Page 28 of The Care of Broken Things
“You alright?” Eli asked as soon as they were out of earshot.
“Fine.”
But he wasn’t fine. Adrenaline was shooting through his body. His hand itched to push Eli behind him even though the danger was already past.
“Jesus, how long was I out?” Eli asked, his eyes on Frank and the prisoner he was assisting.
“You needed the sleep.”
Eli hissed as he rolled to his feet. “I think my ass is broken.”
He glanced at the ass in question. It looked perfectly fine to him. More than fine. He moved his eyes to safer pastures, and his mind toward other directions. It was true what Hailey had said about the inflammation. Though Eli was eating smaller portions and still slowly dropping weight, the food was taking its toll. The manlookedlike the pinnacle of virility, but hismovements were those of an older man. He almost offered him a hand up, but decided against it. Eli was doing his best to hide his pain. He wasn’t going to abort those efforts with useless gestures. If he wanted to help Eli—and his instinctive reaction to Big Tom had proven that—he had to come up with a better plan. Because he was failing. The predators were making that abundantly clear.
Eli’s ban on violence was starting to be realized, and with it came increasing chutzpah. The first couple of times people bumped into Eli, Samuel said nothing. But as time wore on, the assaults grew bolder, until Samuel couldn’t take it anymore. When Racer sent Eli a wink instead of an apology, he took twin handfuls of the man’s jumpsuit and launched him into the wall.
Eli was furious. But not at gross-ass Racer—athim.
“Am I a pushover? Is that what you think?”
The question seemed like a trap, so Samuel decided to ignore it. “He grabbed your ass, and you did nothing.”
“He didn’t grab shit.”
But he had. Samuel was sure of it. “He’ll grab your dick next, and then what? You still going to ignore that?”
“I’m handling it.”
“You aren’t.”
The argument meant dinner that night was an awkward and largely silent affair. Samuel wasn’t sure what to do. He didn’t think walking away was the answer, but if he tried to say so, they’d just end up arguing again, and he didn’t want that. It wasn’t like Eli was glaring at him or anything, and the bowl that had been pushed into his hands had been given to him with a quiet, “Here, puppy.” He still didn’t know the meaning of that nickname, but he knew it wasn’t an insult, and hearing it put a lump in his throat that made it hard to eat. Still, he ate every bite (without tasting it) and then forced out, “I’m sorry.”
Eli set down his fork and sighed. “Forget it. I’m not angry. I just don’t you getting hurt.”
But Samuel was still angry. Angry at Racer, angry at the prison, and angry at Eli, too, for being so goddamn quiescent about it all. But he tried not to be, and as he lay down to sleep that night, he told himself he wasn’t going to explode the next time. That he’d stand down.
And he did. He said nothing when Ned snapped a towel at Eli’s ass in the showers, and nothing again when Trenches put his arm around Eli’s shoulder and squeezed one of his pecs. He had to bite down on his tongue to do it, but he managed.
It was a mistake.
He knew it was a mistake while it was happening, but he didn’t want to fight with Eli. The way Eli ruffled his hair afterwards and said, “Stop worrying,” didn’t help much, but he tried to believe that the man was right, and that he was just being overprotective.
He should have known better. Hedidknow better. And maybe that was why, when he saw Eli wince one morning while he was getting dressed, he knew, without having to ask, that something had happened. He went right to Eli and jerked up his shirt. It was hard to see bruises on the man’s dark skin, but he was looking very closely, and the mark wasn’t small.
“Who?”
He didn’t recognize the voice that came from his own throat.
Eli yanked his shirt back down. “No one. I took care of it.”
He pressed his hand to the mark, deliberate. Eli jerked away with a hiss. Took care of it, his ass. “Who?” he said again, demanding.
But Eli wasn’t going to answer him. He knew that already, so he didn’t ask a third time. When he tried to leave, Eli grabbedhis wrist, but he shook it off. He wasn’t going to be stopped. He was going to find the culprit and beat the shit out of him. He was going to do worse than beat the shit out of him.
But then he found them. Two of them. Leroy and One-Ball. Leroy was limping, and One-Ball had a shiner so dark it looked painted on. Leroy was moving gingerly, with much wincing. One-Ball was still lying in bed.
He wanted to do worse. He wanted to make it so they could never touch anyone again. But he turned around and walked away.
“Told you I took care of it,” Eli muttered when he saw his face. “Maybe now you won’t treat me like a piece of porcelain.”
