“Precisely,” I said. “And you know, there’s one thing I learned in war that I think applies here. For as much thinking as we’re doing, it’s simple.”
I even allowed myself to smile.
“Best thing I learned in war—just fucking go!”
Kaitlyn
“What the fuck, bitch?”
The large, irritable Fallen Saint before me, with enough muscles to crush me five times over and a mean streak to go well enough past that, twitched as I tried to put stitches on a wound that had not healed on his shoulder.
“You have to hold still, or else it won’t hold.”
“You’ll make it hold still.”
The only reason I didn’t roll my eyes and tell him to quit being a baby was because I could still hear Devon cringing in agonizing pain in the other room, still feeling the effects of the knife wound. Only a few minutes had gone by, but it felt like hours had passed as I tried to figure out how I could get Devon and me out of this.
Unfortunately, every time I considered a way to get out, about five different obstacles that could not be hurdled presented themselves. For example, maybe I could use my tools to kill the Saint in front of me. Okay, great, but that still left the three Saints in the main room, the other wounded Saint, and who knew who else attempting to kill me. Or maybe I could steal a gun and try and force my way out, but even if I succeeded, what then? My tires were probably slashed, if not removed entirely, by now.
I had a long way to go, and I didn’t have the speed to escape them. I was a known quantity now, and even if I sought permanent refuge with the Black Reapers, there would be no way for me to function in the normal world.
“Just be patient with me, please,” I said as gently as I could after a few seconds. It was the most I could muster without losing my cool. At least the Saint merely grunted in approval.
And then my phone rang.
“Sorry,” I muttered as the Saint muttered something about how this was total bullshit and how the other nurse was much hotter and better.
But when I looked down to stop my phone from ringing, I saw it was Michael.
There was no way I could answer it. That was a good way to ensure way more than five different obstacles popped up. I hadn’t forgotten Lucius’ promise—and I believed in his willingness to carry through on it—to kill me if I ever interacted with Michael.
Who was to say, though, I couldn’t accidentally answer it when I meant to hit ignore?
“This might hurt a little bit, but—”
“Bitch, how many times do I have to tell you not to make it hurt!” the Saint bellowed.
But the goal wasn’t to warn the Saint about what was to happen. Actually, I could have applied the stitches with nothing more than a mere pinch, maybe a slight sting.
The real goal was to give enough background noise to make it clear to Michael on the other end of the line that I was in danger, and I needed help. It was something of a Hail Mary attempt, given that I wasn’t speaking to him, and there was no guarantee that he would figure out I wasn’t at the hospital.
But I had no other option that didn’t involve me getting killed. This was the only way.
“Alright, let me make sure it doesn’t hurt,” I said.
I pretended to try and fumble for something in my pocket, but I was just using the opportunity to turn my phone off. I’d done what I could. At this point, it was in his hands.
I worked on the Saint for about a dozen more minutes, although time was really just an abstract concept that moved glacially slow. I didn’t dare check my phone.
As I worked, my ears began to tune in to the living room. I could still hear Devon moaning on the ground, but I could also eavesdrop on Jason and Lucius speaking.
“I need to make some calls and make sure everything is running as is,” Lucius said. “I do not want our bikes getting slashed under our fucking noses again.”
“Did you get the fucker?” Jason said. “I told you it’s a shitty idea to bring one of them on. They’ll double-cross us—”
“And if they do, we kill them and scare the Reapers into moving to Mexico,” Lucius said. “You’re talking about a group that is run by a teenager who ran off his own brother. You think I’m really scared about our mole betraying us for them? That would be like betraying the United States to go join Venezuela.”
Lucius laughed at his own joke. I could practically hear Jason steaming in the room over. I admittedly took a bit of perverse pleasure in knowing he was getting aggravated, but when I remembered who he was likely to take his anger out on, my schadenfreude disappeared quite quickly.
