14. Hawk
HAWK
It felt fucking good to stand on my own two feet without wires and tubes attached to my body. Felt good to wear jeans and a T-shirt instead of the hospital gown.
And it felt really fucking good to be conscious enough to see Cassie again.
“Sit down and I’ll help you with your boots,” Cassie said.
“I’m good.” I tried to crouch to put on my boots, then gasped at the pain that rocketed through my body from the burn on my side.
It didn’t help that I was still short of breath.
“Don’t be stubborn,” Cassie said, taking my arm and leading me to the hospital bed. “You’re going to end up back here if you can’t be sensible enough to accept help.”
I sat on the bed and lifted my foot, let Cassie ease it into one of my boots. “I hate this shit.”
“I know.” There was understanding in Cassie’s voice, and I knew she did know.
This was how she must have felt when she’d been blinded by her accident on the mountain, only ten times worse because there was a whole lot of shit she hadn’t been able to do at first. “It’s really hard to accept help for basic things, but you did it for me when I needed you.
Now please let me return the favor, because I don’t think I can take any more close calls. ”
I reached down to touch her silky copper hair and bit back a wince of pain. It was worth it to touch her but if she knew I was hurting she’d tell me to keep my hands to myself, and after everything that had happened, not touching Cassie was the last rule I wanted to follow.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
I barely remembered the days I’d been sedated after the explosion at the paper mill. There were flashes: light and sound and bursts of fear and pain.
But mostly the flashes were of Cassie: her sweet voice talking to me when I’d thought I was all alone in the dark, just like she’d been after her accident.
Her beautiful face swimming through the haze to meet me like a guardian angel.
The other stuff I’d had to hear from Vigo and Jagger.
The way Cassie had demanded to see me when they’d said I couldn’t have visitors.
The way she’d stayed by my side almost 24/7, sleeping next to my bed, getting the nurses when it seemed like I needed more pain meds, fighting for me when I hadn’t been able to fight for myself.
I didn’t want to put her through that again. Ever.
So I let her help me with the other boot and resolved to be a good patient, to get better so I could take care of her again instead of the other way around.
The door opened and Jagger poked his head into the room. He looked better than the last time I’d seen him when he’d looked like he’d spent six months in the wilderness without a razor.
Or a shower.
Now his face was freshly shaved and he seemed to be moving okay even though his right arm was still bandaged.
“You about ready?” he asked. “Vigo brought the car around.”
“I think so.” Cassie moved around the room, gathering the last of the things she’d brought from home to keep me comfortable in the hospital.
“Great.” Jagger opened the door wider and pushed in a wheelchair.
My recoil was instinctive. “I’m not getting in that thing.”
Paulette, a no-nonsense nurse with dark skin and eyes, entered the room. “You are if you want to leave here.”
She was my favorite nurse, her Jamaican accent pleasant and soothing, but I knew better than to argue. I’d tried that exactly twice and had my ass handed to me both times.
“Fine,” I muttered, getting to my feet.
I sat in the wheelchair and Paulette wheeled me into the hall.
Two of the nurses waved as we passed the nurses’ station, and Roland, my favorite dude nurse, gave me a high five as we continued down the hall, Cassie walking alongside the wheelchair while Jagger followed us.
Bram’s goons — the ones who’d been stationed outside my room — were nowhere to be found, probably pulled from duty because he knew I was going home.
Paulette wheeled me into the elevator and Cassie and Jagger crowded in around my wheelchair. Cassie rested her hand on my shoulder and I wondered how I’d ever gotten through a day in my fucking life without her.
I spotted the G-Wagon on the other side of the sliding glass doors before we ever exited the hospital. That thing was obnoxious as fuck — kind of like Vigo — but I had to be honest: I was fucking happy to see it.
Happy to see Vigo leaning against the side of the car, the cuts still healing on his face, his goofy hair pointing every which way.
Happy to see Jagger look around like he was expecting another ambush right there in the hospital lobby, walking with me to the car even though I knew that fucking grenade had taken a slice out of his back and a good layer of skin off his arm.
And especially happy to have Cassie by my side, fussing over every move I made and scolding when she saw that Vigo was twirling his bat.
“How the fuck did you get that back?” I asked him as Paulette wheeled me through the glass doors.
He walked toward us. “Just ducked under the crime-scene tape. No biggie.”
Cassie looked like she was about to have a seizure. “You went back to the paper mill alone?”
“Going alone would have been stupid,” Vigo said. “I took Jagger with me.”
Cassie looked accusingly at Jagger, who just shrugged.
Paulette bent to flip the footrests on the wheelchair up so I could stand, but before I could get to my feet a figure pushed off the hospital wall on my left.
I turned, my body tensing, half expecting to see another one of Dimitri Kaprolov’s thugs take another shot at us.
But it was Bram.
I got to my feet, determined not to meet Bram from a wheelchair. Stupid, I know, but what could I say? My pissing contest with Bram was practically a tradition at this point.
Bram stopped in front of me, and for a long moment, neither of us said anything.
Then he held out his hand.
I hesitated, then shook it.
“Thank you,” Bram said.
I knew what he was thanking me for.
“I didn’t do it for you.”
I’d pushed Cassie into the elevator because in the two seconds I’d had to think after that grenade rolled into the lobby at the paper mill, I’d known exactly what — who — mattered most to me.
“I know. Thank you anyway.”
I nodded and he dropped my hand. I wondered if he would still try to stop Cassie from coming home with us. Her three months was officially over: she’d held up her end of the Hunt contract.
But he just turned to walk away.
“Text you later,” Cassie called out.
He lifted a hand without turning around.
Bram and I still had unfinished business, but for now at least, there was peace between us.
“I’m fucking hungry,” Vigo said. “Anybody else hungry?”
“I could go for something that isn’t mashed or pureed. Something that isn’t bland as fuck.” I turned to Paulette, who was waiting for us to get in the car. “No offense.”
“Baby,” she said, “if the food in this hospital was good, nobody would ever leave. You take care of yourselves now. Take care of each other.”
She pushed the wheelchair back toward the sliding doors.
Jagger opened the passenger side door so I could get in.
“Let’s blow this fucking popsicle stand.”