Nick
"Sir," the second officer said, leaning against the foot of my bed. "The pattern of the bruising suggests multiple blunt-force impacts from a closed fist. A fall doesn't split a lip like that."
"The pattern of the injuries," I said, my voice dropping into the cold, authoritative tone I used when a medical student questioned an incision line, "is entirely consistent with a fall against a rusty iron drainage pipe. I fell on my face, officer. It happens to the best of us."
Noah was standing right beside the bed, the confusion and anger practically radiating off his skin. "Nick—"
"Don't," I snapped, not looking at him.
"Someone clearly did this to you—"
"Noah," I said, using the exact tone that had ended every argument we had ever had since childhood. It was the tone that meant I was done listening.
