Page 134 of Lethal Game

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“Bad news, Akbar leftin a truck,” Smoke said.

“Feel better now?” Sophia asked Con, rolling her eyes as she wrapped a second bandage around Con’s thigh.

She looked at Smoke. “I found something I think is a signal jammer over by the hospital supplies. I took the batteries out and called Max. The SAT phone is over there somewhere.”

Smoke nodded and went to look for it.

Con wanted to shake and yell at her for taking the insane risks she constantly took. “No. You could have killed yourself lighting the lab up like that.”

“I wasn’t going to let Akbar take my equipment or me with him.”

Her steady tone had him on the verge of exploding. “So, it would have been okay if you’d died?”

She didn’t look up from tying off the bandage. “Yes.”

Wrong answer.

He took her by the arms, gently because she already had too many bruises, and brought her nose to nose with him. “Who the fuck brainwashed you into valuing yourself so little?” Whoever it was, he was going to hurt them.

“Who brainwashed you?”

“What?”

“You wanted to die, don’t try to tell me you didn’t. I’m a cancer survivor, remember? I’ve seen lots of people make the decision that death would be better than living. Sometimes, when you thought no one was looking, you’d look like that. Like you were telling your battle buddies you just had one more mission to do before you joined them.”

His mouth tightened. He should have known she’d figure it out. For someone so young, she saw with old, wise eyes.

“I don’t feel like that now.”

“Good.” She sighed and all the starch seemed to go out of her. “We’re all going to die someday.”

“Flippant comments like that are going to get you handcuffed to a bed so you can’t get into any more trouble.” He wasn’t kidding.

She reached out and stroked one hand down his face with a sad little smile on her face. “Sounds like fun to me.”

She was all misty eyed, like his sisters got when they were really emotional. It was so unlike her, a tsunami of cold concern washed away his anger in one sweep. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

She laughed, but it was bitterly sad. “Would you like the entire list or just the highlights?” A tear tracked its way down her face.

“Sophia?”

She blinked at him, a little frown creasing her brow. “I don’t feel very good.” A trickle of blood came out of her nose, her eyes fluttered shut and she sagged in his hold.

Con cradled her against his chest and yelled, “Smoke, I need some help here!”

Smoke swept into Con’s field of view. “Find Dr. Blairmore. Sophia just passed out on me.”

Smoke took one look at Sophia and disappeared into the hospital.

“Come on, gorgeous, don’t do this to me,” he whispered. He wiped the blood off her face, but it kept coming in a slow, steady drip that worried him more and more with every passing second.

Dr. Blairmore arrived, took one look at Sophia’s bruised arms and bloody nose and sucked in a breath. “Was she tortured?”

“She says she has a clotting problem,” Con said. “But she gave herself a platelet transfusion at the base in Bahrain before we left.”

Blairmore shifted on his feet with the anxiety of a man who had really bad news for someone. “Can I do a couple of tests?”

---