Page 9 of Property of Mercury

“She did protest the biology lab with picket signs and caused a stink about cruelty to animals,” I remind him. “But outside of that, I have to agree with you. Maybe the Sutton we all know now would do it, but back in the day? Nope, I don’t see it.”

“All I know is I’ve never had a problem with my nose hairs since,” Orion teases. “Singed those bastards clean off.”

“Now you’re going to own up to it?” I ask, shaking my head at him.

“Hey, in my defense I didn’t do it alone,” he says, twisting in his seat and pinning Pisces with a glare. “And it wasn’t my idea either.”

“Believe it or not, we took our cues from your woman,” Pisces admits, jabbing his finger at Gemini. “She came up with the entire plan, we just followed through with it.”

“What?” Gem and I ask at the same time, our heads rearing back from the shock. Sutton was a goody two shoes back then, it’s hard to picture her being the ringleader of a revolt.

“She was our lookout, though,” Pisces adds. “We made her leave before we fired up the grills because we didn’t want her going home smelling like that poison. Bad enough that the two of us had to strip down to our boxers and throw away our clothes. Still miss that T-shirt, too.”

Looking at Gemini, I state, “Your woman has many hidden talents, brother. Wonder what other secrets she’s got?”

“The world may never know,” Sutton says, having walked into the room. Then, she glares at Pisces and Orion and starts to fuss. “Whatever happened to ‘we’ll take it to our graves’ boys? When did y’all become tattletales?”

“They forced it out of us, Sutton,” Orion whines. “It was brutal! We caved, we’re sorry.”

I shake my head at his antics. “Y’all are on your own. I’m going to see Finley and let her know what I’ve managed to accomplish on her behalf.”

CHAPTER

FIVE

Finley

“I see you’re being set free today, jailbird,” Orion sings as he saunters into my room, a bag swinging in his hands. “Brought you some shit the girls said you’d need. Warning, Mercury’s right behind me, he’s a moody bastard today, too.”

“When isn’t he?” I tease as excitement strums through me at the prospect of being released. I’m so over this hospital bed and nasty food they serve. But the drugs they administer have been helpful.

“When isn’t he what?” the man in question asks as he steps into the room, a scowl on his face. My eyes widen comically as Orion snickers. Mercury narrows his eyes at us as he scans our faces. “Who were you two talking about?”

“Nobody,” I quickly chirp out, acting innocent.

“A broody bastard we both know,” Orion snarks. “You wouldn’t know anybody like that, would you?” This man just doesn't know when to stop and not put his foot in his mouth.

Sometimes, I think Orion just says things to wind the others up from the little interaction I’ve had with everybody, and in this case, it works as Mercury’s face now looks almost thunderous. I take pity on Orion and say, “You, Mercury. You’re not the easiest person to talk to, and this could be the drugs talking, but you always look a bit constipated.”

Orion loses it and starts laughing so hard, he nearly hyperventilates. He keeps trying to say something, only to stop again and slap his thigh. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he had a seizure disorder or something. Finally, he calms down enough and states, “Granny always said we should eat our prunes. Guess you forgot that little nugget of wisdom.”

“Shut the fuck up, asshole,” Mercury rumbles, his voice doing something to my body that I refuse to acknowledge.

“Give me that bag, Orion, so I can get out of this horrid gown,” I say, holding out my hand.

“Yeah, putrid green is not your color, so when I order our coveralls, I’ll be sure to get you something different,” Orion replies, smirking at me.

“Asshole,” I mumble as I make my way to the bathroom, doing my best to make sure I’m not flashing my ass.

I obviously fail when I hear Orion stage-whisper to Mercury, “She’s got a nice ass, brother.” I’m giggling when I close the door behind me because I hear flesh hitting flesh and Orion yelp out, “Hey, fucker, that hurt!”

It doesn’t take me long to take a quick shower. I’m still moving a bit slow, but the hot water pouring down my body feels fantastic. I think it’s because when I was laying out in that field, broken and bruised, I thought I’d never feel it again. Regardless, in less than thirty minutes, I’m clean and dressed in an outfit meant for comfort. Not that I’ll complain; leggings and an oversized shirt are perfect since they’re not rubbing against any of my surgical incisions. Those are starting to drive me nuts because they’re at the itchy stage. To me, there’s nothing worse than having something you want to scratch but you can’t because it’ll open up the stitches. Been there, done that and would prefer never to have it happen again.

Walking out of the bathroom, I can feel the tension in the room, so I throw my hands in the air, the empty bag now swinging from one of them and say, “Tada! I’m ready to blow this popsicle stand.”

“You know, in Texas, we’d eat popsicles pretty much all year round,” Orion muses. “But here? It’ll probably be August before it’s warm enough to enjoy them.”

“Popsicles are for kids,” Mercury emphatically states.