Chapter Twenty-Two Who Doesn’t Like a Little Praise? #2
“Any trouble?” he asks.
“He’s on the fourth floor,” I reply dutifully.
West smiles. It’s not his usual blinding mask, meant to throw me off-kilter. This smile is quiet and earnest, comfortable in a way I’ve never seen it before. “Attagirl,” he says, so impossibly gentle, before the elevator doors slide open and he steps inside.
A delightful shiver passes through me, my heart suddenly aflutter. Attagirl. It’s only a word. Three short syllables, and yet it has me craving more praise. Does that make me pathetic? I shouldn’t be fazed by a simple compliment, but I guess that’s what happens when you grow up the way I did.
Mom wouldn’t just point out what she perceived as flaws; she’d fixate on them.
Lily and I hit our growth spurts earlier than the rest of our class, and when we started putting on a bit of weight (a perfectly natural thing to happen to pubescent girls, mind you), Mom put us on a diet.
She’d passive-aggressively poke at my arms, pinch at the skin on my back.
Nothing was ever good enough. I was never good enough.
The ride up to the fourth floor is quick. We make our way through the labyrinthine halls. My sneakers squeak against the polished gray tiles, the buzz of the fluorescent light panels above our heads filling my ears.
We’re just about to round the corner when West stops abruptly, holding up an arm like a barrier. I nearly knock into him.
“What are you doing?” I ask under my breath.
“Someone’s guarding the door.”
I peek around the corner. Sure enough, a man is seated to the left of the hospital room door in a blue plastic chair. He looks bored out of his mind, head tilted back against the wall for support. Is he a concerned colleague of Elliot’s come to visit?
“He might nod off if we give him a minute,” I muse.
West shakes his head. “We don’t have that kind of time. If a doctor or a nurse spots us and asks us why we’re here, the jig is up.”
“And you were giving me a hard time about 1940s lingo.”
“Can you blame me? It’s catchy.”
I huff. “How do we get past him, then?”
West looks around, his attention falling upon a heavy door. There’s a sign stuck to the front, and although my French is rusty, I know what it says. Personnel autorisé seulement—authorized staff only.
“Still have that ID card?” he asks.
I produce it from my pocket and hand it to him.
West swiftly taps the plastic to the electronic reader beside the door and—with a quick beep, click—the door unlocks.
We hastily make our way in. It’s a staff changing room, small blue lockers lined up along the walls.
The coast is clear for now, so we search through any lockers that haven’t been properly shut.
West finds a pair of aquamarine scrubs and holds them out to me. “Change into these.”
“Right here?”
“Are you shy?”
Oh, this man really knows how to push my buttons.
I strip out of my clothes right in front of him, unabashedly accepting his unspoken challenge.
He doesn’t look away, his stare burning as I unzip the front of my jeans and let them fall to the floor.
West traces the length of my legs with nothing but his gaze.
I pull my shirt off next, not once breaking eye contact.
It’s a thrill like no other when his throat bobs, his jaw ticking and his pupils blown wide.
West manages a single step forward before I click my tongue, shaking my head in disapproval. “You know what? I am shy. Be a dear and turn around, would you?”
“What if I want to kiss you now?” he asks, his words hoarse.
I smile unsympathetically. “You had your chance in the car.”
“Damn.” West sighs dramatically as he places a hand over his eyes.
He turns around too, for good measure. (Such a gentleman.) I throw on my pilfered scrubs and find that the shirt is a little tight around the chest, and I worry the starchy fabric will make it difficult to run should we need to, but the pants fit well enough.
“Alright,” I say. “I’m done.”
He’s still faced away, as promised, but he must have found himself his own scrubs because he’s already thrown off his clothes to put them on.
West stands there in a pair of navy-blue scrub pants, working his shirt over his head.
For some strange, confounding reason, my mouth waters at the sight of his broad back.
I can make out the movement of muscles beneath smooth skin.
