Nine days. 

Nine miserable, damning days had passed and she still didn't know what to think. 

More honestly...she didn't want to think about that night. It brought too many terrible truths to the surface—ones she preferred to keep deeply buried.

Charlie pushed harder, lengthening her stride. The late afternoon sun beat down on her, sweat dripping down her face as she ran. She knew she should be sleeping, but sleep had become rare and less than restful recently.

It was better to move.

Better to move and not think about what he had said—about her fear that he was right.

Charlie's feet pounded against the concrete, each step reverberating up through her legs. Her tank top clung to her, the humidity making the air thick in her mouth and throat.

You wanted me to.

The words echoed in her skull with every step.

She had wanted Remi to do something, and it made her sick even now to think of the small swell of satisfaction she'd felt when he'd broken that man's hand. The brutality of his actions had brought her a small measure of serenity, scaring the hell out of her.

I really am no better than my parents.

The thought made her feel like she was suffocating and she ran harder, her arms pumping at her sides, her feet barely touching the ground before she was throwing herself into the next stride. The turn onto her street loomed closer, threatening her with the end of her three-mile run and the relieving exhaustion it brought.

What kind of person was satisfied by another's pain? Even if she'd hated it after the fact, even if she'd been disgusted. She had been shocked by what he'd done, but he'd done it on her behalf.

And she didn't know if that made her hate Remi more...or if his actions had inspired something else. Some other feeling she didn't want to examine too closely.

They needed to talk. More than anything, she just needed to talk to him.

Charlie rounded the corner, head down as she sprinted the last two blocks to her house. Her head came up and she skidded to a halt in shock, nearly sending herself sprawling onto the concrete. 

She wasn't ready. She wasn't ready to face him yet.

A red Lamborghini was sitting on the curb, a tall silhouette waiting at her door. Charlie stood and stared at him, sweat running into her eyes, the stitch in her ribs screaming with every ragged breath she sucked in.

She watched, dumbstruck, as he kicked at the door, the loud thudding enough to make her jump. Her vision cleared and she darted forward when she realized he wasn't alone.

"Remi?" she managed through her panting breaths.

He looked over his shoulder, eyes widening as he took in her sweaty, disheveled state. Then his gaze darted warily up the street, his jaw setting in agitation.

"We need to get him inside," he hissed, looking along the street again and turning slightly. "Before someone sees."

Charlie sucked in a shocked gasp when she saw the man he was half carrying.

Blood covered his face, his white shirt covered in bright crimson splotches. He was barely conscious, only upright because Remi was keeping him that way. As she watched, more blood dripped from his face to his shirt.

"Move," she rasped, digging in her pocket for her keys. She sidled past him and unlocked the door.

Remi barely waited for her to get out of the way before he was dragging the bloodied man across the threshold. He headed toward the couch but Charlie snapped, "No! This way."

She led him through the living room and kitchen to a door that opened into what was technically the other half of the duplex. Little sleep and guilty conscience aside, she had managed to get a few things sorted out. 

"You've been busy," Remi said through gritted teeth as he hauled the injured man toward the stainless steel table in the middle of the room.

"Just because you were avoiding me doesn't mean Leon was." She bent down and grabbed the man's legs. "On three?"

"Avoiding?" he growled, maneuvering the man until he could grip him under the arms. 

She bit fiercely into her lip, damning her mouth straight to hell. It wasn't like she'd been too keen to seek him out, either.

"One. Two. Three." Charlie grunted as they heaved the man up onto the table. He was heavier than his slim build had led her to believe. "What happened to him?" she asked before he could say anything else.

Remi didn't answer as she scurried over to the sink, turning the faucet on. She splashed water over her face, washing the sweat away from her face and neck. After taking a moment to dry off, she turned the temperature over to an almost painful heat and began to scrub her hands.

A small popping sound had her looking over her shoulder to find Remi leaning over the man, lightly slapping him.

"What are you doing?" she yelped.

"Trust me," Remi murmured, "you don't want him to be out of it when you start working on him." He gently slapped the man's cheek again.

"He could have a concussion." Charlie hurriedly dried her hands off, snapping on a pair of sterile gloves. A tray with an assortment of medical tools was already waiting.

She used her shoulder to shove Remi away, then quickly poured a saline solution into a shallow plastic dish. A hand on her elbow made her stiffen and she shot him a glare over her shoulder. "Are you going to let me do my job?"

Remi's eyes flashed, even as a frown tugged at his mouth. He let her go, looking almost confused.

"What happened to him?" she asked again. It was safer and easier to talk about the possibly dying man in her house than anything else they might discuss.

Her mind was already muddled enough without that.

"Well he obviously got the shit beat out of him," Remi said snidely, watching as she picked up a pair of scissors and cut the man's shirt open.

