Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
Makayla would have sworn she felt Van’s lips press a kiss to the top of her head.
But he wouldn't kiss her, would he? Not Van. Not the man who was so positive he’d done the impossible and learned how to not feel.
He wouldn't be so open about displaying any sort of emotion or weakness as he probably saw it, when he had an audience.
Unless …
Was it too much to hope that Van was willing to stop pretending his emotions no longer existed and wanted to learn to connect to them again?
“Are you hurt, sweetheart?” he asked, and the endearment made her smile despite the exhaustion and the agony in her torn-up feet.
“Just tired,” she assured him. Then, because she was pretty sure she wasn't going to be able to walk another step for a while, she reluctantly added, “And my feet got a little cut up.”
One of the men shifted slightly, bending down so he could get a look at her feet and then hissed in a breath.
“These are not a little cut up. How were you walking on these, much less running?” the man asked, and it almost sounded like he was … angry at her?
The tone made her feel like she needed to defend herself, so she lifted her head from Van’s shoulder.
“Well, I didn't really have any other choice.
There was no way he wouldn't send people after me when he realized what I did. I knew I had to find my way to a town or a road or something where I could get access to a phone. The only way to do that was to walk.”
“He’s not angry with you, Makayla, he’s in awe of you,” Van explained.
“Definitely awe,” the man said, offering her a genuine smile. “I'm Grover.”
“Nice to meet you, Grover. Sorry, I'm just … edgy, I guess,” she said, embarrassed now that she realized she’d misinterpreted the man’s intention.
“No need for apologies, Makayla. You're holding it together, and that’s all anyone can ask of you right now,” Grover assured her, and she nodded in thanks, offering a weak and somewhat shaky smile.
“The others are Trigger, who found you, Doc, Brain, Lucky, Oz, and the guy you stabbed is Lefty,” Van said, nodding at the men one by one.
Her gaze lingered on Lefty, who had a hand pressed to his shoulder where she’d stabbed him. Stabbed him. Her stomach churned, and she fought not to throw up, grateful now for the lack of food and the fact she hadn't stopped all morning to drink anything.
“Shh, you're okay, Makayla. He is fine. Are you listening to me?” Van said, a hard tone to his voice that attempted to command her to agree with him.
“I stabbed him. Hurt him, and the other woman, I killed her. I know you said that she willingly worked for him but—”
“No buts, sweetheart,” he said, and the gentleness in his voice made tears sting her eyes. “Now I'm going to sit down and hold you on my lap, while Doc cleans your feet. Then you're going to drink some water, eat a protein bar, and then we’ll figure out what our next move is.”
“Okay,” she whispered. Then louder, “Okay.” She could do that, focus on one thing at a time.
Hold it together a little longer. When she was safe, maybe she could ask Van to hold her while she cried.
It would probably make him uncomfortable, and she probably shouldn’t put that kind of pressure on him after he’d come all this way to find her, but it would make her feel better to know she was safe while she let go.
“You’ve got this, Makayla. I'm pretty sure you can survive anything,” Van told her as he carried her away from the tree she’d been holding onto when she’d come across Trigger.
He stopped in a slightly more densely treed area.
It would offer them better protection from being spotted, and she assumed that the man who had bought her still had people looking for her, too, so they had to be careful.
“Second that,” Lucky said, shooting her a warm smile.
“Third,” Brain added, making her chuckle.
“Fourth it,” Oz said, his grin wide, and she laughed again.
“Okay, I get it, thank you. I am okay, I promise, it’s just … I was already struggling with the whole killing someone thing, and then to know I stabbed someone who was trying to help me, it’s a lot. I'm not cut out for this. I couldn’t even slit Van’s throat when I thought he was one of them.”
“Slit Van’s throat? Oh, I want to hear more about that,” Grover said as Van sat down, keeping her in his arms.
“Maybe later,” Van said dismissively as he arranged her on his lap so she was sitting across it, her shoulder leaning against his hard chest, his breath warm across her temple, the feel of it soothing in a way nothing else could calm her right now.
“Definitely now,” Lucky said, making Van glower at him.
“How about we take care of our patient as our first priority,” he snapped.
