Page 60 of Steel Rain

Chapter 27

Ajax

IstoppedtheAudiin the detached garage. It’scalleda garage, only by the grace of God. It’s really an carriage house from the olden days, fitted with a door that rolls upward. In the bowels of the old thing are old carriages, spare parts, and buckets of paint. The space had been forgotten about before Eoghan had it cleaned for me to use.

I stepped out of the garage and onto the path to the gym.

The path had disappeared, covered in a thick, even layer of snow. The only markings were my own footprints, as I waded through the white snowstorm to the gym.

I was unlocking the door when something caught my eye. A movement under the white. What the fuck?

I tapped it with my shoe, and saw a pale, white hand. “Jesus Christ!”

I started digging. I saw a small white face, surrounded by black, wet hair.

My heart sank to my feet as I realized what I was looking at. Pale and blue, I scooped Sin out of the snow and jostled her into my arms, bridal style.

I unlocked the door, and almost slipped as the snow on my boots melted and created puddles on the ground.

She moaned in my arms, and I shushed her.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I growled, the fury growing inside me. “What the fuck were you doing out there without a fucking jacket!”

I was horrified, seeing her bare arms. She had on nothing but a pair of shorts, now soaked and freezing.

I stepped with my boots across the mat, up the stairs to my apartment. I put her in the bathtub, turned on the shower to its hottest setting and let it soak her, clothes and all. I pulled my shirt off from over my head, tossing it to the side.

I didn’t have time to be tactful. I grabbed a nearby knife and cut her shirt and bra off of her. The fabric cracked, icicles falling into the white clawfoot tub.

“Christ, even your hair has turned into ice.” Her hair was sticking out in spikes, completely frozen. “What the fuck were you doing out there? Have you lost your mind?”

“I had nowhere else to go.” Her teeth rattled.

That was a good sign. She was shivering, her body fighting to restore some warmth into her body.

“What does that even mean?” I shook my head. “Are you insane?”

I cut off her shorts and left her in nothing but her panties for modesty. Though, since her tits were out, I wasn’t sure that really mattered. The intent was there though.

I pushed her forward in the bathtub. I stripped to my boxers, and got in behind her, wrapping her in my arms.

“What happened?” I asked again, quietly, into the shell of her ear. Even the individual strands of hair were cold. But at least she was back to being as pale as a sheet, instead of bordering on blue. I nudged the little lever on the drain with my toe, letting the tub fill up with hot water. It was almost scalding hot, but that was what she needed, so I sucked it up. “Relax, Sin.” I told her, stroking a hand through her hair, and pulling her head to rest on my chest.

I don’t think I had ever called her by her nickname before.

I had only called her by her first name once, back on the mat when she was in her fury. It was like I was calling her back to the land of the living, or maybe just the land of sanity, and only her real name would do.

I should scold her for her stupidity. She could have gotten herself killed.

She would have died on my stoop. I wanted to yell at her, to dress her down, to call her and her antics pure insanity. But I couldn’t help that niggling feeling in the back of my mind that there was something else going on with her. Something bad. Something far beneath the surface that I couldn’t see.

She hadn’t just taken a happy little jaunt in an Upstate New York winter. Something had caused it.

“Sinead?” I said, this time a little more pleading, a little less demanding. I adjusted to my side, pushing her further on my shoulder so I could look down at her face. What I saw there told me that my intuition had been correct. “Fuck!”

I took a hand and cupped her cheek where a blue bruise formed. Her lip was cut and swollen. Her eye was black and shut.

“Who did this to you?” I growled, low. Then I cleared my throat, took the anger out of it, and flatly asked again. “Tell me who did this to you.”

---