The hunter reached into his back pocket and removed a pocket knife. He pressed a button and the sharp edge winked in the bathroom light as it unsheathed itself. He crouched smoothly by her broken leg and with steady hands carefully lifted her heel onto his bent knee.

Leyla gripped the mouth of the toilet seat fighting the urge to withdraw her leg with its insufferable smell.

“Don’t.” He simply said as if hearing her thoughts.

His hand which held the blade lowered to the cast and with a quick delicate flick far too subtle for her eye to notice cut through the fabric. Leyla didn’t even catch the movement until the pressure around her foot loosened and the cast began to come apart in a straight line.

He cut through with dexterous fingers working up to her knee where he stopped and flicked the knife back into his pocket. Next he worked apart the cast peeling it open like an oyster to reveal a pearl.

Except her leg was no pearl

A bruised fruit at best with withered skin.

There was a suggestion of stitches along the calf, a bit jagged and crusted with darkened blood that ran up to her knee.

Leyla stared at the foot and all she could manage was a soft whisper. “How bad was it?”

His hands stilled. “You fractured your tibia when I found you.”

“Tibia?”

He ran a thoughtful thumb over her heel while he spoke, the cadence of his tone dropping to a patient one. Like a parent speaking to a child. Or an idiot. “You broke your foot.”

“How long until I can walk?”

“A few weeks. I’ll have to shape a few splints for your cast.”

With her leg stabilized on his knee, the hunter reached behind him for the wet cloth and dipped it into the tub. Leyla watched as he cleaned her leg and wrapped it with a fresh cloth, working it around and around but not tight enough to constrict her.

She hadn’t realized just how deep she was in thought until his face lifted to hers.

“Can you bathe yourself?”

“Yes.”

He was still looking at her, the arc of his brow both questionable and unimpressed.

“I can try.” She insisted. When his gaze dropped to her broken arm and then leg, Leyla squared her shoulders defensively, “... I can bathe myself.”

He nodded and rose pointing out where her items were. “Soap, towel and change of clothes.”

After he exited she waited a beat, searching the gap between the door and floor for his retreating shadow but it simply lingered there like a stain.

Her throat bopped with each swallow as she began to unbutton the top with her good hand and carefully scoot onto the edge of the toilet seat while reaching for the lip of the tub. The water was still hot, thick plumes of air brushing her bare skin.

She had lost a good amount of weight and her skin had paled significantly.

So sickly pale my dear, the elder’s voice crooned in her ear, is this the life you have chosen? Was all that I ever gave you worthy of tossing aside for pain, uncertainty and starvation?

The water rose steadily up her body as she sank lower and lower still. It was hot and Leyla shifted with a sigh, the movement causing water to lap against her jawline.

She sank further until it hovered right below her nostrils, her broken foot resting on the edge of the tub.

Her eyes instinctively went back to the doorway where the darkness remained.

Only when she had settled in completely did the man’s shadow move away.

She let her mind wander about, striving not to focus on the sound of him possibly walking in and out of her bedroom; the movement of a bed screeching heavily on the ground then a pause.

Leyla bit her inner cheeks as she heard him slide something across the floor. It swished about in a damp hush. A pause.

The dripping of something into a bucket and more measured slidings. The motion repeated itself over and over and she wondered just how many liters of water or IV fluid she had ingested.

By the time he was done she still hadn’t reached for the bar of soap and the water was cooling.

It was the return of his shadow beneath the door that gave her a glimpse into her own state of immobility.

Leyla stared at the shadow for a long, dismal moment. Then spoke tentatively.

“Mister?”

The shadow shifted noiselessly.

“Do you mind helping me wash my hair?”

There was a lull in which she thought he hadn’t heard her, and she began to speak again when the doorknob turned.

Leyla’s gaze immediately swept to her body on nude display beneath the clear water.

She hastily drew her forearm around her breasts and tried to twist at the navel but it was pointless, the fine dark hairs along the V of her pubic area was visible.

The man stepped in with casual grace. His eyes remained on her face, searching, and she began to feel a sliver of relief for his consideration until he eyes lowered to her arm coyly resting over her chest.

She looked away and cleared her throat. “... my hair.”

He picked a few bottles from the cabinet and she barely read the labels as he set them beside the tub, rolling his sleeves to reveal tanned forearms lined with muscle.

“Lean back.” He commanded quietly and she obeyed, twisting her body such that her back was now against the wall which faced him. The width of the tub made it awkward for her bad leg now propped awkwardly on the wall.

Leyla stared up at the underside of his jaw noticing the shadow and small nicks lining his throat. His large hands dwarfed her head like an orange. He cupped a handful of warm water and poured it over her curls.

He smelled nice, she realized, and his long rough fingers worked through her hair reverently. He squirted shampoo and massaged it into her scalp, blunt nails tracing her skin back and forth.

Many times she tried not to stare but it was hard.

She focused on the ceiling and his jaw.

The wall and his earlobe.

Each time she gravitated back to his visage hovering above her and the careful drift of breath over her own forehead.

“Have you ever washed someone’s hair?”

The question blurted out unexpectedly. Perhaps to fill the silence or help her not focus too much on the gliding fingers along her nape, gripping gently enough to lift her head off the tub as he rinsed her.

“No.”

He settled her head back onto the tub and began to massage the conditioner on, combing through her matted strands with his fingers. She watched her curls loop around his fingers, watched how he twirled one in particular before letting it land with a wet slap on her cheek.

Her mouth twitched upward.

“You’re good at it.”

Only one person had ever washed her hair, the nursemaid back at the harvest farm. Leyla could vaguely remember a heavyset woman bent at the waist with her large breasts cushioning either side of her head as she scrubbed through her hair.

The movement of his fingers did not resemble the old woman’s. No, there was something thoughtful in how he handled her hair, that same novel expression now manifested in his touch that slid down her neck.

Her eyes had slipped shut unconsciously.

The balls of his thumb pressed with just enough pressure to dimple her skin as he slid along the breadth of her shoulders feeling the tension in her delts.

Leyla’s heart skipped a dangerous beat.

His hands redirected themselves up into her hair. One paused along the way and redirected itself across her neck in a smooth gliding motion as if cutting a line there, and gently cradled her jaw. The other free hand cupped water and poured it over her hair rinsing out the conditioner.

The hold on her jaw was unyielding but gentle.

Her eyes dared to open and froze as she stared into his brown eyes. His breath fanned her face as the hand running through her hair changed course, slowly sliding down her neck then shoulder.

She began to speak but realized his grip had clamped her jaw shut.

Her heart was thundering now as his straying palm slid beneath the water’s surface using her chest as a guide lower until it stopped over her breast feeling her wildly beating heart.

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