtfully, he pulled my hand to his lips and kissed it, while giving me a very villainous under-the-brow stare.
That had not been a threat. An amused remark, I guess?
“Yes.”
The quiet note in that conversation drifted along for the rest of that day, and still I felt as if a thunderstorm was in the offing. Fire and brimstone, danger and evil and corruption must be brewing past the horizon.
Yet, even if my list had been sidelined, I was certain Isak was turning into something better. I had written out that list and pinned it to a cupboard in the kitchen, and I hadn’t seen him look at it once.
Not that I’d
