Scythe & Sparrow: Chapter 3

Rose

Day three of being stuck in this bed.

Zofia brought Baz with her yesterday and tried her best to cheer me up by saying my stay in this hospital is like a less-fun version of a holiday, minus the beach. Or the sand. Or the hot guys. So that was a fail. Baz just rolled his eyes and laid his first three Venom Dark Origins comics and my tarot deck next to the medication button that rests untouched beside my hand. Then he asked the question that’s been haunting me worse than the smell of the hot dog stand in a mid-August heat wave: When are you getting out of here?

Not soon enough.

And now, as José Silveria stands near the foot of my bed, his hat clutched between his weathered hands, I’m faced with the hard reality of exactly what not soon enough really means.

“What about the bottle stand? Or the balloon-and-dart? I can totally handle one of the games, I swear,” I say, trying not to sound desperate. Judging by the way José sighs and fidgets with the brim of his hat, I’m failing.

“Rose, you can barely stand up. How long does it take you to get from here to the bathroom?” I frown. Ten minutes doesn’t sound like a great answer, so I say nothing at all. “We can’t stay in Hartford any longer or we’ll be late for our dates in Grand Island. I can’t take you with us, Rose. You need to stay and recover.”

“But—”

“I know you. You won’t look after yourself and you can’t say no to anyone when they ask for help. Jim’ll be lugging equipment or stacking boxes, and you’ll be out there on one leg, trying to do it for him.”

“That’s not true.”

“What about the time you busted your fingers in that crash two years ago?”

I cringe and tighten my left hand into a fist to hide how permanently crooked my pinkie is. “What about it?”

“Did you or did you not offer to help fix the curtain and end up stapling it to your hand?”

“Unrelated. One was an accident. The other was … also an accident.”

José sighs and offers me a smile lit with the warmth that’s earned him his much-deserved reputation as the loveable ringmaster of Silveria Circus. “We will always welcome you back. When you’re healed. But right now, you need a chance to recover.” José rests one hand on my good ankle. His eyes are always so kind with their crinkled edges and warm mahogany hues. Even when he’s breaking my heart. “You’ll come back as soon as you’re given the all clear. This isn’t forever. It’s just for right now.”

I nod.

His words echo in my mind as though my subconscious is desperate to cling to them and make them real. But even thinking about how long just for right now could be has my chest tightening and my eyes stinging. I’ve been with Silveria for so long, I can almost convince myself that I’ve forgotten the other life I left behind. I was just a kid, only fifteen when I joined the tour. Silveria has been my home. My family. And though I know he’s right, and I don’t want to make this harder on José than I’m sure it is, I can’t help but feel discarded.

I shrug and give José a smile, but when I sniffle, his expression draws tight with regret. “Yeah, it’s cool. I get it,” I say as I clear my throat and push myself up a little higher, trying not to wince when my leg jostles in the foam block that keeps it suspended off the mattress. “I’ll be fine. I’ll catch up when I can.”

José gives me a smile, one that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. They might even be a little glassy, and that splits the cracks in my heart even wider. “Jim set your RV up at the Prairie Princess Campground just outside of town.”

“Sounds like a classy joint,” I deadpan.

“There’s a hookup there but we filled the generator with gas, just in case.”

I nod, unwilling to trust my voice to make words.

José takes a breath, probably preparing to launch into the thousand reasons why this unexpected time off is a “good thing,” and how maybe I’m overdue for some time off, but he’s cut off when Dr. Kane strides into the room.

And oh holy fuck, but he’s ten times hotter than I remember from the first time we met. He’s so pretty that it almost shocks me out of the burning ache in my chest at the circus leaving me behind. At least until I realize I probably look about as appealing as a bag of dicks. I think it actually makes my leg hurt less just to look at him with all his doctory seriousness and his stethoscope and his ridiculous good looks. His rich brown hair is swept into place. His sapphire eyes catch the afternoon sun that filters through the blinds. No activewear today, but I can still make out the athletic build beneath his white coat and pressed blue shirt and camel-colored pants. He glances from the tablet he clutches to me, then to José, then to José’s hand where it rests on my ankle.

His eyes narrow for just a heartbeat before his expression smooths. “I’m sorry to interrupt. I’m Dr. Kane,” he says as he extends a hand to José.

“José Silveria. Thank you for taking such good care of my Rose.” Dr. Kane’s expression is unreadable as he gives José a single nod. But José? I already know what he’s about to say. The delight is written all over his face. “Rose is my pequeño gorrión. My little sparrow. One of my best performers.”

“At the circus,” I say flatly. “I work at the circus.”