"I can see that, Remi," she snapped back. 

She sighed in relief when she found no deep puncture wounds. There were a few artificial cuts and a number of ugly looking bruises, but the majority of the blood on his shirt must have come from his face. Charlie pressed lightly on his well-muscled chest, but there was no real way to tell if he had any broken ribs.

Leon had brought her mountains of supplies, but no x-ray machine.

"Did you do it?" she managed to ask, even as her throat closed. Her gaze flicked to his hands where she found bruised, split knuckles. How often did they look like that, she wondered.

"No," he said flatly. "I only beat people who need it."

Charlie snorted, but couldn't so much as shake her head in denial. She had asked for him to break that bouncer's hand. Not in so many words, of course, but that didn't really matter. 

Either way, she didn't have a leg to stand on. There was no point in one devil preaching to another. 

Bile rose in her throat and she forced her attention back to the problem at hand.

Picking up a sterile cotton ball with a pair of disposable forceps, she dipped it in the saline and began to swab the blood away. As she cleaned the man's face, relief built up in her chest.

His nose was broken and his lips were a pulped mess, but a majority of the blood on his face was from two cuts, one across his left eyebrow and the other at his left temple, just at his hairline. Only the one on his eyebrow would need stitches. It was ugly, but it wasn't beyond her capabilities.

Charlie could feel Remi's attention glued to her as she threw the blood-soaked cotton ball away and picked up another. Her mouth turned dry.

Was she supposed to explain herself to him? Was she supposed to explain that he wasn't what scared her? Maybe he wanted her to be scared. But wasn't her lack of fear the very thing that had drawn him to her in the first place?

Before she could spend any more time drowning in the same thoughts that had plagued her for the past week, she asked, "What's his name?"

Finished with cleaning away the blood, she took off the gloves before picking up a bottle of hand-sanitizer. She rubbed it in until her hands were dry and put on a fresh pair of gloves. Remi didn't answer her.

She dared a glance at him as she picked up a packet containing a small curved needle and silk for sutures. The look on his face was somewhere between towering temper and vague uncertainty.

"His name?" she prodded again, more out of instinct than any real desire to know.

Remi was silent for a breath longer. "Gabriel," he finally said. "The only name I know him by is Gabriel."

Her fingers hesitated as the name rang a distant bell, but she couldn't seem to place it. With a shake of her head, she tore the packet open and leaned over the man, examining the cut over his eyebrow again.

Four stitches should be plenty. 

Remi had drawn closer, almost hovering, and she resisted the urge to snarl at him. She didn't dare look up again as she tilted the man's face to the side to get a better angle on the cut.

"I think we need to talk once you're done with him," he said, voice low and angry. Charlie looked down at Gabriel as Remi continued, "What happened—"

Gabriel's eyes flew open with a gasp. There was a terrific crash as his hand came down on the nearby tray and before Charlie could so much as blink, an arm was around her waist, spinning her around.

She was pulled back into a hard body. Adrenaline flooded through her already spent muscles and she thrashed against the hold until something sharp and metallic kissed against her throat. Charlie went dead still.

"Who are you?" a crisp, pleasant voice whispered in her ear.

Charlie let a breath ease slowly from her lungs, pressing herself back into the man in an effort to get away from the blade at her throat. A footstep had the man twisting to the side, the blade scraping against Charlie's skin. Blood trickled down the side of her throat, to her collarbone.

A huff of breath was warm against her ear. "Mr. Robicheaux?"

"She's the new doc, Gabriel," Remi said, narrowed eyes flicking between her throat and just above her head. "I'd prefer you didn't cut her throat."

The arm around her disappeared, as did the knife at her neck. Charlie jerked away and all but leapt toward Remi. She grabbed his arm, her other hand going up to her bleeding neck.

A ragged gasp tore its way down her throat as she pressed her face against his shoulder, entire body shaking. Remi placed a gentle hand on her back pressing her closer, then he pulled away slightly and tilted her chin back so he could see.

It took a moment of him lightly prying at her fingers before she braved letting go.

"It's just a scratch," Gabriel murmured from behind her, making her flinch.

All she could do was watch Remi's face as his fingers grazed her throat, examining the cut. His eyes flicked to hers, a look of cold death in those green irises. "Just a scratch," he repeated, but she could hear the simmering rage in his voice.

It matters because you shouldn't have bruises on you.

Every word of that night was seared into her mind—none more than those. 

She still didn't know why it had mattered to him. Had he broken the man's hand simply because he'd wanted to...or was there something else?

He brushed the back of his knuckle against her throat, wiping the blood away. "It's already stopped bleeding," he nearly whispered.