“I don’t mind telling them the story while Doc cleans my feet,” she offered. Actually, she’d love anything she could use as a distraction because this was going to suck big time. She didn't have to look at her feet to know they were a torn, bloody mess.
“Drink some water,” Van grumbled when Oz held out a canteen to her.
That was an order she was happy to follow. Her mouth may as well be lined with dirt for how dry it felt. She took a big swallow, and then another, but Van stopped her before she could take a third.
“Go slow,” he cautioned. “You're dehydrated. Go too fast and you’ll vomit it all back up, make yourself worse off.”
Turned out to be good advice for more than that reason.
Doc knelt by her feet, grasped one of her ankles, shifted her foot so it was balanced on his knee, and then poured some water over it.
The resulting pain was more than enough to have her stomach revolt to the point she almost leaned over and threw up the couple of mouthfuls she’d just drunk.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Van soothed, urging her head to his chest, then stroking his hand the length of her spine. “It’ll be over soon.”
Soon wasn't soon enough.
After pouring water over her feet, Doc took out a pair of tweezers and began to remove the pieces of debris that were embedded in her flesh. She was no stranger to pain, but for some reason, it hit differently when the person causing it was trying to help her instead of hurt her.
While she focused on breathing through the pain, she could vaguely hear Van telling the story of how close she’d come to slitting his throat.
She didn't pay too much attention to his words, just let the rumble of his voice in the chest she was snuggled against calm her racing heart. It couldn’t go on forever.
This pain had an expiration date. That’s all she had to keep reminding herself.
Still, by the time Doc set down the tweezers and grabbed some antibiotic ointment to smear all over the soles of her feet, she was trembling, her body hovering on the edge of an exhaustion-fueled crash.
Van had stopped talking, but his hand continued to stroke her back, and the others were all circled around them, cocooning her in a little bubble of safety.
Ointment applied, bandages went on next, completely covering her feet, almost too tightly as the soft white material pressed against the dozens of tiny wounds.
Walking would be impossible for a while, but that didn't seem to matter now that Van was here, he’d take care of her. She was safe with him.
“Time to drink some more water,” Van urged, this softer side to him something she was enjoying seeing him explore, and she gave him a shaky smile as she tipped her head back and allowed him to hold the canteen to her lips.
“Protein bar too. Sorry they don’t taste that great,” Oz told her as he held out the small bar with the wrapper already peeled back.
“That’s all right. I’m not sure I could taste much of anything right now anyway,” she said as she took the food and began to nibble at it.
Oz was right, it tasted bland, and the texture wasn't great either, but her body needed fuel, and they weren't out of the woods yet, so to speak.
“What happens now?” she asked no one in particular.
Were they just going to head to the airport and go home, or did they still have to take care of the problem of the man who had bought her?
“Now you rest,” Van told her.
“I'm … tired but not sleepy,” she said honestly. “My mind is all filled with thoughts and emotions and fears, and I'm not sure I can untangle them enough to sleep right now. I need …” but she trailed off without finishing the sentence because she wasn't really sure what she needed.
“I know what you need, sweetheart,” Van said, and the guys disappeared from around them, vanishing into the trees, although she was sure they hadn't gone far and were close enough to watch over them while also giving them some privacy.
And all of a sudden, Makayla knew exactly what she needed.
Van.
September 1st
11:12 A.M.
“All right, sweetheart. It’s just the two of is now,” Van said as he curled his arms tighter around the woman snuggled up on his lap.
It physically hurt him to see the bandages on her feet, to know she walked for twenty-four hours on ripped-up feet because she knew she didn't have any other options.
And it killed him to know that even though she was aware of who he was, what he was doing at Azure, and that he was sending in help, she still thought she had to do it alone. He wanted Makayla to trust him. Explicitly. Without doubt. And yes, he was aware of how crazy that sounded.
But this guy right here, the one who’d smoothed a hand up and down Makayla’s back as she pretended that having her feet cleaned and bandaged wasn't hell, who used endearments like it was no big deal, who was being tender when he’d never been affectionate with another human being in his life, was a version of himself he liked.
It was everything he’d never thought about being, never wanted to be.
Sure, he saved lives, but it was clinical, a job, using the hard man he’d become to do some good in the world, but maybe it was the man who could have existed if life had dealt him a kinder hand.