“Oh. That’s—”

“Tell me, are you married, Dr. Kane?”

I suppress a groan. Dr. Kane clears his throat, clearly thrown off, though I find it hard to believe he hasn’t heard overbearing questions like this before. “To my work,” he answers.

José chuckles and shakes his head. “I know how that goes. I used to be the same.”

“You’re still the same,” I say. “Speaking of which, don’t you have somewhere to be? You should be getting out of here or you’ll be setting up in the dark tonight.”

Part of me doesn’t want him to go. I wish more than anything that he’d pull up a seat and tell me stories of his younger years growing up in the circus, how he inherited a dying show and made it into a spectacle. I wish he’d tell me a lullaby of memories. That I’d wake up in my own bed, and that the last few days were nothing more than a dream that will be forgotten. But I also want to rip the Band-Aid from the wound. The longer José stays, the more likely I am to feel it, that hole in my chest that I don’t think will ever truly be filled, no matter how much I try to shore up its crumbling edges.

There’s not much I can get past José. He pushes between Dr. Kane and the bed to come to my side and press a kiss to my cheek. When he straightens, his eyes soften, the wrinkles that fan from their corners deepening with his smile. My nose stings, but I force the rising tears into submission. “Take care of yourself, pequeño gorrión. Give yourself some time. As much as you need.” I give him a jerk of a nod, and then José turns, extending a hand to Dr. Kane. “Thank you for your help, Dr. Kane.”

The doctor accepts the offered handshake, though he seems unsure, like he’s caught on José’s words. Before I can decode his expression, José draws him into a back-clapping hug. He whispers something to Dr. Kane, and the doctor’s eyes land on me, a blue that cuts through my layers to land somewhere deep and dark, where that hole seems to crumble a little more along its edges. Dr. Kane gives a slight nod in reply, then José gives him a final clap and lets him go. He turns at the threshold and gives me a wink. And then that’s it. José is gone, the wound left behind a little too fresh to cover beneath an apathetic mask.

Dr. Kane watches the door for a long moment, the tablet still clutched in his hands, his analytical stare locked on the space José just occupied. Then he turns to me, and the ache of abandonment I feel must linger in my face, because he immediately flashes me a smile that’s supposed to be reassuring but comes off as anything but.

“Is my leg going to fall off, Doc?”

A crease appears between his brows. “What? No.”

“You look like you’re going to tell me it’s rotting and about to fall off.”

“It’s going to be fine,” he says, nodding to my leg where it’s splinted and suspended on a foam block. “We put pearls in it.”

“Pearls?” I snort a laugh. “You’re into pearling? No offense, but you don’t strike me as the type, Doc.”

Dr. Kane blinks at me as though he’s trying to decipher a foreign language. His expression suddenly clears, and he muffles a startled cough into his fist. “Um, antibiotic pearls. In your leg.”

“That’s a relief. We’re seriously going to have to revisit your credentials otherwise. Probably with a lawyer.”

The hot doctor’s cheeks blush in the most adorable shade of crimson. He runs a hand through his perfect hair and though it mostly falls right back into place, I feel an unexpected sense of satisfaction at seeing a few wayward strands that refuse to comply. “How’s the pain?”

“Fine,” I lie.

“Have you been taking pain medication?”

“Not really. I’m okay.”

“Have you been sleeping?”

“Sure.”

“Eating?”

I follow the doctor’s gaze to where it’s stuck on the half-eaten turkey sandwich that sits on the nightstand next to my bed. “Um …” My stomach audibly growls, filling the silence between us. “I’m not sure that really classifies as food.”

Dr. Kane frowns at me. “You need to keep up your strength. Proper nutrition will help your body repair itself and fight off infection.”

“Well,” I say as I push myself up higher on my bed, “you can let me out of here and I promise the first thing I’ll do is seek out real food.”

His frown deepens and he sets the tablet down on a side table. “How about we see how things are healing,” he says, and grabs a pair of latex gloves before approaching the side of the bed. He tells me everything he’s going to do before he does it. I’m going to take the splint off. I’m going to remove the dressing and have a look at the incision. His words are clinical and unfussy, but his hands are warm and gentle on my swollen leg. There’s a kindness in his touch that runs deeper than this professional persona. But he seems different from the man whose hand I held in the ambulance. Like that version is the real one, trapped beneath this polished veneer.

“I’m sorry about your clinic,” I say quietly as I think back on that moment we met. “I wanted to make it to the hospital.”

“Why didn’t you call an ambulance?” he asks, not taking his eyes from the wound he inspects.

