Keep Me(51)

I would die for her, but I would never let her go.

Cradling her small, limp body in my arms, I carry her out of the bedroom to the living room. David Goldberg, our resident doctor, is already there, waiting with his medical bag and supplies on the couch. I’d asked him to stop by earlier today, so he can do the procedure as soon as possible after dinner, and I’m glad that he’s on time. I only gave Nora a quarter of the drug that was in the syringe, and I want to make sure everything is done before she wakes up.

“She’s already under?” Goldberg asks, getting up to greet us. A short, balding man in his forties, he’s one of the most talented surgeons I’ve ever met. I pay him an arm and a leg to treat minor injuries, but I consider it worth it. In my line of work, one never knows when a good doctor will come in handy.

“Yes.” I carefully put Nora down on the couch. Her left arm hangs off the edge, so I gently arrange her in a more comfortable pose, making sure that her dress covers her slim thighs. Goldberg won’t care either way—he’s far more likely to get a hard-on for me than for my wife—but I still don’t like the idea of exposing her unnecessarily, even to a man who’s openly gay.

“You know, I could’ve just numbed the area,” he says, pulling out the tools he needs. All of his movements are practiced and efficient; he’s a master at what he does. “It’s a simple procedure—nothing that requires the patient to be unconscious.”

“It’s better this way.” I don’t explain further, but I think Goldberg gets it, because he doesn’t say anything else. Instead he puts on his gloves, takes out a large syringe with a thick hypodermic needle, and approaches Nora.

I step back to give him some room.

“How many trackers would you like? One or more?” he asks, glancing in my direction.

“Three.” I’ve thought about this before, and that’s what makes the most sense to me. If she’s ever stolen, my enemies might think to look for a locator chip on her body, but they’re unlikely to look for three of them.

“Okay. I will put one in her upper arm, one in her hip, and one in her inner thigh.”

“That should work.” The trackers are tiny, about the size of a grain of rice, so Nora won’t even feel them there after a few days. I’m also planning to have her wear a special wristband as a decoy; it will have a fourth tracker in it. This way, if her abductors find the wristband tracker, they might be foolish enough to get rid of it and not look for any on her body.

“Then that’s what I’ll do,” Goldberg says and, swabbing Nora’s upper arm with a disinfecting solution, presses the needle to her skin. A small droplet of blood wells up as the needle goes in, depositing the tracker; then he disinfects the area again and tapes a small bandage over it.

The implant in her hip is next, followed by one in her inner thigh. It takes less than six minutes between the start and the end of the procedure, and Nora sleeps peacefully through it all.

“All done,” Goldberg says, pulling off his gloves and packing up his bag. “You can take off the bandages in an hour, once the bleeding stops, and put on regular Band-Aids. Those areas might be tender for a couple of days, but there shouldn't be any scarring, particularly if you keep the insertion points clean in the meantime. If anything, call me, but I don’t anticipate any problems.”

“Excellent, thank you.”

“My pleasure.” And with that, Goldberg packs up his bag and exits the room.



* * *



Nora regains consciousness around three in the morning.

I’m sleeping lightly, so I wake up as soon as she begins to stir. I know she’ll have a headache and some nausea from the drug, and I have a water bottle prepared in case she’s thirsty. I expect the side effects to be mild, since I gave her a small dose. When I took her from the park, I had to give her a lot more to make sure she stayed under for the full twenty-hour-plus trip to the island, so she should recover much faster today.

I hate you.

Fuck, not again. I push away the memory of her small, accusing whisper and focus on the present. I can feel her stirring next to me, a small sound of discomfort escaping her throat as the mattress rubs against the tender spot in her upper arm. That sound does something to me, gets under my skin for some reason. I don’t want Nora in pain—not from this, at least—and I reach for her, pulling her closer to me so I can hug her from the back.

She stiffens at my touch, rigid tension spreading through her body, and I know that she’s awake now, that she remembers what happened.

“How are you feeling?” I ask, keeping my voice low and soothing as I stroke the smooth curve of her outer thigh with my hand. “Do you want some water or anything?”