10
Merc dropped backonto his pillow. The damn weakness eating his body alive made it impossible to even stand on his own two feet for longer than thirty seconds.
“You need to be still and let your body heal… you know, actually listen to the doctor's orders.” Hunter stretched his legs out and crossed his ankles, his large body too big to fit comfortably in the small plastic hospital room chair.
“Why don't you stick to what you know? I know what I can handle,” Merc ground out, but didn't try to sit up again.
“Sure, you look like you're doing really well.”
Merc glared at his team leader. “Don't you have some shadow to go lurk in?”
“Nope, your room will do for now. Besides, I’m having way more fun knowing that for once in my life I'm actually stronger than you.”
Merc snorted but a smile tugged the corner of his lips. “You better enjoy it now because it won't last long.”
“I'm not an idiot. I know I’ve probably got a week, tops – if that,” Hunter sat up in the chair.
“So where is the rest of the team hiding?” Merc had been in and out of it so much, and he didn't like being left out of the loop.
“Hoyt and Jared stopped by earlier but didn't stay long. You know how Hoyt is about hospitals. The rest of the team is holed up at the local barracks, debriefing the mission with Commander Grey and figuring out our next step.”
“And then what? What's our plan? We headed back to Afghanistan?”
Hunter dropped his elbows to his knees and scrubbed a hand over his face, his black hair rumpled and a 5 o'clock shadow on his jaw. “Honestly, I don't fucking know. Somehow that bastard disappeared off the face of the Earth again. The explosion wiped out any evidence we might have found. You two are lucky to even be alive.”
“I can't believe I let him get away.”
“Didn't sound like you had much of a choice, brother,” Hunter said.
“I'm not going back to the states until I get him.” How could he? He’d dedicated his entire adult life to hunting down Mr. J. He’d come so close. If it hadn't been for Caroline...“How's the girl?”
Hunter lifted his head and stared at him curiously from his corner. “Far as I know she’s still out, but it seems like most of her injuries are healing. Senator Cotter is pacing a damn hole in the hallway, though. The man does nothing but barge in and out of her room, waiting on her to wake up.”
Something Merc might've done himself if he’d been able. When he’d managed to evade the nurses and limp down the hall to her room earlier, he’d seen the dark bruise on her face and the bandages on her hands and nearly lost it. “She looked so frail.”
Hunter shook his head. “No way. That’s one of the toughest females I’ve ever seen.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Dude, she shot at me. More than once.”
Merc lowered his brows. “What? When?”
“You two had somehow managed to hole up in a cave after we’d gotten the GPS signal from your belt. We’d been searching for you for days with no luck until that signal came through. You’ll have to thank Mr. K for that one. Anyway, she tried to hold us off with a stolen rifle, not knowing who we were at first. And she’s a damn good shot. Nearly nicked me twice.”
“Are you talking about Caroline Cotter, the spoiled princess?” Maybe Merc’s fever was back and he was imagining things, because none of what Hunter was saying made sense.
Hunter snorted. “If she’s a spoiled princess, then I’m the Queen of England.”
Merc shook his head, trying to clear the dense fog surrounding his memory of their escape, but he couldn’t manage to break through. He caught glimpses, pieces to a puzzle. But nothing real. Or nothing that made sense anyway.
The whole rescue was still fuzzy for Merc. The fever had taken hold of him only days after their capture, so the few flashes of memory he had didn’t make any sense - Caroline slitting Salaam’s throat. Caroline and him getting on a horse. The pain. The constant and unending pain.
As soon as she woke up and recovered he planned to have a one-on-one and find out the details.
“She’s tough, brother. When we tried to treat her wounds, she threatened to have us all dishonorably discharged if we didn’t tend to your injuries first,” Hunter said.
Shock stole his breath. Caroline had put his life before her own? “Why?” He was just a mercenary. A soldier. He had nothing to give anyone, not even a past. He’d been so close to learning the truth about himself. All he would have had to do was sacrifice Caroline…
