Chapter 3
His hand hadn't moved. Neither had mine.
The glow was gone but the heat of it stayed, like a lamp left on too long. He was still holding my wrist palm-up, his thumb not quite touching the faint line where the cut had been. His other hand rested underneath, steadying me. The bandage was wadded on the desk beside us, a loose roll of white gauze with a dark smear on the end where it had stuck.
I tried to pull back. He didn't let go right away.
"Hold still," he said. "Let it set."
"I am still," I said.
He glanced down and then at his wrist. That quick flick of his eyes was habit. The watch caught the amber light, the gold bezel flashing for half a second. Dark leather strap, black dial. I'd seen it every day in class when he wrote on the board and when he reached for my paper, but I had never paid attention to the time on it until now.
It read 9:47.
He saw me looking. "That's right," he said. He didn't ask what I was thinking. He just turned my wrist a little so the light hit the scar. "You felt it close at about 9:44. Give it a minute before you move it too much."
I swallowed. My throat was dry. "You timed it."
"I time everything I heal," he said. "How long the glow holds, how long it takes to fade. It matters."
It was warm in the room, too warm. The lamp on his desk made a small circle on the wood and left the rest of the office in soft shadow. From the hallway outside came the faint buzz of the vending machine and the tick of the wall clock. I could hear my own breathing and his, not quite in sync.
He finally eased his grip and let my hand rest on the desk, palm still up. He reached for the metal tin he'd opened earlier. Inside were gauze pads, medical tape, a small brown bottle.
"You don't need the bandage anymore," I said. My voice sounded small.
"No, not for pressure," he said. "But you still need medicine. You're an omega without a wolf spirit. Even if you heal fast, you still need medicine. That's what I told you."
He said it exactly like he had before, not as a question. I remembered the words because he had said them while holding the bandage, before the light. Even if you heal fast, you still need medicine. At the time I'd thought it was just something to say while he was unwrapping me. Now it sounded like a rule he wasn't going to let me break.
"I'm fine now," I said. "You fixed it."
"I closed the skin," he said. "That doesn't mean it's clean underneath."
He unscrewed the brown bottle. The smell hit me, sharp and medicinal, iodine. He tipped a little onto a fresh gauze pad.
"This will sting," he said, and looked at me to check. I nodded before I could think about it.
He dabbed the line. It stung, less than the cut had, more than the glow had. I didn't pull away. He watched my face while he did it, not the wound.
"When did you fall?" he asked, quiet, like he wasn't changing the subject at all.
I had my answer ready. I'd had it ready since I walked in with my sleeve pulled down over the bandage. "After last period. On the steps outside the gym. I missed the bottom one."
He nodded once. He taped the gauze pad lightly over the scar, not wrapped, just covered. His movements were careful.
"What time does last period end?" he asked.
"Three fifteen."
"And you came straight here?"
The question was soft but it pinned me. I felt the heat go up my neck.
"I went to the library first," I said. "Then I came here."
He sat back a little and rested his left arm on the desk so the watch was between us. He tapped the face once with his fingertip.
"I logged you in when you knocked," he said. "9:31. You were holding your wrist already. The bandage was through. That means you were bleeding before you got here."
"I told you I fell," I said.
"I know what you told me." He didn't raise his voice. "I want you to think about the time."
He reached for a small notebook by the lamp. He flipped it open to a page with today's date. There were other notes there, times and names, but he pointed to one line.
"9:31 — you in. Wound open, bandaged wrong, bleeding active. 9:44 — healing complete. That's thirteen minutes I held it. Before that, you waited outside. I heard you in the hall at 9:28. You were pacing."
I stared at the notebook. He kept talking, still quiet.
"The gym steps are locked at four on Thursdays. Coach Ellis leaves early for his kid's game. The library closes at six. If you fell at three fifteen, where were you for six hours bleeding through gauze and not coming here?"
My hand twitched under the gauze. The iodine smell was stronger now.
"I didn't want to bother anyone," I said.
"This doesn't look like a fall. More like you got cut," he said, repeating what he'd said when the light faded. This time it wasn't an observation. It was the end of a line he had drawn for me, step by step.
I tried to keep my face even behind my glasses. I could see my reflection faintly in his, the lamp making a small square on each lens. My hair had fallen forward and I didn't push it back because both his hands were near mine and I didn't want to move.
"It was a fall," I said, but it sounded thinner.
He didn't argue. He just looked at the watch again, then at the window where it was dark outside, then back at my wrist where the tape held the clean pad in place.
"If you fell at three fifteen on the gym steps, the cut would have clotted by four, or it would have been worse from you walking around. You wouldn't have come in at nine thirty with a fresh open laceration still bleeding," he said. "So it didn't happen at three fifteen. It happened tonight. After dinner. Between eight and nine."
The vending machine buzzed in the hall. Someone went past the door, shoes squeaking, and kept going.
I realized I'd stopped breathing for a second. I took a short breath in through my nose.
He let the silence sit. He didn't press for a name. He just left the timeline on the desk between us, lit by that warm circle of light, the notebook open, the watch ticking.
May you like
My alibi didn't fit inside it. There wasn't enough time for it to be true, and he knew it, and now I knew he knew it. The hour I'd been counting on to hide in — that long empty stretch between the end of school and tonight — had shrunk to a narrow window, less than an hour wide, and it had my wrist inside it.
I looked down at the faint line under the gauze and didn't answer. My hand stayed where he'd placed it, palm up, still held loosely at the edge of his desk.
