“We didn’t exactly split up.” Jayson let out a harsh laugh. “The asshole thought we were about to be captured and decided he should kill me before that happened since I’m a shifter now.”
She stopped working and looked up at him in shock. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
He snorted. “I wish I could. Son of a bitch tried to shoot me. I kicked him in the chest, then took off.”
Layla felt her claws and fangs extend as the urge to track Powell down and tear him to shreds almost overwhelmed her. The only thing that kept her from standing up and leaving the dark basement right then was the fact that she was still bandaging Jayson’s leg.
She took a deep breath, retracting her claws and focusing on Jayson’s warm skin under her fingers as she tended to his wound. It took a while before she was finally able to look at Jayson without her fangs protruding past her lower lip.
“I guess I don’t have to be concerned about your feelings when I tell you that I’m pretty sure Powell is dead,” Layla said. “There was a lot of his blood on the roof as well as scuff marks where they dragged him away.”
Jayson’s jaw tightened. “I’m just sorry I didn’t kill him myself. That guy was the biggest douchebag I’ve ever met—and I’ve met a lot.”
She ran the cloth tenderly over the ragged part of the exit wound. “I just about freaked out when I realized you’d been shot.”
He grimaced. “Getting shot wasn’t exactly part of the plan, but at least I was over the river when I fell. If I’d slipped off that pipe two or three steps earlier… I don’t like to think how bad it would have been.”
Layla didn’t like thinking about it either. “I’m just amazed you were able to swim all the way across that river. It must have been hard as hell.”
She regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth, worried he’d think she was implying he was too injured to handle a physically demanding task like swimming. But instead he nodded and casually reached down to caress her hair.
“It was an ass kicker,” he admitted. “But it wasn’t like I had a lot of options. If I stayed on the other side of the river, the militia would have caught me at some point. Besides, the kids were on this side, so I had to make it.”
The image of Jayson struggling to swim across the river in the dark, fighting to keep his head above water, made it hard to breathe. Tears filled her eyes and she was glad it was too dark for Jayson to see her face completely.
She finished wrapping the bandage around his leg in silence, then got to her feet. “There. I snugged it a little tighter to keep it from sliding down when you move, but you should stay off it for a while longer.”
“I can do that. We’ve been waiting for it to calm down a little out there anyway.” He frowned as he pulled up his jeans. “By the way, I didn’t miss the fact that you never answered the second part of my question.”
She’d hoped that with all the talk about Powell and the swim across that river, Jayson had forgotten that. Guess she wasn’t that lucky. She busied herself with folding up the old bandage. “There was a second part?”
He bent his head so he could catch her eyes in the dim light from the flashlight. “Uh-huh. The part about what you’re doing in Donetsk by yourself.”
Oh yeah, that had been the question she’d been ducking. She didn’t know how to answer it without starting another argument. How could she tell him she’d been terrified he’d have some kind of horrible reaction to the hybrid serum or get hurt over here without him thinking she was questioning his abilities…or thought of him as nothing more than a cripple? God, she hated that word.
She tossed the strips of cloth in the corner and turned to meet his gaze. “I tried to call you a couple times when I was coming back from my mission, and when you didn’t answer, I got worried. All I could think about was that fight we’d had and the things we had said to each other—and you saying you were seriously considering taking Dick’s hybrid serum.”
“I’m sorry about that,” he said, his voice heavy with regret. “I never meant for any of that stuff to come out the way it did. Especially not right before you had to leave on your mission.”
Layla nodded, believing that he really was sorry.
“I was worried when I got back to the complex and Kendra told me you’d taken the hybrid serum, then headed straight out the door on a mission with Powell,” she continued. “I got this horrible feeling that something bad was going to happen and knew I had to come find you.”
And now he’d think she believed he’d been duped into taking the drug. Or that he was too handicapped to take care of himself.Great.
But he surprised her. “I can’t really say you were wrong, can I? Powell tried to kill me, I got shot and chased over half the city, and this is anything but the simple mission Dick said it was. So I’d have to say that your instincts were right. Though I am a little amazed John sent you over here by yourself. Your mission must have gone really well.”
She couldn’t keep from wincing. Unfortunately, Jayson saw.
“What happened?” he asked, concern in his blue eyes. “Did something go wrong in Glasgow?”
“It’s not that,” she said. “The mission went okay. I mean, the arms dealer, Kojot, got away, but that was only because he’s a shifter and knew we were there before we even got close to him. I stopped some bad guys from getting away with a shipment of surface-to-air missiles. That felt good.”
Jayson lifted an eyebrow. “But?”
She bit her lip. “When I told John that Dick sent you and Powell over here on a shoestring mission and that I wanted to come over to help, he said no. He said he’d reroute Clayne and Danica here instead. I tried to tell him that they’d probably be completely off the grid trying to catch up to Kojot, but he said it didn’t matter, that I wasn’t ready for a solo mission.”
The expression on his face told her Jayson already knew where this was going. “But you came anyway?”
