Scythe & Sparrow (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #3)(25)
“Fuck.”
I grab my knife first, because one can never be too careful, of course, and more important, I just paid a shit ton of money for this thing and it’s already proved itself worth every penny. It takes a minute to figure out the position of the straps, but I manage to harness it against my back. Then I gather my crutches and hobble to the truck to figure out what to do.
When I open the door, the scent of hot blood and piss and shit smacks me in the face. I undo Eric’s seat belt and shove him toward the center console until his bloodied torso and floppy arms drop toward the passenger seat.
“I’m not sure I’m cut out for this,” I admit as I haul myself onto the rail and use my crutch to press down on the accelerator. The wheels spin and drop deeper into the sand. I try shifting the truck into reverse, but that doesn’t get me anywhere either. My phone rings on my seventh attempt to free the vehicle, when the realization has crept in that I am well and truly fucked. I cut the engine and brace myself in the hope that my gut feeling is right about the good doctor being not-so-good, even though I have nothing to go on lately that my instincts are in any way reliable. “Hi, Dr. Kane.”
A warm chuckle flows through the line. “You’ve been living at my house for a week. Fionn is fine.”
“Right. Fionn …”
“What’s the matter? Is something wrong?”
I squint out across the ravine that’s just a few short feet away, yet feels unreachable. “I’m in a bit of a quandary. I got the jump on a fleabag townie and it kind of … backfired.”
There’s a pause. “You … what …?”
“Got the jump. On a townie. He was a fleabag.”
“What do you mean by ‘got the jump’ on him?”
I cast a frown at the cooling body. Well, here goes. “Maybe you should just come and take a look. I could use a hand. Or two. I’ll drop you a pin. It’s probably best to keep it to yourself.”
Fionn takes a sharp breath to ask a question, but I hang up with a cringe and quickly drop him a pin before I pocket my phone.
“Well,” I say as I pat Eric’s lifeless arm. “This whole experience could have gone better, probably. But I didn’t pass out, so I’ll take that as a win. And you brought celebratory beer.”
Before the nausea creeps in once more, I gather my crutches and slam the doors shut before I limp my way to the back of the truck. I pop the tailgate down and grab a can of Coors Light from the cooler. Fionn blows up my phone with calls I don’t answer and texts I mostly ignore. There’s only one response I can give to his barrage of questions: You’ll see what I mean when you get here.
Thirty minutes later, I spot his truck barreling down the deserted road, a cloud of dust billowing in his wake. He slows when he nears the location of the dropped pin, but it takes him a moment to spot me waving from the bed of the truck, the vehicle clearly not where anyone would expect it to be. Fionn stops and cuts the engine, then marches in my direction, steps that slow and nearly halt as he takes in the state of my clothes. And then he’s running straight for me.
“Jesus, Rose,” he says, his Irish accent breaking free as panic etches lines in his face. “What happened? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.” Though I give him a reassuring smile, it does nothing to untangle the knot of anxiety that twists my guts. Fionn’s eyes travel over every inch of me, searching for injuries that he won’t find. “I had a slight incident.”
“Slight incident,” he echoes, though it seems to take a second for the words to click together in his thoughts, his focus still consumed by hunting for the source of the blood. “What do you mean, ‘slight incident’?”
“There was this guy—” is all I manage to get out before Fionn’s gripped my shoulders, his eyes molten as they pierce right into me.
“Some guy did this to you?”
“No. Not exactly.” I look away to the tinted rear windows of the truck, but when I turn back, Fionn’s still watching me with an intensity that scorches the chambers of my heart. “This guy was really a piece of shit. I was in a shop and he was threatening a woman over the phone, and then he tried to come on to me with some lame-ass line about a fishing hole or some shit, I dunno, I don’t know shit about fish—”
“The point, Rose.”
“The point is, I …” I look to the grass. The sky. The ravine. The truck, though it seems to mock me. I shrug, trying to shrink from the weight of Fionn’s gaze that still burns a hole into my face. When I finally meet his eyes once more, I cringe. “I started it.”
“You started it …”
“Yeah.”
“Aren’t you supposed to say he started it?”
“Probably. Maybe he did start it with the whole dickhead-phone-call-fish-loser thing. So, more accurately, I guess I finished it …?”
Fionn lets go of my arms. He takes a step back and runs a hand through his hair, his expression slack as though the blossoming epiphany has wiped it clean of emotion. He walks to the front of the vehicle and opens the driver’s side door, and I hear the sharp intake of breath, the curses on the next exhale. The truck jostles as he steps up on the driver’s side and checks for signs of life. I already know there’s nothing to find.