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“Can’t you just let me help you?” I straightened. “I know you can do everything for yourself, but I want to. I want to help you.”

Her expression softened, eyes glittering. “Won’t help me kill a man, though.”

Why couldn’t she let a soft moment breathe?

I rolled my eyes, mindful of my steps as I headed for the bathroom. “Where’s the first-aid kit?”

“Under the sink,” she called. “Tweezers are in the medicine cabinet. First shelf from the bottom.”

The yellowish fluorescent light hummed when I flicked the switch. The fan sputtered on. Crouching before the mahogany vanity, I tossed open the doors. Behind a few rolls of toilet paper and a box of tampons, I caught a glimpse of the red canvas bag. I grabbed it, then stood for the medicine cabinet. It took some rummaging through makeup sponges and eyeshadow packages, but there they were. A silver pair of tweezers.

Supplies in hand, I returned to the kitchen and laid them on the table. “Where’s your broom?”

“Over there.” She gestured to the far side of the fridge.

A tall cabinet stood beside it. As I tugged open the door, finding a broom and the mop on the other side, the sound of a zipper caught my attention.

There she sat, unzipping the first-aid kit.

Shoulders sinking with a deep breath, I grabbed the broom. Gwen had one foot propped on the bar beneath the seat—avoiding the glass on the ground—and her other ankle propped up on top of her knee. As I swept up the glass beneath her, she pulled the rag away. Her breath hitched, and she pushed it back into the wound.

I snorted.

She looked up. A hint of green enveloped her pale cheeks. “What?”

“You don’t like blood.”

She glared. “Nobody likes blood.”

Now that the glass was at least pushed away from the floor around her, I kneeled again, laughing. “Give me that first-aid kit.”

She slid it across the table. “Don’t laugh at me.”

“I’m laughing at the irony.”

A small bottle of peroxide lay inside the bag. I twisted off the lid, tugged the rag away, and poured it onto her wound. She gasped at the pain. I went on inspecting it, but the blood kept rushing. I couldn’t tell how deep it went. The beige rag sported a red circle, but nothing I’d consider life-threatening.

“You might need stitches,” I said, “but you’re drunk, and that thins the blood, so it could be fine.”

I tore open one of the gauze pads and folded it in half. Gwen winced as I pressed it into the wound. The crimson seeped through rapidly. I patted it with another, then applied pressure. Using my teeth, I ripped some medical tape and sealed the gauze pads in place.

“Wouldn’t be a bad idea to elevate it,” I said.

“Wouldn’t be a bad idea to get the glass out of my other foot first.” Her voice was softer, slower.

I looked up, and my jaw dropped. Her face was even paler than it had been. The greenish hue intensified.

I laughed. “How do you expect to kill a man if a little bit of blood gets you this sick, Gwen?”

She pinched her eyes shut and looked away. “I wasn’t going to do it bloody.”

“How did you handle the blood when you killed David?” I lowered her foot to the floor and lifted the other. “You stabbed him—I don’t even know—half a dozen times? The blood didn’t bother you then.”

“It was the worst part,” she muttered, still avoiding looking down. “The mess. Cleaning it up. And loading him into the trunk. That was hard too.”

Focused on the piece of glass wedged in the crimson pinprick, I grabbed the tweezers from the table. “Then why do you want to do it again?”

“Why did you get rid of David’s body?” she asked. “It’s not a want, Sebastian. I didn’t want to deal with digging that piece of glass out of my foot, but if you weren’t here, if you weren’t so insistent, I would do it. Because it needs d—ow!”