"Staying is a bigger risk," I tell her.
"Then on your head be it." She hands me a bag of supplies. Antibiotics. Painkillers. Dressings for the wound. "Change the bandages every twelve hours. Watch for signs of infection. If the stitches tear, you have maybe an hour before he loses too much blood."
"Understood."
"I hope so." She looks past me to where Jonah is being loaded into a wheelchair. "He's strong. Young. With proper care, he'll make a full recovery. Without proper care..." She doesn't finish the sentence. She doesn't have to.
"He'll have everything he needs."
"See that he does."
We load him into the back of a van Jace got from somewhere I don't ask about. Elliot sits with Jonah, monitoring his vitals, adjusting the portable IV we rigged from clinic supplies. Jinx takes the wheel, because he's the best driver and because sitting still would drive him insane.
I ride shotgun, watching the road, calculating threats.
Geneva falls away behind us. The mountains rise ahead, dark shapes against a darkening sky. Somewhere out there is a farmhouse owned by someone who owes Jinx a favor. Somewhere out there is safety, at least for a little while.
I watch the lights of the city fade in the side mirror and think about everything we've lost.
Webb is dead, but the vault was empty. The records we needed are gone, destroyed or moved, beyond our reach. We're no closer to exposing Project Omega than we were before this disaster started.
Chapter Eighteen: Jonah
Thefarmhousesmellslikehay and old wood, with a lingering scent of pig shit.
I've been here four days. Four days of lying in a bed that's surprisingly comfortable, staring at ceiling beams that have character, and letting my body remember how to function without a hole in it.
Jagger hasn't left my side except to piss. And to make contact with Aurelio to try get information on the whereabouts of Kreiss. Apparently Jagger felt the Don might know where he is.
"You're hovering," I tell him for the hundredth time.
"I'm monitoring."
"Awww, are you going to tuck me in and give me a kiss goodnight?"
"It’s daytime, asshole, and that was one time."
I chuckle and he rolls his eyes, sipping his coffee as he pretends to read something on his tablet. But his eyes keep drifting to me, checking my breathing, my color, the steady beep of the portable monitor Elliot rigged up.
I should find it annoying. Instead, I find it unbearably sweet.
"The doctor said I'm healing well," I remind him.
"The doctor said you shouldn't have been moved at all. Besides you haven’t been checked by a doctor in days. Elliot hardly counts as medical authority no matter how many webpages on gunshot care he’s read."
"And yet here I am. Moved. Healing. Not dead." I push myself up against the pillows, wincing at the pull in my side. "Come sit with me. You're making me nervous, lurking over there like a gargoyle."
"Gargoyles don't lurk. They perch."
"Is that really the point you want to argue?"
He sets down the tablet and crosses to the bed. Sits on the edge, careful not to jostle me. His hand finds mine, and there’s tension in his grip. He's been like this since Geneva. Wound tight, ready to snap at any threat.
"I'm okay," I say softly.
"You got shot."
"And I survived. We both did." I squeeze his fingers. "You need to stop replaying it in your head."