“I thought it would be faster if I took myself.”

“You could have called from the clinic. Or found someone to help you along the way.” Dr. Kane turns his sharp gaze to me, scouring my face with analytical intensity. “There was no one around when you had your accident?”

I shake my head.

“Where did you crash?”

Panic twists through my veins, a burst of adrenaline that has nowhere to go. I swallow it down and try to stay still. “A side road. Not sure which one. I’m not really familiar with the area.”

“Did anyone see your crash?” he asks, glancing at me as he prods around the incision. He probably thinks he’s being stoic and unreadable, but I don’t miss the way his eyes narrow a fraction.

“Nope, don’t think so.”

“What about—”

“Dr. Kane,” a second doctor says, cutting short his next words as she enters the room, a nurse drifting in her wake with a cart of supplies. “I thought you weren’t due in until Thursday. This is a nice surprise.”

“Dr. Chopra,” he says with a deferential nod. I swear I catch a fleeting blush on his cheekbones when he turns to face her. A spark seems to catch in her eye, a little light behind her glasses. I guess I’m not the only one who noticed the hint of color in his face. “I thought I’d pick up an extra shift.”

“How’s our patient?”

“Getting there,” he says. He gestures to my leg as Dr. Chopra joins him to look down at my incision. Everything is still swollen, not that I want to look too closely. They chatter about blood values and medications as Dr. Chopra picks up the tablet and reviews my file. Dr. Kane presses a final time around the incision before he seems to almost reluctantly admit to Dr. Chopra that “everything seems stable.”

“Excellent,” she says, reading through the notes before she passes the tablet back to him. “In that case, I think we can probably discharge you tomorrow afternoon, Rose. Nurse Naomi here can help you with a bath now and put a fresh dressing on that incision.”

With a brief smile, she departs, and Dr. Kane shifts on his feet as though he’s a metal fleck unable to resist her magnetic pull as she strides toward the door. His gaze bounces between me and the nurse, and then finally settles on me. “I’m not in tomorrow,” he says, and I don’t know how to respond, the silence lingering a little longer than it should. “I hope you feel better soon.”

“Thank you. For everything. Truly.”

With a curt nod in reply and a final beat of delay, he turns and strides away. Naomi and I watch the door, and I half expect him to come back in and say whatever seemed to be weighing on his mind those final moments before he left. But he doesn’t reappear.

Naomi turns my way with a brittle smile, shifting a lock of dark curly hair behind her ear. “Let’s get you up,” she says, and raises the head of my mattress. There’s a stretched silence as she helps me to sit up, a tense pause as though she’s not ready to help me down from the bed.

“Everything okay?” I ask. Her hand is trembling around mine.

“Yes.”

“Are you sure …?”

Her attention darts toward the door and back to me. Her eyes are so dark they’re nearly black, but in them I can see every shade of fear and pain I’ve come to know in women who ask for my help. I know what she’s about to say when she leans closer and whispers, “I saw you at the circus. You’re the tarot reader, aren’t you?”

I nod.

“The Sparrow.” It’s a reverential prayer. The sound of hope that I’ve come to know. A secret kinship, bonded by suffering that transcends blood.

I remember her face now, the woman who was approaching my tent with a rolled twenty-dollar bill in her hand. A spike of chemical impulse hits my veins. Everything sharpens: the details of the room. The sounds of staff who pass in the corridor. The smell of antiseptic and industrial cleaner. The spark in Naomi’s eyes when I reach for the deck on my side table.

I shuffle my cards.

“If we’ve got a minute, maybe I can give you a quick reading before the bath.” I know the card I’m looking for by feel, by the fray at the edges, by the crease at one corner. I flip it over. “Ace of Cups,” I say. “It represents following your inner voice. What does it tell you? What do you want?”

The hope brightens in Naomi’s eyes, and my heart responds with a quickened beat.

“To take flight,” she says.

I smile. And though Naomi’s spirit might be bruised, it’s not broken. I can see it in the way she smiles back.

I draw the next card. Maybe it’s not what you’d expect. It’s not Death. It’s not the Knight of Swords. Not harbingers of chaos. I draw the Star. Hope on the horizon. Because in killing, there can be living. There can be rebirth.

Naomi shares her secrets in whispered notes. Stories of a man. One who demeans her. Belittles her. One who threatens her and harms her and controls her. One she can’t break away from, not on her own. She asks me for help. And my heart swells until it aches. Because I know this is something I can give, even if it takes a little time.

My thumb caresses the tattoo at my wrist.

I might have been abandoned here, left in a cage. Maybe my wings have been clipped. But I can still fly.