Target on Our Backs
Page 70

Karissa obliges.
He seems satisfied after a moment and puts the stethoscope away. "No cramping, no bleeding, no other issues?"
She hesitates. "My head is killing me."
"We can do something about that," he says. "Anything else?"
"No," she says. "Nothing."
He smiles softly, laying a hand on her shoulder, patting it. "You're going to be just fine."
She looks relieved, as she closes her eyes briefly, returning his smile as she hops back down off the counter, carefully not to hurt her foot more. "Thank you."
"My pleasure."
"I'm going to go take the longest bath known to man now, wash off this stink."
"You'll want to be careful not to get your stitches wet for the next forty-eight hours," he calls after her. "They should come out in about two weeks."
She nods, acknowledging she heard him, as she limps past me. Killer follows, as usual, giving me a wide berth as he leaves. Carter starts to pack up his things as I stroll further into the kitchen.
He glances at me. "I'm guessing congratulations are in order."
I pause beside him. "Give it to me straight."
"I always do," he says, turning to lean back against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. "Like I said, she'll be fine. A couple Tylenol and a good night's sleep and she'll be good as new by morning."
"And the baby?"
He hesitates.
Hesitates.
"It's so early on, there's no way to know. Ether effects at a cellular level, and at nine weeks, the cells would be rapidly changing. So much can go wrong at this stage. Chances are, it'll all be fine, but if it isn't, well… not even the greatest doctor in the world could do anything to change it."
That's about what I expected to hear.
"I appreciate you coming," I say. "Before you leave, I need you to do me one more favor."
"What's that?"
"Check to make sure the mutt is okay."
He looks at me peculiarly. "What's wrong with the dog?"
"Let's just say he went up against the same opponent as Karissa and he didn't fare any better."
"Ah." He motions toward the doorway. "Lead the way."
Killer is lying in the hallway, right at the top of the stairs. He growls when I approach, but he lets Carter crouch down and look him over, not trying to get away.
"He seems all right," he says after a moment. "A little banged up, maybe a broken rib or two. The blood on him, well..."
"It's not his."
Dr. Carter looks at me as he stands back up. "I can tell."
He's got questions he really wants to ask, questions about what the hell happened tonight, but I'm not going to answer them for him and he knows it.
"He should probably be brought in for some X-rays," he continues. "Otherwise, he'll be okay."
"Take him with you, check him out," I say. "I'll come by later and get him back."
"Sure thing."
I stand there, watching as he leaves my house with the dog. I'll pay him whenever I pick Killer up.
I make my way down the hallway, toward the bathroom, finding the door cracked open. Quietly, I push it open further, pausing there as I look in.
Karissa is in the tub, covered in bubbles, her injured foot propped up along the side, out of the water. She turns her head, sensing my presence, and smiles softly, like she's happy to see me.
"Good news," I tell her. "The mutt's going to live."
"That is good news," she says. "And what about you?"
"What about me?"
"Are you going to be all right?"
Something about the way she asks that stalls me.
People in my world only care about what you can do for them. Friends only need you until they don't need you anymore. But Karissa asks me that like my answer matters, like whether or not I'm going to be okay makes a difference to her.
I shouldn't be surprised about it. She loves me, after all. But it's been a very long time since somebody else gave a damn about how I was feeling. A very long time since someone asked me those words.
"My heart's still beating," I tell her. "That tells me I'm going to be just fine."
A cold front moved in.
That's what this morning's newspaper told me.
I found it crumpled up, tossed in the trashcan beside Naz's desk in the den, hastily—angrily—thrown away. He was sitting at his desk, staring at his books in silence. I had no idea what he was thinking, but I didn't ask.
Instead, I fished out the newspaper and glanced at it, seeing the front-page headline: Corlears Hook Park Murders
I skimmed the article, my stomach dropping when I encountered my name. Karissa Vitale. Lone survivor of the first attack. That was all it really said about me, but looking at Naz, I knew that was already too much.
The cold front had come overnight, the temperature dropping into the fifties instead of the usual seventy-five this time of year. I could feel the cold deep within my bones, like if we don't do something quickly, I may never again be warm.
"I'm ready," I told him, throwing the newspaper away again.
He tore his gaze from the books, meeting my eyes. "You're ready."
I nodded carefully. "I'm ready to go."
An hour later, here we are, sitting in his car as he drives through the city, in no hurry to get anywhere. It's not like we really even have somewhere to be, anyway. Time to wrap up a few loose ends before we can leave the city.
We're starting over. A clean slate.
When we reach Greenwich Village, Naz pulls over, swinging into the entrance of the parking garage beside the old dorm I used to call home. He puts the car in park but leaves the engine running.
I look at him, surprised. "What are we doing here?"
He nods toward the building. "I figured you'd want to see her."
My gaze drifts that direction, and I see her. Melody. She's standing in front of the building, leaning back against it, shivering. She's wearing shorts and a t-shirt, like she thinks it's still summertime, refusing to embrace the cold. Of course. She looks like she's waiting for something, or someone... I don't know… but I can guess. For now, though, she's just standing there, quiet, all alone.
I watch her for a moment.
I don't move.
I never gave much thought to this part of it all.
"Should I?" I ask quietly. I'm just not sure. "Wouldn't it be better to just... disappear?"
Naz doesn't answer that right away, the car still running, his gaze out the windshield. I'm not sure if he even knows the right answer.
"Someone she loved disappeared once," he says finally. "It shouldn't happen again."
Paul.
It took her a while to recover from that heartbreak, although I know some part of her probably never truly will. The what if's broke her, fracturing off a piece of her soul. Melody always lived a life of privilege, where everything was beautiful and nothing hurt. She didn't know pain and suffering. She never learned what it was like to have to let go. Love, to her, was innocent and pure. It wasn't until Paul that she realized that sometimes, no matter how hard you fight it, love is just going to hurt.