𝘍𝘖𝘙𝘎𝘐𝘝𝘌𝘕𝘌𝘚𝘚 𝘈𝘕𝘋 𝘙𝘌𝘛𝘙𝘐𝘉𝘜𝘛𝘐𝘖𝘕 | ʀᴅʀ

Chapter Twenty-Three

While she was watching him for any sudden movements, he was also watching her for any ill intentions. She could see it in his eyes, but she didn't think there was any intention for him to make the first move and harm her.

"Holy shit," Rosalie mumbled, her eyes blowing wide as the bandage fell off, revealing the slice across his throat that had scabbed over.

The cut didn't look deep, but it still looked painful, and she couldn't imagine what had caused him to earn such an injury. Upon closer examination, it wasn't a clean slice either, but jagged in certain parts, as though it had been caused by something more sinister than a knife, like barbed wire.

Rosalie couldn't help but wonder who the hell he pissed off so bad for them to do something so horrible. She'd gotten her ankle caught on barbed wire once while escaping some pursuers on a homestead while in Blackwater—that had hurt like a son of a bitch, and she wouldn't wish that on her worst enemy, and especially not to be constricted around their throat.

Either this man was dangerous, and didn't deserve an ounce of her kindness, or he had found himself wrongfully on the other end of someone's anger as he fought to reach some semblance of safety.

Either way, it made him look even more like a man who had crawled from hell and back.

Javier grimaced at her shocked expression. He reached up to lightly ghost his hand over the partially healed wound, some of it a bit red from the stress of the bandage being removed, and the rest scabbed over.

"No duele tanto como parece. Probablemente más feo que otra cosa." Javier said, his voice quiet, most likely from his injury rather than shyness, but the words seemed to flow much better than when he repeated the few things in English so far. The confidence was obvious in the way he spoke as the words were familiar to him.

Rosalie gave him a sympathetic look, and racked her brain for something more useful than calling someone a son of a bitch.

"Lo siento." She said after a moment's pause.

That Javier seemed to understand, as for a moment there, something seemed to flicker across his expression. Something that she couldn't describe with words, but she felt her chest constrict at the sight of it, the raw emotion in his eyes, unhidden and visible to her, something of relief, and desperation, that made her heart twist in pain.

Rosalie had the feeling that he hadn't been shown much kindness lately, and Dutch bringing him to camp, and even hearing her speak the words 'I'm sorry', carried a lot of weight to him.

She turned away, the look he wore making her feel as though she was going to cry, and took the rag from the bucket that was mixed with some medicinal herbs to calm down any swelling or stop any possible infections. Even if she wasn't facing him, she could feel his eyes on her, but she tried not to pay too much attention to it, as she was sure most of his prolonged staring was due to exhaustion.

Rosalie rang out the rag, before turning to him again. She made a wiping motion near her own face without touching her skin. "Just gonna use this to clean you up, okay? Nothing bad about it. Not sure you'll be able to clean your own neck all that well."

Javier nodded, understanding that she was going to clean his neck injury well enough, even if he didn't get all the filler parts. "Okay. Clean..." He paused, the gears turning in his head. "Lavarme."

Rosalie leaned forward and delicately began to dab at the injury on his neck, careful to not break the skin, but wanted to get as much of the gunk and dirt as she could so it could be wrapped properly. From there, she would give Javier the bucket and send him off to clean the rest of himself off too, but the last thing she wanted was for him to break open the skin, especially on something as nasty as that. Even Susan would have a hard time fixing it up from there.