After My Murder I Returned

The First Scar

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Chapter 3: The First Scar

Day 15 started with blood.

Not a lot. Just enough to drip onto his bathroom sink and ruin the morning. Nathan stared at his right hand. The knuckles were split, swollen, ugly. Punching that brick wall outside Ascend Fitness had felt good for, like, three seconds. Now it felt stupid. Infected stupid.

“Okay, um...” He ran the water. It stung. “Note to self. You’re not, like, twenty-four with Wolverine healing. You’re twenty-four with a trust fund and bad decisions.”

He wrapped it in gauze from CVS. It bled through by 10 AM.

By noon, Jonah was texting him.

Jonah Carter: dude u alive?

Jonah Carter: damien just called me. ASKED me if u were okay

Jonah Carter: damien. reed. called. me.

Jonah Carter: what did u DO

Nathan typed back: I’m fine. Signed the term sheet. That’s it.

Three dots. Then:

Jonah Carter: ...and?

Jonah Carter: nate come on. he doesn’t call ppl. he summons them.

Nathan didn’t answer. Because he didn’t know either. In the other life, Damien didn’t call Jonah until after Nathan’s funeral. To thank him for “being there.”

He rewrapped his hand. The gauze was already pink.

By 4 PM, it was throbbing. By 6 PM, he had a fever.

“Fine,” he told his reflection. “Fine, you, uh, you stubborn bastard. Hospital.”

Georgetown ER was packed. Friday night. College kids with alcohol poisoning and a guy who “fell down stairs” but definitely got in a fight. Nathan signed in under N. Reed and sat in the corner.

He lasted twenty minutes before the nurse called him back.

“Room three,” she said. “Doctor’ll be right with you.”

Room three smelled like antiseptic and exhaustion. Nathan sat on the bed, cradling his hand. It was, like, really bad now. Red streaks. He knew what that meant. He’d seen it in the other life, after Adonis... well. After.

The curtain pulled back.

“Alright, uh, what did we do?” A woman’s voice. Tired, but sharp. “Let me guess. ‘Fell on it’?”

Nathan looked up.

And forgot how to talk.

She wasn’t Melanie. That was the first thing. No red dress, no calculated smile, no perfume that cost more than rent. Scrubs. Dark hair in a messy bun. Pen behind her ear. Eyes that looked like she hadn’t slept in thirty hours but still saw everything.

ID badge: Dr. Amber Evans, Emergency Medicine.

“Oh,” Nathan said. Like an idiot. “Uh. Hi.”

Amber Evans raised an eyebrow. “Hi. I’m, like, not a bartender. This is the ER. So. The hand?”

“Right. Yeah. Sorry.” Nathan held it out. “I, um... I punched a wall.”

“Okay.” She didn’t even blink. “Why?”

“I...” Because I saw the man who murdered me and didn’t end up in jail. “I was testing the mortar. It, uh, it failed.”

Amber snorted. Actually snorted. “Uh-huh. And I’m assuming the wall was, like, talking trash about your mother?”

“No. It was...” Nathan stopped. “Okay, yeah. That’s fair.”

She pulled on gloves. Her hands were cold, efficient. “So, you’re either an idiot or you’re lying. Which is it, Mr. Reed?”

“Uh... can I, like, pick ‘both’?”

“That’s usually the right answer.” She probed the wound. Nathan hissed. “Yeah, that’s infected. You’re lucky it’s just your hand. Another day and we’d be talking IV antibiotics. Maybe surgery. You want to tell me what really happened, or should I just chart ‘anger management issues’ and move on?”

Nathan looked at her. Really looked. No makeup. No agenda. Just a woman who’d seen a hundred idiots tonight and wasn’t impressed by his last name.

“I saw someone,” he said quietly. “Someone I, um... someone who hurt me. A long time ago. And I didn’t... I didn’t do anything. So I took it out on a wall.”

Amber’s hands stilled for a second. Then she kept working. “Okay. That’s, like, actually a better answer than I expected.” She glanced up. “You press charges?”

“Can’t. He hasn’t, uh... he hasn’t done it yet.”

She gave him a look. “Right. Well. In this timeline, you should maybe try therapy instead of masonry.” She started cleaning the wound. Iodine. It burned. “This is gonna suck. Hold still.”

“Yeah. I’m, um, I’m good at that.”

“At what? Holding still?”

“At, like, sucking things up.”

She huffed. Almost a laugh. “Obviously.”

