He didn’t react to the application of the alcohol.
Once it was clean and dry, Becca gently pulled the split skin together and applied the butterflies. Seething, she shook her head. “I don’t know what the problem is between all of you. That’s your business. But my brother’s safety? That’s my business. So if you guys can’t keep your shit together, then feel free to go. Because we need more of this like we need more holes in our heads.” She pressed two strips over the ends of the three holding the wound closed. “There.” Ripping off her gloves, she stepped away.
Nick grasped her arm, the thank you clear in his expression.
She nodded and crossed to the sink to wash her hands again. On a long sigh, she turned in search of the trash can. “Hey, Nick, where’s the . . .”
As she approached the breakfast bar, something in the middle of the granite captured her attention. With all the excitement of the fight, she’d been entirely focused on Nick. But now . . . She stepped closer.
“Becca.”
Time slowed to a crawl, and her gaze became laser-focused. She reached out, her hand passing over a bagged black knife to a second bag. Cold prickles broke out over her skin.
Nick whipped off the stool. “Becca, don’t.”
But her fingers were already on the plastic, grasping it, lifting it. Her stomach rolled viciously.
A severed pinkie finger sat within. At one point, it had been broken at the middle knuckle and had healed badly, creating a hooked shape to the digit. Becca knew exactly when that had happened. They’d been building a tree house in the backyard with their dad. Scott had been hammering and had missed, finding nine-year-old Charlie’s pinkie instead of the head of the nail. Afterward, Charlie kept taking the splint off, and the joint had healed crooked.
The fingernail was missing. The edge of the amputation was jagged.
Oh, God, they’re torturing him, maiming him.
In a blinding flash, Becca’s blood pressure bottomed out and a tingly sweat covered her skin. She dropped the bag and clamped her lips together, hoping to hold back the surging vomit long enough to—
The trash can appeared in front of her. Becca stomped on the pedal to raise the lid, bent over, threw up everything she’d eaten for the past ten days. Or, at least, that’s what it felt like. Long after her stomach had expelled its contents, she continued to heave until tears streamed down her face and she gasped for breath. Someone held her hair. A hand rubbed her back.
She gagged and shuddered as the dry heaves eased, her muscles no more than wrung-out dishrags, her head and body aches roaring back with a vengeance. Wet paper towels appeared in her peripheral vision, and she used them to wipe her mouth and cool her brow and cheeks.
Joining her abject terror over Charlie were new emotions—embarrassment and humiliation. I just threw up in front of Nick, in front of four war-hardened ex-Green Berets. Shit, shit, shit.
Becca forced herself into a standing position, one that revealed that, of all people, hard-ass Beckett had been holding her hair while Nick had been rubbing her back. Equilibrium eluding her, she sagged against the row of cabinets behind her and pressed her hands to her mouth. “Sorry,” she whispered.
“Nothing to apologize for, Becca,” Miguel said. Low murmurs of agreement echoed the sentiment.
With bleary eyes, she watched Beckett pull the trash can away and knot the bag.
“So,” Miguel said in a careful voice, “does your reaction mean you recognize it as your brother’s?”
She nodded and accepted a glass of water from Shane. “Thanks,” she said, and took a few small sips. “I’d know that crooked knuckle anywhere.” Her brain was an absolute whirlwind of when, where, who, and what, but one question rooted itself deep. She dragged her gaze away from the baggy, refusing to let herself imagine for a single second how much pain Charlie must’ve experienced, and glared at Nick. “How long have you had this?” she asked, voice raspy, throat sore.
His expression was an ashen mask of Oh, shit. “Bec—”
She thrust out her finger toward the bar. “How long have you known about this? Oh, my God, did you find this at my house before you came to the hospital? Is that why you were so upset when you called me?” A knot of emotion lodged in her raw throat. That was hours ago. For hours he’d let her kiss him and joke about the puppy’s name and nap on the couch and talk tattoos with Jeremy while he’d sat on the information that someone had chopped off Charlie’s freaking finger? Rising hysteria made her jittery, and then a boomerang of delayed reaction clotheslined her, making her light-headed.