“You want to turn around or something?” I asked as I pulled the covers back and began to undress Angel.
“The fuck? You want to turn around or something? I’m the woman here.”
I had been taking care of Angel for so long that it didn’t even fucking dawn on me that someone might think it weird I would change her clothes. “Fine here. Just hurry the hell up.” I shoved the clothes back into the woman’s hands and turned my back so she could help Angel undress and put some warm clothes on.
After a few seconds, I turned back around to see her fully clothed. A massive zip-up sweater, thick wool socks, and thick pants drowned her small frame, but she looked like she was warm.
I let my gaze fall back to the woman who was still sitting next to her. Her eyes were furious when she looked back up to me.
“What the fuck happen to her back?” She asked pointedly.
I glanced at Angel, who had already fallen back to sleep, “We can’t get caught. We can’t go back, or that will be the least of her problems.”
She stood up and looked me deep in the eyes. It had been a long time since anyone had looked at me. Not as a slave, or a fighter but at me. I would do anything to save Angel from ever having to go back to Ruby, but I was running out of options.
“I won’t have no illegal shit going on in my place. If you are telling me the truth and those guys really are trying to take you back to some fucked up shit, I will help you. But if I find out you stole her or any fucked up shit like that, I will sound every fucking alarm you’ve ever heard and let them take you out of here.”
I nodded. A place to lie low. It wasn’t perfect, but we’d been through worse. “We will be out of your way as soon as she is well enough to move around.”
The woman sucked her teeth, “Fat chance that’ll be anytime soon. She needs a lot of recuperation. From the looks of things, so do you.” She looked down at my wrists.
“I’m fine.”
“You want to get an infection and be lying sick right next to her? How are you gonna protect her then?” She asked.
“You’re right. I’ll try and find something for me to wrap up my wrists.”
She turned around and grabbed a small white box from one of the shelves, “How the hell are you going to do that? In case you haven’t noticed, you can’t really leave right now.” She sat down on one of the boxes in the room and pointed to another. “Get that and come over here.”
I used my leg to push the box over to where she was and sat down in front of her. She opened the box, and a sharp metal tool was the first thing I saw. I jumped up immediately. Flashes of Ruby or Harrington cutting me, stabbing to me, jumped to the forefront of my mind. I’d be damn if I let this woman do that to me too.
“Hey, hey…” She put her hands up to show me she wasn’t a threat. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
“What the fuck is that? You working with them. What is in the fucking box.” My hand was already hovering over the gun in my waist.
“What is what? It’s a first aid kit.” The woman swallowed hard as she bent slowly and opened the top of the box. The metal object still there. “This? Is this what you are freaking out about?” She lifted the object.
I relaxed a little bit, what looked so menacing a few moments prior was just a fucking pair of tweezers.
“I think they use them for stitches or something, tweezers.” She dropped the offending object back in the box.
I let my head fall before I sat back on the box in front of her. “I don’t do well with sharp objects.”
“Ha, the lies.” The major freakout I just had seconds earlier completely forgotten, “Have you seen your skin, I am pretty sure all those tattoos aren’t stick ons.” She smiled and picked up my arm to look at my wrists. I sucked in a breath at the small contact.
When was the last time someone other than Angel touched me in a caring way? Years. It had been years.
“This looks pretty bad. I’m going to need to clean it out, and it’s going to hurt a lot.” She squinted up at me.
“It’s okay,” I replied as she pulled out a few bottles of liquid from the box and carefully poured it on the first wound.
She looked up to my face after the first pour, “That doesn’t hurt?”
Now I had to chuckle. She knew nothing of pain. What she was doing felt like a feather against my skin. “No. Do what you have to do. I’m fine.” I looked away as she dabbed and cleaned the cuts on both wrists. The cuts themselves weren’t that bad; they were already layered over the scars other binds had left. She wrapped them up and made sure to clean up the area.
“Inkpop. I heard her call you that. Is that your name?” She asked as she threw one of the used pieces of gauze in the trash.
“No, just a nickname. My name is Ink, and she came up with the Pop part on her own.” The woman looked at me expectantly; she wanted to know why. “I was skinny before all this, and she made fun of me one day, said my head was too big for my body. She said I looked like a lollipop.” I shrugged my shoulders, a little miffed I’d told her the story. “Inkpop.”
The woman put a hand to her mouth and tried to hide her laughter.
“Go ahead, get it out.” I waved my hand in a circular motion so she could get
