Page 9 of The Sharpest Edges

“Yes, it’ll be awhile until you start feeling back to normal. If it’s not worse, then that’s a good sign. Consistent pain, unfortunately, is par for the course in your case.”

He nods, assuming the same already. She hasn’t checked his splint because he managed to avoid puddles today and his head wound has begun to close, so now it’s just the two of them in silence again until he musters up the courage to try his turn at making an effort. She’d done it the last time, asking him what he did for a living and while he can’t ask her the same because the answer is obvious, he can try for something that feels safe enough. “Why’d you wanna work here? I mean, there are better places to be a nurse. It’s a shit hole here.”

Well, that came out stumbled and abrupt. It sounded way better in his head than it did in real life, but she smirks at him, her voice teasing when she responds. “So you’re asking what’s a girl like me doing in a place like this?”

He nods, the skin on his cheeks warming at her tone that sounds…flirtatious? No, can’t be. Couldn’t be. Not with him.

“It was easy to get. That’s the short answer because you’re right, no one really wants to work here. I didn’t either, but I know Greg and his wife. We’re friends and he put in a good word for me. It was after the accident, and I needed something. Anything. Quick.”

Dean frowns, feeling like a dick for once again bringing up bad memories, but she doesn’t seem that bothered, onlyresigned and matter-of-fact.

“It’s turned out okay, though. I’ve settled in here. It’s not as bad as I assumed it would be and the pay is good. I’m lucky. Really.”

She could be the first person to consider herself lucky to be in prison. Working here or not.

He knows the pay is good, a friend of Boone’s from his army days got a job as a guard in another county and would go on and on about how great the money was, in between telling anyone who would listen how much the job sucked.

Dean assumes everyone here gets some form of hazard pay for having to deal with the prisoners and it’s well deserved as far as he’s concerned. Saw one of them toss a handful of their own shit at a guard the other day, getting it into the other man’s eyes and mouth. The prisoner earned himself a taser to the stomach for his efforts and the guard rushed out of the room once he’d been secured, frantically wiping at his face with a disgusted scowl.

Hard to imagine any amount of money being compensation enough for that.

“Think it’s this place that’s lucky to have you,” he says quickly before he can talk himself out of it. She does a solid job and treats him and the others with respect. That’s hard to come by.

What he really feels, though, is that it’s him who’s lucky to have ended up in her infirmary. Even if all they do is talk about surface-level stuff while she’s checking his injuries it’s still a bright spot in his day, a hundred times better than being back in the pod again and it doesn’t hurt that she’s easy to look at. Or that she seems to enjoy his company even a tiny bit. Which he tells himself is only his mind playing tricks on him.

He’s replayed the moment she touched his ankle on a loop since it happened. The way she’d spoken so softly, how her thumb had brushed over the bone light as a butterfly’s wings, and the goosebumps on his skin she left behind.

That could be written off as a way for her to calm him down because much as he tries, he still shies away if he’s hurting enough. He can’t control his reflexes in those moments. When an injury is obvious and accessible someone always makes it worse.

Oddly enough, she doesn’t call him on it and that alone feels like a gift.

“Maybe,” she replies, watching him watch her. “So, what’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?”

Her question is fair enough and it’s about time he told her what landed him behind bars. He lifts his hand without thinking, reaching for an itch at his hairline. The cuffs stop him, but the circle around his wrist feels loose enough to slip his hand right out.

He hadn’t noticed before, hadn’t paid much attention. He was only glad that they weren’t biting into his skin, but now he’s staring at his own hand barely inside the cuff, the fat part of his thumb already past the metal that dangles off his fingers.

It happened with hardly any prompting from him whatsoever. All he had to do was raise his hand the right way.

For a moment he stares at it, perplexed. It could be a setup somehow, but the only person responsible is the guard, so he dismisses that thought soon after, deciding the newbie made a mistake and that’s all there is to it.

Until he looks up to find Ava plastered up against the cabinets, all previous curiosity about his sentence is replaced with enough fear that he thinks she might have a panic attackat any moment. One hand squeezes the countertop and the other covers her chest where that nasty scar resides.

Her exhales come out hard and fast, eyes wide like she’s never seen him before, and expects him to leap across the room and attack her now that he’s free. All he would have to do is drop that one cuff and it would leave him unattached to the railing, ready and able to move where he wanted.

They stare at each other for a few tense moments, caught in the vacuum of this small room and all the possibilities of how this could play out. Her lungs stop working and she holds her breath, the sound of dead silence kick-starting him out of the stupor he’d lapsed into.

Slowly, he reaches over with his other hand and puts the cuff back in place, clicking the metal down hard enough to push into his wrist and secure himself to the rail once again.

She watches his every move with rapt attention and sags into the edge of the countertop once he’s finished. One shaky hand comes up to cover her mouth, her words breathy and horrified. “Oh God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t…it’s not….”

She can’t stop apologizing like he’s gonna hold it against her for assuming he’s dangerous. They’ve only had a couple of visits. They don’t know each other. Not really, and this moment only highlights that even more.

“It’s okay,” he says, barely a whisper, watching her gather herself up again.

“It’s not okay, you haven’t given me any reason to assume that you’d do anything wrong. It isn’t you, Dean.” Her voice quivers as she raises a palm flat over the scar again. “It’s this. It’s what happened before and I can’t talk about that, but I’m sorry for thinking that you’d do the same thing. Even for asecond.”

He suspected someone hurt her here, but to know for sure is enraging. He wants to hunt that asshole down and slice into his skin the same way he cut into hers. Somehow, he keeps that anger in check to avoid setting her off again. “Said it’s okay and it is. Got every right to assume. I’m in here, aren’t I? Means I haven’t earned any trust and I get that. I won’t hurt you, though.”

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