Page 93 of Exit Strategy

26

Callie…

I was worried, no –scaredfor Kurt when I watched him crash into that table from the doorway. They had told me to stay out of sight for the time being, that my presence could or would only galvanize Maddie further into violence and they didn’t want that. I stayed out of sight in another room, but all too soon, I found myself drifting in the direction of their voices. Stealing away in the opulent halls of the mansion, pressed against walls, and listening outside doorways as I had done countless times while ensconced in New Eden, under their eye, under their thumb, wondering what was next.

I had been so naïve even then, even after what the August had done at my presentation. So damn naïve I hadn’t realized that meeting Arik Rex wasn’t an accident but had been just as thoroughly engineered as anything else.

I swallowed hard and listened and had turned the corner just as Maddie, who had always been strong, lifted Kurt’s massive frame clean off the floor andslammedhim down into the table.

The sound had been horrendous, and I couldn’t get it out of my mind. The table cracking, but not giving way, and there was honestly no telling if that awful, terrible sound had been the table or if it had been Kurt.

Doctor Maxine had come and given him a hefty dose of morphine. She recommended cold and then hot therapy to promote healing but said that Kurt’s body needed to do the work. Beyond pain management, there wasn’t anything she could do except wrap the ribs.

Kyle and Sadie went to work, and it was left to Roan and me to get a stupefied Kurt out of his clothes and into a pair of swim trunks.

“Get yourself ready,” Roan told me. “We may need you in the hot tub. Ideally cold to start but we need him a bit more lucid than this for that or he may fight us.”

I nodded and changed swiftly into a swimsuit, leaving Roan to swallow his own tongue when I didn’t step into the bathroom to do it. His cheeks flaming redder than his hair, we helped Kurt to stagger downstairs, holding him up between us.

It was difficult moving a man of his size without holding him around his ribs. I was scared, his back already starting to purple and bruise around the side where he had taken the brunt of the hit.

“I got him.” Kyle rushed forward and dipped low to take Kurt up on my side.

I turned and Sadie was dumping ice into an aluminum… what looked like a horse trough they had produced from somewhere, a garden hose running into it, water splashing, ice sloshing and rattling.

“You’re going to put him inthat?” I asked incredulously.

“Aye, after a bit in the hot tub. Loosen him up some. As I said, ideally ice first but I’m afraid he’d cave our bloody heads in right now.” Roan looked amused and I had my misgivings. How did any of this present as funny?

Poor Maddie had been devastated and they’d just let her go out the front door. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t just as worried about her. It wasn’t her fault. All of this was clearly to be laid at the August’s feet and I was so hurt but more importantly, I wasangry.

I got into the hot tub at Kyle’s gesturing and raised my arms to receive Kurt as they lowered him into the swirling steaming waters.

“Are you sure this is safe?” he asked, as I sank in up to my chin.

“Heat is not ideal at this point,” Roan said, and Kurt muttered something about sharks.

I must have looked stricken when I looked up at Roan who just winked at me with a smile and said, “He’s always had a ratheruniquereaction to morphine.”

I took Kurt into my arms, and he sort of lay suspended in the water, his head lying back against my chest between my breasts.

“You’re going to be okay,” I whispered into his ear and that seemed to satisfy him. He leaned back against me, and I barely kept my feet and his head above water, but I managed.

“How long?” I asked, looking up. Kyle set out a patio chair for Roan and he sank into it. Sadie went over to him, and he pulled her down onto his knee.

“A fair bit,” Roan remarked and nodded to Kyle who nodded back once and disappeared into the mansion.

I held on to Kurt and murmured to him when he stirred or started to struggle a bit in his drugged stupor.

“You have a knack with him,” Roan said after a bit. “None of us could keep him half so calm in-country the one time we had to administer him morphine.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m sure you’ve seen the scars,” Roan said with a smile as Sadie cuddled into him. “Took some shrapnel about two months before I lost my leg. Superficial, merely flesh wounds, but had to administer the old boy some morphine in the field. Turned super soldier on us after that. Tried to fight us when there wasn’t any enemy left. That’s how we found out he had a slight allergy to morphine. Messed with him up here a fair bit.” He tapped his temple with a middle finger. “Came out of it within an hour or two, still – nothing better than the old milk of the poppy to handle pain.”

I nodded and Kurt groaned slightly, and… and I think he was asleep! Asleep and dreaming.

Oh, shit.I took my responsibility doubly as seriously so that he wouldn’t drown on me.

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