They were quiet while she stitched. Four stitches. Small, neat. Her hands didn’t shake.

“You’re good at that,” Nathan said.

“I’m an ER doc. If I wasn’t, I’d be, like, sued constantly.” She tied off the last one. “Don’t punch walls. Don’t lie to doctors. And, uh, don’t let this get wet for 48 hours. Got it?”

“Got it.”

She pulled off her gloves. “You need a tetanus shot?”

“Um. Probably. I don’t... I don’t remember.”

“Of course you don’t.” She scribbled on his chart. “I’ll send the nurse. Try not to, like, bleed on anything else on your way out, Mr. Reed.”

“Nathan,” he said. “It’s, uh... it’s Nathan.”

She paused. Looked at him again. Really looked. “Okay, Nathan. Don’t punch walls.”

And she was gone.

Nathan sat there for a minute, hand wrapped, heart doing something stupid.

It wasn’t attraction. Not yet. It was... relief. Like finding a room without Melanie in it.

Day 17 was Damien.

Nathan. My office. 10 AM. We need to talk.

Not a request. A summons.

Reed Ventures was a single floor in a glass building on K Street. In the other life, Nathan avoided it. Too many memories of being told he was a disappointment.

Now he walked in at 9:58.

Damien’s office smelled like cigar and old books. Damien was at the window, back to the door, hands clasped behind him. Same posture he had when he fired people.

“You’re on time,” Damien said without turning. “That’s new.”

“Uh, yeah. I, um... I figured I should start.”

Damien turned. He looked older than Nathan remembered. Or maybe Nathan was just used to the version from the funeral. “Sit.”

Nathan sat.

Damien tossed a folder onto the desk. NEXPAY – Q4 PROJECTIONS. “Elena Torres says you’ve been asking questions. Good questions. Like you, mmm, like you actually read the deck.”

“I did. I, like, I read it three times.”

“Why?”

Nathan blinked. “What?”

“Why?” Damien sat down. Steepled his fingers. “Last month you told me NexPay was ‘for nerds.’ Now you’re emailing their CTO at 2 AM about, uh, about ‘supply chain redundancy.’ So. Why?”

Because I died broke and you died alone and I’m not doing that again.

“I...” Nathan swallowed. “I guess I, um, I guess I realized I don’t want to be the guy who just signs checks. I want to, like, I want to know what I’m signing.”

Damien stared at him. For a long time. Then: “Good.”

That was it. One word. But it felt like a verdict.

“Board meeting’s Thursday,” Damien said. “You’re sitting in.”

Nathan choked. “I— what? I’m not, like, I’m not on the board.”

“You are now. Observer seat. No voting. Just, mmm, just listen. Learn.” Damien pushed the folder toward him. “Don’t embarrass me.”

“I won’t.” Nathan’s voice cracked. “I swear I won’t, Dad.”

Damien’s eyes flicked up at Dad. He hadn’t said it in years, even in the other life.

“...Good,” Damien said again. Quieter.

Day 20 was the ambush.

Whole Foods. P Street. Nathan was buying actual food — vegetables, chicken, things Sophia would be proud of — when someone “accidentally” ran into him with a cart.

“Oh my God, I’m, like, so sorry!”

Melanie Rivers.

Not the gala. Not planned. Or maybe totally planned. Red sweater, jeans, hair down. The “casual” look that took two hours.

Nathan froze. Cart handle in his good hand, stitches pulling in the other.

She looked up. Big brown eyes. Rehearsed surprise. “Oh. Hi. I, um... I don’t think we’ve met? I’m Melanie.”

I know.

I know your favorite wine. I know your safe code. I know the sound you make when you lie.

“Uh,” Nathan said. “No. We, uh... we haven’t.”

“Right.” She smiled. The same one. The one that cost him everything. “I’m so sorry again. I’m, like, such a klutz. Are you... do you shop here a lot?”

Nathan looked at her. Really looked. Twenty-four. No blood on her hands yet. No knife. Just a girl who’d grow up to be a monster because Douglas Rivers raised her to be one.

“Yeah,” he said. “I do. But, um... I don’t think I’m gonna be here long.”

He grabbed his basket and walked away.

Didn’t look back.

Didn’t have to.

He could feel her eyes. Could feel Douglas’s somewhere.

Let them watch.

Nathan had stitches in his hand, a board seat on Thursday, and a doctor named Amber Evans who told him not to punch walls.

For the first time in two lives, he had a plan.

And Melanie Rivers wasn’t in it.

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