Chapter 12

12

Jonathan

I wake up on the floor of the restroom. Someone kicked me. I can feel the echo of pain in my gut.

"Get up," a man says in French. He is standing over me, dressed in a neat uniform. He is a cop. Fuck.

I sit up way too fast. "Hello," I say in French. "Are we in, uh…" Where am I supposed to be? "Paris?"

"Yes. The train is finished." He scowls at me. He clearly thinks I am on drugs. I am so incensed that I almost forget that I am.

"Yes, sir," I say, dragging myself up. I can feel blood creeping down my armpit. "Thank you. Very much."

The train is completely empty. She is gone. I cannot even go back for my suitcase. Someone will have taken it. They might have seen what is inside. More than a few items are not strictly legal.

At least I am not dead. What a wonderful goddamn world.

I feel an intense, almost burning malaise. Perhaps it is because the last of the Ecstasy is leaving my system. Perhaps it is because of Paris.

Everything is gray in Paris, but somehow, after an hour or two, I know the city will convince me that there is no better color—not one stronger or more meaningful or beautiful. Paris is a city of brooding and pretention. It is probably the city that is most like me, which is why I always feel a certain loathing of it.

Mas doesn't have any idea I am coming, of course. If he did, he might try to avoid me—bullet in the chest and all. Mas is a doctor, so he is always giving himself medical advice. I am bad for his mental health.

I procure a cab. I arrive at Mas's private hospital in Pigalle—the coolest little clinic in Paris. It is probably for the best that I lost my suitcase. Mas hates when I bring weapons to his office.

The front-desk assistant does not recognize me. I do not recognize her. It has been over a year since I have been to the office. Mas has renovated—probably more than once. His office is currently black—black walls with a sandy finish, black marble floors—with taupe accents. It is almost offensively chic, which is so fucking Mas.

That is one of the few traits Mas and I share: the masochistic tendency to blow through money like we are trying to patch over our past with all the finer things in life. Mas is one of the best surgeons in Paris, so he can afford it.

"Hello," I say to the front-desk associate in French. She is a hip, young Parisian woman with heavy chains around her neck and little eyeliner darts protruding from her eyes. "I'm here to see Dr.Ahmed." Ahmed is not the last name we shared. Mas went back to his birth name while I was in prison—possibly to put some distance between us. Mas was adopted right before I was born. I sometimes wonder, if I had not been born, would Mas's life have been worse or better?

"Do you have an appointment?" the woman says. Her eyes narrow on my shoulder, which is now caked in dried blood.

"Mas knows I'm coming," I lie. "Tell him it's Abraham." That is not my real name, but it is the one I give every time I show up like this. Once, it was because I was poisoned. Last time, I was bitten by a security dog because I did not want to hurt it. Once, I came just to say hi. Mas asked me not to do that again.

She calls him. I can hear him grumble over the phone, but I know part of him is curious. What will it be this time?

"Dr.Ahmed can see you now," she says.

"Thank you." I rap her desk, then hurry through the waiting room. I am feeling a little giddy. It might be from knowing this is almost over. Mas will take out the bullet; I will live to die another day. It might be because of something else, but I have trained myself never to question anything that tastes like happiness.

I start to strip as soon as I get into the hall. It feels phenomenal to take off my jacket and my shirt, to undress my wound.

I rip off the bandage as I enter the exam room. Mas is waiting, already pale. He sees me. He goes paler.

"Oh my God." He makes a face.

I shut the door, then lock it behind me. "I thought you were supposed to be a surgeon."

"I haven't seen something that grisly since Afghanistan," he jokes. Mas did three tours of duty. People handle trauma differently. Some become saints. Some become sinners.

"You're hurting my feelings." I grin.

"Are you high?"

"No, but as my doctor you should know I took approximately six hundred milligrams of Vicodin, two hundred milligrams of Ritalin and a tab of Ecstasy."

"That could kill you."

"So could getting shot."

He sighs and walks to his cabinets. "Do you want me to take the bullet out?"

"If it's not too much trouble." I hop onto the exam table. This room has not been renovated to match the waiting room. Or else it has been renovated more recently, and the waiting room has not been renovated to match it. The walls are the color of sand. The floors are sky blue.

"Your office is trippy," I say.

"That might be because of all the drugs you took." He pulls on a pair of gloves with a satisfying snap . "I would offer you something for the pain, but at this point that would probably put you into cardiac arrest."

I am about to make a smart-ass comment when he sticks his fingers inside me. "Holy fuck!" My muscles spasm. It is involuntary. He is up to his knuckles in my shoulder cavity.

"Stay still." He fishes around, unnecessarily aggressive, if you ask me. "It's almost like you don't appreciate what I'm doing for you."

I grit my teeth. "You're the best brother ever."

He twists his fingers. Tears spill down my cheeks. Blood seeps down my chest. I want to cry out. I want to complain. I want to leave him a terrible review.

"If you keep doing things like this…," Mas says. His fingers close around the bullet. He pulls it out and drops it neatly onto a metal tray. It clangs. So small. So painful. "You're really going to kill yourself." That is a little the point.

"Thank you, Brother."

"You're welcome, Brother. Now"—he switches out his bloody gloves—"I suppose you want me to sew you up."

"If you would. Don't do too good a job, though. I want to leave a scar."

He rolls his eyes and gets to work.