Looking down at my arm, I found blood soaking through the white material of my sleeve. I hadn’t even noticed the pain, and the thick material of my jacket had hidden the evidence of my injury. I tried to tell Jordy that it was fine, that it didn’t hurt and was probably just a scratch, but he insisted on removing my shirt, even going so far as to yank it off me when I didn’t act fast enough.
A bullet must have grazed me at some point during our escape, carving a bloody line right across by bicep. It looked bad at first, but rinsing the wound off with some rainwater revealed that it wasn’t very deep. Barely more than a scratch. We didn’t have much first aid on hand, so we just ripped up my shirt into a few strips that Jordy then tied around my arm in a rudimentary bandage.
“I wish we had something better,” he said as he tied off the knot.
“It’s fine,” I assured him. “The muscle wasn’t damaged at all. It’ll heal quickly. Now, hand me my briefcase again.”
Jordy still didn’t look so sure and eyed the wound on my arm with skepticism but did as I asked and handed the briefcase over.
Inside the briefcase was a stack of files as well as several flash drives, along with a compartment in the upper lid that heldthree cellphones. Each represented a different backup plan, with their own set of instructions written down nowhere except in my head.
As I reached for the correct phone, my hand shook. I clenched my first, then flexed my fingers, shaking out the tremor and hoping that Jordy hadn’t seen my moment of weakness.
Luckily, the lid of the briefcase blocked his view, and he was still busy having a staring contest with my arm, so he hadn’t seen a thing.
Pulling out the third phone from the compartment, I closed the briefcase and stored it back under the seat. Then, I turned on the phone and texted the only number programmed into its contacts.
The message read only a single word.
“Here.”
“What’s that?” Jordy asked as I placed the phone on the dashboard.
“It’s a secure line with a special kind of drop box,” I explained. “It’s like the digital version of leaving a note hidden under a rock. I’ve let the others know that we’re safe. Now, we just have to wait for them to contact us.”
“Great, more waiting.” He sighed before sliding off my jacket and handing it to me. “Here. We used your shirt for bandages, so you should wear this.”
I pushed it back toward him. “But you’ll be cold without it.”
“And you’ll be naked without it. I’ve at least got a shirt.”
I eyed his tank top and shook my head. That thin piece of fabric barely counted as clothing and would do nothing to keep him warm.
“How about we share?”
Jordy gave me a confused look.
Rather than explain, I just picked him up, slid myself over into the passenger seat where there was more room, and placedhim in my lap. Then, I wrapped the jacket around both of us so we could both share in its warmth. It was a tight fit. The jacket had been tailored specifically to fit me and didn’t have much extra room, but we managed to make it work.
As we sat there, with him safely tucked in my arms and his back pressed flush against my chest, I decided that this wasn’t such a bad way to wait. It wasn’t how I wanted the night to go, but things could have also gone a lot worse, and I’d learn to be thankful for the blessings I could find.
Another hour passed as the two of us sat together in that car, neither of us talking much as we listened to the rain and the sound of each other’s heartbeat. As the minutes dragged by, Jordy’s breathing grew softer and his head bobbed on his shoulders.
His blue eyes had just fluttered closed in the beginning of sleep when the phone on the dashboard rang.
CHAPTER 17
Jordy
The table was surprisinglycool and clean as I lay my head on the surface. I’d barely slept the night before, and there was a constant throbbing behind my eyes that almost felt like a fever.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked Kitt, not for the first time, without raising my head from the table. “Being out in public like this feels really exposed.”
We’d gotten a message from Logan a few hours ago that had been short and to the point. Everyone that had been alive when we left was still alive now. There were a few minor injuries, but so far, everyone was doing okay. That was it. He couldn’t even tell us that everyone was safe. Just that everyone was alive. There were no further instructions about what to do, or where to go from here. We were simply told to stay safe and wait for the others to figure things out.
“We were told to lay low,” I reminded Kitt as I looked around the coffee shop where we were sitting. “This doesn’t feel like laying low.”
Kitt didn’t look up from the newspaper he appeared to be reading, though his eyes never moved as he stared at the page. “We’re blending in. There’s nothing more suspicious than a perfectly functional car sitting on the side of the road for no reason. We’ll be harder to find if we’re part of a regular crowd, and coffee shops like this are one of the few places where it’s perfectly fine to sit around for hours at a time.”
