Page 19 of Lost
“Most of them,” I mutter. “I need to make a call and wash my hands.”
I can feel my mates worry and know that they’re outside, but I can’t stop my trajectory. Exhaustion is pulling at my body, and I need to finish this.
“Let’s find you a bathroom,” Caleb says, eying my hands. “One of us will also hold the phone. There’s not a chance in hell that you’ll be able to.”
Shrugging, I start toward the first door I see, and everyone scrambles to find me a bathroom. It’s almost funny how everyone rushes into action to help me, but I’ve already done all the heavy lifting.
The fourth door that Duncan tries yields a bathroom, and Caleb follows me in to help me. A glance at the mirror makes me roll my eyes. I look like Carrie and Chuckie the killer doll had a baby.
“I’m going to wash your hands,” he mutters, grabbing the soap dispenser to pump some into our hands. “Who the fuck did this?”
“Nova’s fake parents,” I grunt, the high of the murders dissipating faster than normal. Glad I’ll be too tired to continue killing. That was my worry: being unable to stop. “My feet are just as bad.”
“Fucking hell,” he sighs. “Lars is outside with your pack and Nova. They wanted to come in, but we didn’t know how you’d be feeling.”
Translation: we didn’t know if you’d still be killing people. He’s not wrong, I just chose to finish it as they broke inside.
“I need to find the number to Roberto’s oldest child,” I say without preamble. “They apparently don’t approve of his behavior and I want to lay it all out for him.”
“Why?” Caleb asks, carefully washing my hands. The warm water simply forces the blood to circulate, and my pain receptors fire up as if it’s the end of the world. Fuck me, that hurts.
Breathing through the pain, I blink away the black dots moving through my vision. Damn, this isn’t fun.
“One last fuck you,” I grunt. “He’s using an auction house to buy children, so I want to ruin Roberto’s reputation. I also don’t want his sons to search for revenge. He was a piece of shit and I took out the trash. I’m a hero, so they should let sleeping dogs lie.”
“That’s a leap,” he says mildly. “What if they’re just as bad?”
“Working from my gut,” I rasp, shuddering as Caleb moves one of my broken fingers.
“Fuck it, that’s good enough,” he says. “I refuse to hurt you, and I know I am.”
“My body is a little fucked up,” I admit.
“I want you out of this goddamned shirt, though,” he says. Popping his head out the door he yells, “Tell Hollis’ pack that I need one of their shirts!”
He refuses to be polite about it, and I wince at the thoughts that could be going through their heads when they’re told that.
I’m okay, just need a new shirt,I push through the bond.
If you’re okay, then I’m a Prince of Egypt,Brice growls.Do…not…lie to us.
I’m alive, which means I’m okay enough,I reply.
About a minute later, a shirt is shoved at Caleb, and he shuts the door.
“Where’s the phone?” he asks, gazing warily at me.
“There’s a pocket,” I laugh. “The vagina is not a pocket, Caleb.”
“Ugh, never say that again,” he says, plucking the phone from the pocket. “Arms up.”
Caleb helps me out of the bloody shirt and into the clean one, and my body relaxes slightly as I smell Brice. It figures that he would insist that I use his shirt.
Caleb picks up a wash cloth and runs warm water over it before rubbing it over my face to clean as much blood as possible from it. I know that’s mostly a lost cause, but I do appreciate that I’ll scare a few less people.
“There’s not a password on the phone. Can you find out Roberto’s oldest son’s name for me? I’m starting to crash, Caleb.”
“Fuck. Hold on,” he says, reopening the bathroom door as he tosses the dirty wash cloth. A glance at the mirror shows that there’s still streaks of blood, but I appear less of a walking nightmare than before. “Adira, you out there?”
