knew that no matter how much Jen would have hated her for doing this, she would have done the same thing in her place.
Despite the alarm bells gonging in her head, warning her not to, she couldnât stop herself from reaching out and touching his arm. âIt will get better, you know. After a while your body adjusts to the pain and learns how to put it away.â
It was true. Pain by its very nature couldnât stay acute. Your threshold for pain grew as pain grew, like a body that kept expanding as you fed it and fed it. How could it not? Whoever decided it was okay to inflict the unthinkable on you had to make sure you lived to experience it. What better way to do that than to keep it right there on the edge of a blade, just bearable enough so you could go on around it?
He pulled his arm away, but didnât argue with her, although it was clear from the way he squeezed his eyes shut that in this moment he couldnât perceive the pain ever lessening, let alone going away. Who knew, maybe he was the one man on earth who really could love one and only one woman until the end of time. People who believed in love did believe in that sort of thing.
Watching him under the Caribbean sun, his body gaunt with pain, his hair shorn off, and eyes that switched from desolation to desperate hope and back again without his permission, all the things Jen had said about him rang true. Watching him like this it was impossible not to believe that he was the miracle Jen believed he was.
Too bad she didnât believe in miracles.
He didnât ask her any more questions. She knew he wanted to. God knew she had answers to them all. But right now she was too weary for questions, for anything more than what she had just done.
He straightened, that alert focus back in his eyes again, and looked like he was going to ask another question after all. âI promise Iâll answer all your questions. But not right now. Tomorrow,â she said before he could open his mouth.
He shook his head. âI was just going to ask if I could walk you to your room. You look exhausted.â
She backed away from him, putting distance between them as fast as she could.
âIâm fine,â she said, finding it hard to keep her voice even and kicking herself for it. âYou should go get some rest. Iâll come find you at the clinic tomorrow.â
She spun around and walked away without breaking into a run the way she wanted to.
Once she was in the elevator by herself, she pulled the ultra-fancy phone out of her pocket and punched in the number from memory before typing out a text. Iâm in. Everything on track.
Then she deleted the text from the Sent folder and deleted the number from the list of calls.
7
I never thought Iâd meet two men who threw them- selves on top of others when it rained bullets. Itâs no secret what happened the first time I saw someone do that.
Â
âDr. Jen Joshi
Â
Â
R ahul Savant often forgot that he had topped the Indian Joint Civil Services Examination. For all the huge deal they made out of the exam, it was just a bunch of questions, and Rahul had never had trouble answering questions, especially the kind that came from books. The real skill, the one no one had found a way to test, was in finding the right questions to ask.
He took a deep breath and raised his arm to knock on the teakwood door that smelled of fresh varnish. This was exactly the kind of moment when he needed to remind himself that he was indeed a top-ranker and that he deserved to be standing here inside the historical Sachivalayaâthe South Mumbai office of the state home ministerâwearing his Deputy Commissioner of Police uniform as the DCP and not as the ministerâs protégé. He was well within his rights in asking for what he needed to bring Jenâs killers to justice.
He rapped on the wood. But the sharp stab of pain on his always-bruised knuckles did nothing to distract
Despite the alarm bells gonging in her head, warning her not to, she couldnât stop herself from reaching out and touching his arm. âIt will get better, you know. After a while your body adjusts to the pain and learns how to put it away.â
It was true. Pain by its very nature couldnât stay acute. Your threshold for pain grew as pain grew, like a body that kept expanding as you fed it and fed it. How could it not? Whoever decided it was okay to inflict the unthinkable on you had to make sure you lived to experience it. What better way to do that than to keep it right there on the edge of a blade, just bearable enough so you could go on around it?
He pulled his arm away, but didnât argue with her, although it was clear from the way he squeezed his eyes shut that in this moment he couldnât perceive the pain ever lessening, let alone going away. Who knew, maybe he was the one man on earth who really could love one and only one woman until the end of time. People who believed in love did believe in that sort of thing.
Watching him under the Caribbean sun, his body gaunt with pain, his hair shorn off, and eyes that switched from desolation to desperate hope and back again without his permission, all the things Jen had said about him rang true. Watching him like this it was impossible not to believe that he was the miracle Jen believed he was.
Too bad she didnât believe in miracles.
He didnât ask her any more questions. She knew he wanted to. God knew she had answers to them all. But right now she was too weary for questions, for anything more than what she had just done.
He straightened, that alert focus back in his eyes again, and looked like he was going to ask another question after all. âI promise Iâll answer all your questions. But not right now. Tomorrow,â she said before he could open his mouth.
He shook his head. âI was just going to ask if I could walk you to your room. You look exhausted.â
She backed away from him, putting distance between them as fast as she could.
âIâm fine,â she said, finding it hard to keep her voice even and kicking herself for it. âYou should go get some rest. Iâll come find you at the clinic tomorrow.â
She spun around and walked away without breaking into a run the way she wanted to.
Once she was in the elevator by herself, she pulled the ultra-fancy phone out of her pocket and punched in the number from memory before typing out a text. Iâm in. Everything on track.
Then she deleted the text from the Sent folder and deleted the number from the list of calls.
7
I never thought Iâd meet two men who threw them- selves on top of others when it rained bullets. Itâs no secret what happened the first time I saw someone do that.
Â
âDr. Jen Joshi
Â
Â
R ahul Savant often forgot that he had topped the Indian Joint Civil Services Examination. For all the huge deal they made out of the exam, it was just a bunch of questions, and Rahul had never had trouble answering questions, especially the kind that came from books. The real skill, the one no one had found a way to test, was in finding the right questions to ask.
He took a deep breath and raised his arm to knock on the teakwood door that smelled of fresh varnish. This was exactly the kind of moment when he needed to remind himself that he was indeed a top-ranker and that he deserved to be standing here inside the historical Sachivalayaâthe South Mumbai office of the state home ministerâwearing his Deputy Commissioner of Police uniform as the DCP and not as the ministerâs protégé. He was well within his rights in asking for what he needed to bring Jenâs killers to justice.
He rapped on the wood. But the sharp stab of pain on his always-bruised knuckles did nothing to distract
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