Charlie swallowed hard, taking a deep breath to try and wrangle her frantic heartbeat. She wasn't totally successful, but she couldn't stand here any longer with his touch burning into her, no matter how safe it made her feel.

She froze in surprise at the thought. Safe? Now she scoffed silently at herself. There was no such thing, and certainly not with Remi.

Still shaking slightly, she turned back to Gabriel, who gave her a sheepish smile. The expression was almost as shocking as the knife to her throat. Still in that soft, genial voice, he said, "I'm sorry." His smile changed, turning to something that would have been charming if his mouth wasn't a bloody mess. "The last time I was conscious, someone was threatening to bash my teeth in."

He leaned back against the table and groaned, his hand coming up to his chest.

"Are—" Charlie had to stop and clear her throat before she managed, "Are they broken?"

Gabriel looked up at her, gaze flicking first to Remi, then to her.

"Your ribs," she clarified, braving another step forward. It was with relief and dread that she realized Remi hadn't stepped forward with her.

"Just bruised, far as I can tell," he answered. "They paid more attention to my face." Again his eyes flicked to Remi. "Yuri's sending messages."

"Is he now," Remi said, his voice like a snake slithering through grass. Gabriel just raised an eyebrow, then winced as the movement inspired a fresh well of blood from the cut there.

Charlie pursed her lips and risked another step forward. "If I try to set your nose, are you going to stab me?"

She had remembered why his name was so familiar. He didn't exactly look like an assassin. Then again, she supposed most assassins probably didn't.

Gabriel chuckled and sat gingerly on the edge of the table. "You know? I kind of like her."

To her shock, a small smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. She crept forward cautiously, like a cat approaching a strange new toy. Gabriel grew still as stone.

Charlie touched her tongue to her bottom lip, then prodded at the split skin of his eyebrow. Trying to settle back into a world she knew, she murmured, "This'll need stitches, but I want to set your nose first."

All he did was blink at her, the bruises around his eyes not enough to keep her from noticing they were a pretty shade of brown. With another breath, Charlie gently placed her thumbs on either side of his nose, hands shaking a little against his face.

"Do you want me to count?" she asked, touching his nose as she assessed the break.

"No." Gabriel kept his gaze slanted away from her, his hands carefully still in his lap.

Charlie shrugged, then drove her thumb into the side of his nose. The bone cracked back into place and he grunted, bringing a hand up to cup his nose, fresh blood trickling over his fingers.

She let him recover for a moment, then tugged his hands away. Casting a critical eye over him, she said, "It's not exactly straight."

"It started crooked," Gabriel responded with a wry smile. "Not my first broken nose." 

All she could do was nod as she used some gauze to clean the blood from his nose. "Hold it against you nose until it stops bleeding," she commanded as she once again donned a fresh pair of gloves.

The assassin followed orders meekly, barely wincing when she began to clean the cut across his eyebrow. As she worked, she tilted her head toward Remi. "In the third drawer on the left side of the sink, there are syringes and glass bottles of anesthetic. Bring me one of each."

Remi did as instructed without so much as a raised eyebrow nearly making her keel over in shock. Silently, he handed them over. Again, Gabriel didn't so much as flinch when she inserted the needle into his skin.

They all stayed silent as she cleaned and bandaged the cut on his temple, then the ones on his chest, waiting for the anesthetic to kick in.

Remi watched every careful movement with predatory intent, and Charlie honestly couldn't tell if it was for her benefit or Gabriel's. The assassin, for his part, hadn't so much as breathed wrong in her direction, and she found herself falling into the comfortable rhythm of her work.

When the last bandage was in place, Charlie stepped back with a long sigh. Gabriel prodded lightly at the bandage covering the stitches, then again at his nose.

There hadn't been much she could do for his shredded lips aside from clean them and make sure he hadn't lost any teeth.

Finally, he got to his feet. He ran a hand through his golden brown hair, glancing once at Remi, then at her. His eyes were always moving, always assessing. "Do you have somewhere I can wash up?" he asked softly.

Charlie silently pointed toward the direction of the bathroom. "Just don't get the bandages wet."

He slid from the room, quick and quiet as a panther.

Charlie sagged back against the table, a wave of exhaustion crashing down over her. 

Too much. Too much all at once. Like a hurricane, he swept in and out of her life leaving carnage in his wake. Would it ever be quiet between them? Charlie looked at him with weary eyes. Maybe she wrought as much destruction in his life as he did in hers.

Maybe the only thing they had between them was something as broken as they were.

Maybe that's why he was standing there looking at her like that—like there was a field of shattered debris between them and he didn't know if crossing was worth the pain.

But he took a step anyway.

"Will you open the door when I come back tonight?" he asked, his quiet voice heavy with longing or dread. "After I've...sorted this out."

Charlie took a step too.

"Yes."