Some small part of me hopes that he’ll turn around again so that I can admire his tattoos and—
God, what is this man doing to me?
“Okay,” he says, reaching into two separate lockers to produce a white doctor’s coat for each of us. “Final touches.”
“Is this really necessary?”
West winks at me, that annoyingly handsome twinkle behind his green eyes. “The trick is in the details. A good disguise and an air of confidence is all you need to convince others you belong.”
A smile stretches across my lips. “Glad we agree.”
He helps me into my coat like a gentleman trying to impress a lady on their first date. His hands briefly brush over my shoulders, and while I try not to think anything of it, there’s no stopping the delightful little shiver that runs down my spine.
“After you, doctor,” he says coyly.
By the time we make it back to room 412C, the man we saw sitting outside is no longer there. Annoyance licks at the back of my neck. We’d been playing dress-up, and for what?
West enters first. Probably a good decision, since I don’t know the first thing to say.
The man from before sits at Elliot’s bedside, wearing a look of obvious concern.
Elliot himself looks worse for wear. Currently unconscious, he’s hooked up to a handful of different monitoring machines.
Purple blooms around his right eye. His lip is split and swollen.
Bandages are wrapped around his forehead, neck and both arms. I shudder, realizing now how grateful I should be that West covered my eyes.
Berruci must have done a number on him to put him in a coma.
“Bonsoir,” West greets with a breezy tone, picking up the medical chart hanging at the foot of the patient’s bed.
He’s a natural, I notice. So comfortable in his own skin, in this room, moving as if being a doctor really is what he does for a living.
“Faites pas attention à nous. On vérifie juste ses signes vitaux.”
“Quand est-ce qu’on pourra enfin rentrer chez nous, docteur?” the man asks.
My head spins. I took French classes in middle school and enjoyed my lessons enough that I studied it all the way into high school, but I hardly remember anything now.
West and the man speak too fast and with a regional meridional accent that makes it difficult to follow along, though I am able to pick up “rentrer” and “chez nous” and fill in the context.
When can we go home?
My heart thuds against my rib cage. How does this man know Elliot? West arches a brow and asks, “êtes-vous…”
“Je suis son frère,” the man responds.
My ears perk up. They’re brothers. An idea pops into my head. Maybe we can use this to our advantage.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Allistair.” He frowns at me with justified suspicion. “Qu’est-ce qui se passe?”
“Do you speak English?” West asks him, tilting his chin in my direction. “For her sake.”
“A little,” he replies. His accent is incredibly thick. “Who are you? Did Berruci send you? Please don’t hurt him. Je vous le promets—”
West holds up a hand. “Easy, friend. We’re not going to hurt you. In fact, we’re going to help.”
“What do you mean?”
“You want out, don’t you?” West asks. “Most do, once they realize the shit Berruci likes to pull.”
“There is no way out.” Allistair shakes his head. “I was such a fool. I thought it was just another security job. Long hours, but very good pay. By the time I realized who we were working for, it was too late for us to leave. I’ve…I’ve seen things. Terrible things.”
West’s expression hardens and I wonder if this is how he felt all those years ago. Trapped with nowhere to run and no one to turn to.
“My little brother…” Allistair’s shoulders deflate, weighed down by his obvious worry and fear. “Elliot is a good man. He did not deserve this. That stupid gate…It wasn’t his fault it malfunctioned.”
“Work with us,” West says gently. “We can make things right.”
“You still haven’t told me who you are. This could be some sort of trap. Un test de fidélité.”
I take a step forward. “This isn’t a—”
West takes my hand then, giving my fingers the lightest of squeezes. He doesn’t say anything, but his meaning isn’t lost on me. Let me handle this, his eyes say.
“Don’t be afraid,” he says, reminding me very much of when we first met back in Vancouver. “My associate and I have a plan.”
Allistair stands straighter. “Quoi?”
“If you help us, we’ll cut you in,” West clarifies. “All you have to do is be our eyes and ears.”