Darkest Sins (Perfectly Imperfect #9)

“No. I’ve just watched Leticia do it a few times.” She ties the thread and looks up, meeting my stare. “To dogs and cats. Not people. Why did you come here instead of going to a hospital?”

“This was closer.”

The girl shakes her head and resumes her work. “What happened?”

“A homeless guy attacked me.”

I get another look, paired with a raised eyebrow this time. She doesn’t believe me. It’s the truth, though. Besides my apartment in New York, I have a few other places scattered around the US where I crash between jobs. But none of them feel like “home.” No place ever has. I guess that makes me “homeless” in a way.

Cub moves on to the next stitch, carefully holding the skin together with her fingers. Her muscles clench, making thetendons on her arms stand out the moment she pierces my skin. Is it the sickening sight of the wound?

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “I suck at this. It must hurt like hell.”

My body goes still. Pain and I have been close friends most of my life. I’ve learned to block it out. Her caring about how I’d feel because of the pinch of a needle is so strange.

It takes only twenty-two sutures to close the cut. They’re uneven and messy, but I don’t mind. The whole ordeal lasted barely ten minutes. I should have made a longer cut.

Cub puts away the needle and exhales. “I need a drink.”

“Are you old enough to drink?”

She meets my gaze and leans slightly forward. “I don’t remember you asking my age when you insisted I sew you up, buddy.”

“I’m pretty sure there isn’t an age limit on that.”

“Smart-ass.” Her lips widen into a small smile. “I think we’ve got some printouts with wound care instructions. They’d be about animals, but make sure you read them anyway. I’d offer you an E-collar as well, but I don’t think we have one in your size.”

“What’s an E-collar?”

“Something the vet clinic patients get.” Her smile grows, and watching it light up her face feels like I’m looking at one of those shining stars again.

I seize her right hand and slowly raise it to my mouth. She sucks in a breath but doesn’t pull away. My lips touch the tips of her fingers, tasting blood. She looks so innocent and pure. What the fuck am I doing? The plan was just to check up on her andhead back the moment I knew everything was all right. It didn’t include slicing my forearm open just so I could talk to her again. Or contemplating doing it again tomorrow. And the day after that.

She’s just a nice girl, probably from a good family, with zero awareness of what happens in the shadow of sordid society. I have no business seeking her out, absorbing her warmth and light, just to steal a few moments before heading back to my bleak existence.

“I should go now,” I say, but I can’t let go of her hand.

My stranger’s breath brushes the tips of my fingers where they are still grazing his lower lip. With him sitting, our faces are at the same height and barely a few inches apart. Once again, I’m captured by his eyes. I can’t escape the magnetic pull of that unwavering stare, compelled to drown in the pale-gray depths. I’m not sure why I’m so fascinated by them. Maybe it’s because everything else about him is black—his clothes, his hair, even the air around him seems darker somehow. His eyes are the only light in his gloomy sphere.

“Do you always wear black?” I whisper.

He tilts his head to the side, perhaps surprised by my question. “Most of the time.”

“Why?”

“Blood stains are harder to see on the dark fabric.”

I drop my gaze to my blood-covered hand still held in his. “You do seem to get hurt a lot.”

“Lately, definitely more often than usual.”

“Maybe, next time, you should go to a hospital.”

“Why?” He releases my fingers. “You wouldn’t want to help me again?”

I meet his stare, and the breath gets stuck in my chest. There’s something in his eyes, something different. They no longer look like empty shells. A sliver of hurt seems to have pierced their stony depths.

“Of course I would,” I say.