Page 2 of The Sharpest Edges

She pays him no mind, though. Dean could be an escape artist. He could be a murderer for all she knows, but in this moment, none of that matters much. Her main goal is to help where she can, and she can’t do her job if she can’t even touch him.

So she tries again, slower this time. “I’m Ava. I’ll get you all cleaned up, wipe the blood off your face, is that okay?”

He is wary but gives her the barest of nods, clearly desperate enough to see again that he’ll allow her to help.

She steadies his head with a soft hand against his stubbled cheek, prompting another hard flinch but he doesn’t move away this time, so she continuesremoving the blood from his eyes and forehead, revealing a deep gash into his hairline that needs stitches. It’s her job, but she doesn’t enjoy hurting someone who’s already in pain, even for their own good. This one is on edge already, far more agitated and untrusting than she often sees, and she’s seen a lot. Taking a needle to him isn’t something she’s looking forward to.

When he finally blinks up at her with clear eyes, they’re softer and less hostile than she expected. A pretty shade of blue through long lashes, partly obscured by dark hair. She gives him a reassuring smile, trying to be someone safe in a place that never is. She’s never had a Florence Nightingale complex, but it makes it easier on everyone involved if the inmates trust her. Much as they can at least, and the vast majority have been easy enough to get along with. In between the cat calls, lewd looks, and descriptive offers to fuck her, of course.

Those are the outliers though, the majority of her patients are polite and calm. They appreciate help with their injuries and are happy to be anywhere except in their respective cells.

“Can you tell me where it hurts?”

“Everywhere. Mostly my stomach, I think, and my head,” he replies with a frown, still shaking hard enough to clink the cuffs to the rail, shock catching up and taking over where fear left off.

She’s already pressing gauze to his head, clotting the flow of blood where it soaks through. “Bleeding has slowed, which is good, but that’ll need a few stitches to close up tight and not leave a scar. Can I see your stomach? Did someone kick you?”

He nods, turning with a wince, holding his hands together in a death grip when she abandons his head wound to reach for his shirt, his fingers clenching hard enough to whiten atthe knuckles. He’s having a hard time, even more so now that she’s lifted the fabric to see the injuries below.

A firm shoe print is screen printed onto his skin from mid-rib to belly button, as if someone had caught him just right when his shirt flew up to receive that kick to the stomach. It’s a stark contrast to the old and faded scars that settled into his torso before anyone here got a chance to touch him. She wonders if part of his aversion to her attention is about exposing those lines etched across his skin like a spider’s web to a complete stranger.

If the roles were reversed, if she had to show her scars to someone brand new she isn’t so sure she’d be able to handle it either. She can barely look at them in the mirror and prefers to pretend they never happened. Seeing marks so familiar painted onto someone else could easily have ghosts of her past surging to the forefront if she’s not careful.

Dean’s muscles quiver but she doesn’t hesitate, pushing a little here and there, trying to zero in on where it hurts the most for an accurate diagnosis. “Tell me where.”

He sucks in a hard breath when she gets to the third rib and an even harder one near his lower belly, pulling away again, guilt flashing in his eyes the moment it happens, but she shakes her head. “It’s okay, I’ve seen all I need to. You’d need x-rays to know for sure, but I suspect a fractured rib at the least, broken at the worst, soft tissue bruising in your lower abdomen. You could have internal bleeding, it’s impossible to know yet. We don’t have that equipment here, so I’ll have to consult the doctor to make that call. He’ll also want to look at your toe and set the bone, either here or at the hospital when you’re x-rayed.”

“You ain’t the doctor?” His southern accent is morepronounced with disappointment, like the idea of having to accept yet another person poking and prodding him is too much.

“No, just the nurse. I handle most of the cases, but yours might need the real deal. If you have internal injuries that’s nothing to play around with.”

His eyes flutter closed, and he leans back, nodding in agreement because he has no other choice. They both know it. All the times she’s asked his permission for anything they’ve done here has been as a courtesy only. His consent is not required, never has been. If he needs a doctor he’ll get one whether he likes it or not.

She makes quick work of taking his vitals which come back surprisingly normal. A good sign. Takes the coffee from Nick when he walks in a moment later and conveys her request for the doctor, sending him out of the room again with a huff.

She can stitch Dean up in the meantime, which is what she does next, threading the needle and swabbing the gash, meticulously pulling his skin back together. She’s numbed the area as much as she’s allowed, with extra amounts of cream, but the wince on his face confirms he feels every stitch.

She tries to distract him with poorly planned conversation. “So, what prompted all this?”

Well, that was a bad choice. He probably doesn’t want to talk about why he got into a fight. She could have asked him anything else, but it’s been the question on the tip of her tongue the whole time. The most obvious thing.

“Took somethin’ someone offered me from the commissary. Package of donuts. Them little chocolate ones that come in a pack. Didn’t wanna be rude and refuse. Didn’t know that meant I owed him and had to pay ‘em back. He never said, but then he came collecting and I didn’t have anything.”

He’s completely dejected about the entire thing. Embarrassed and sad and a little incredulous about the cause of his injuries, like he can’t believe all this happened because of some donuts.

“That doesn’t seem very fair to me. I’ve seen far worse happen for far less, though.” She finishes up her work and offers him a few tablets of extra-strength Tylenol.

“How it is in here. Ain’t nothing fair. First time in, but I shoulda known. I wasn’t thinking.”

He has to sit up to take the pills, straining with the effort and doubling over against the rail, and she only barely resists the urge to help prop him up. To let him lean on her as much as he needs to. The cold metal rail isn’t tall enough to offer any support, but she keeps her distance. There’s a line and she can’t cross it. Not even for this one, who seems harmless enough and has an innocent face.

They are rarely harmless though, and an innocent face means nothing. Not in here. She knows that all too well. She isn’t about to make a stupid mistake that’ll prove Nick right. Regardless of how much Dean sparks her instincts to soothe and make it better, and he does seem to do that. He looks entirely out of his element and that makes her want to reach out and flick the hair from his eyes and offer him some respite from the dangers she knows he faces back in the pod. Even so, his story could be a lie. It wouldn’t be the first time, and there are other, more imposing things about him that overshadow the innocence she finds in his eyes. Large, broad shoulders and twitching muscles, arms that could crush her without a second thought.

There is a reason it took three of them back in the cell block to take him down. He doesn’t look the type to be an easy target,but he lacks the overflow of fake confidence the others possess. Everyone here is all bluster, even when hurting, especially when hurting. To be otherwise is considered a weakness and the pack will sniff it out on sight. He hasn’t gotten that memo though, and his far-away gaze tells her that his reaction to all this might have more than a single layer.

She rechecks his stitches one last time before covering them with gauze and a few butterfly bandages. The doctor breezes in not long after, taking over where she left off, and ordering an x-ray that would require transport to an outside facility.

“Can’t have an inmate dying on our watch. Wouldn’t be good for press,” he says under his breath to one of the guards.

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