Page 101 of Desolation

“Shit,” he mutters under his breath. “Someone bring me some whiskey.”

“There is alcohol in the first aid kit,” Charlie deadpans.

“This isn’t for the wound. This is to calm down Mari while I pull the bullet out.”

My eyes bug out. I didn’t even think that the bullet was still in my arm. The thought alone makes me light-headed and I feel myself falling out of the chair but Landon steadies me, gripping my shoulders tightly.

“I’ll grab it,” Jackson says.

“No. We should let her tell her story through the pain. Get the answers.” Charlie counters.

I look over at her and she is not the woman who was kind to me days ago.

“Princess, I’m going to need you to back off on the crazy CIA bullshit for a minute.”

CIA? I thought she worked for Jackson.

I look away from her and notice Dax standing across the room from me, a ghostly look on his face.

An arm darts in front of my face holding a glass and I realize it’s Jackson with whiskey.

“Drink it, Mar. Trust me.” Landon whispers in my ear.

“I hate whiskey.”

Mark pokes his finger into my arm and I cry out in pain. “You won’t hate it that much after this.”

I get his point so I down the glass that is at least three shots worth.

Mark wastes no time and takes a pair of tweezers to my arm. I can feel him digging inside of me, the pain nearly unbearable but as soon as I hear the clink of metal on the conference table, I feel a rush of relief. Mark messes around with my arm before bandaging it up.

“You’ll need to see a doctor but you are much better now.”

Landon lets go of me and grabs a few things out of the kit on the table. Before I even realize what he is doing he is dabbing alcohol to my face. Mark hands me more whiskey and I gladly drink it until Landon finishes with the abrasion.

“Now that you aren’t going to bleed out on us, you need to tell us what happened,” Jackson states as he takes a seat at the corner of the table.

I look around the room. I am not sure at all what is going on. Jackson and Charlie are looking at me like I am guilty of something. Landon and Mark both look worried about me. I glance across the room to see Dax leaning against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest, a blank stare on his face.

I swallow the quiver in my lungs and take a gulp of whiskey before I speak. “I wasn’t that far away when I noticed someone was following me. I was run off the road but managed to cut across a clearing before the car got stuck on something. I ran out of the car, fight or flight kicking in. That’s when I got shot. I fell and hit my head against a rock. I heard a man yelling behind me and so I ran. I got to a major road and turned around looking behind me for the man but there was no one there. Luckily, I grabbed my phone when I got out of the car or else I never would have made it here.”

“Why didn’t you call someone when you thought you were being followed?” Jackson asks.

I shrug. “At first, I thought I was being paranoid after the break in the other night but then—”

“What break in?” Charlies cuts me off.

“I—I was at Dax’s, I mean David’s house. In the pool house. That’s where I’ve been staying. Anyway, Landon came over. Surprised me. But I didn’t understand how he got in.”

Jackson looks over to David. “David has a state of the art security system.”

“Yeah, that’s why I could barely do anything,” Mark says. “I tried to disconnect it but that shit has like twenty bypass codes.”

I look over to Dax but he is still stoic.

“The gate was open that night,” Landon adds. “I secured the perimeter. David and I did a full search. We saw a kid jumping over the fence near the cliffside but I couldn’t catch up to him.”

What? This is news to me.

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