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“Then why are you bothering me?”

“Because when Luciano wakes up and sees you covered in his blood, he’ll decide this is somehow my fault.”

“I’ll tell him I refused.”

“That will only piss him off that both of us ignored his instructions.”

“He can reprimand me too.”

Rafael glances at me. “I suspect our consequences would be very different.”

I stare at him.

His expression remains perfectly serious.

A laugh escapes me before I can stop it.

It sounds strange in the corridor, thin and slightly broken, but it’s still a laugh.

Rafael holds out the scrubs again.

I take them.

“You’re right about that. Where’s the bathroom?”

His mouth twitches. “Directly behind you.”

I change.

I wash Luciano’s blood from my face, my arms, and beneath my fingernails. The water runs pink before disappearing down the drain.

No matter how hard I scrub, I can still feel it on my hands.

When I return, Rafael is sitting outside the closed doors.

I take the chair beside him.

Then we wait.

Every time the doors open, I stand.

Every time someone walks through without saying Luciano’s name, I sit again.

Rafael answers calls in a low voice. I hear Angelo’s name. Santo’s. Men securing the road. The vehicle. The bodies.

I stop listening.

The clock above the doors moves too slowly.

One hour becomes two.

Sometime during the third, Rafael drapes his jacket over me.

“I’m not tired,” I tell him.

“I didn’t say you were.”

I close my eyes because the lights hurt.