She adjusted the strap of her old canvas medical bag on her shoulder. The canvas was worn, stained in places with unidentifiable smears, the zippers half-busted from years of abuse. She liked it that way.
She walked up the narrow path, her boots crunching over gravel scattered with windblown needles from the nearby pines. The smell of wet earth and salt got stronger as she neared the door.
She knocked once.
And waited.
For a second she thought maybe he was asleep. Or dead.
Then she heard it—slow, uneven footsteps.
The door swung open on squeaky hinges.
Victor Roman filled the frame, leaning hard on a battered aluminum crutch. He was shirtless, skin pale except for the angry bruises coloring his ribs and the bandage wrapped tight around his thigh. Sweat gleamed on his chest, catching the cold light like oil on water.
His hair was a mess—black, slightly too long at the crown, sticking up in damp curls that made him look younger than he was. But his eyes weren’t young. They were dark, watchful, ringed with the shadows of exhaustion and old violence.
He flashed her a grin that was equal parts charming and infuriating.
“Nurse Pepper,” he drawled, leaning against the doorframe with theatrical ease that didn’t hide the tremor in his arm. “Back to patch me up?”
Rose let her eyes trail deliberately over him—every bruise, every stitched wound, the IV site on his arm still showing faint puncture marks.
“Shirt,” she said flatly. “On. Or don’t complain when I hit a nerve.”
He raised his eyebrows, grin widening. “Thought you liked seeing me in pain.”
She shifted her weight onto one hip, unimpressed. “Only when it’s earned.”
He didn’t answer, but the corner of his mouth twitched.
She pushed past him without waiting for permission, her bag thumping against her hip.
The inside of the rental was as grim as the outside. The front room was bare except for a battered old sofa with a rip in the armrest, a scuffed wooden coffee table with rings from forgotten mugs, and the faint scent of mildew that even the salt air couldn’t quite erase.
No TV. No music.
Just silence, deep and heavy.
Her eyes swept the room automatically, cataloguing details the way trauma nurses did. The floors were cheap linoleum, cracked and yellowing at the edges. There was a battered motorcycle helmet on the table, the visor scratched nearly opaque. A single coat hung on the wall—black leather, slashed and bloodstained, a silent witness to the accident.
But the fridge caught her attention.
Pinned to it with old magnets were sketches. Pencil on cheap paper.
She walked closer without thinking. The drawings were detailed, almost painfully precise—an old Orthodox church, with onion domes carefully shaded; a crumbling palace with ivy clawing up its walls; narrow streets lined with ancient stones.
She turned her head slightly, just enough to catch him watching her.
“You draw?” she asked, voice level.
He didn’t answer immediately. He shifted on the crutch, the rubber foot squeaking on the floor.
When he spoke, his voice was different. Quieter. Rougher.
“It helps me remember things I don’t want to forget.”
The words seemed to hang in the cold air between them, weighty and unadorned.
