“My point precisely.” She brushed non-existent dust from her arm, straightened. “She wouldn’t leave the chair. I offered her a bed. She wouldn’t go.”
He worked his throat through a sandy swallow. “How long was I out?”
“Twelve hours. The infection was advanced. Another six hours without antibiotics and we’d be having a different conversation.” She paused. “Or not having one at all.”
“I need to move.”
“You’re going nowhere.” Katya’s lips pressed into a line. The look of a woman who’d managed men like him for decades and wasn’t impressed by their urgency. “One day. It’s off season. I have no other guests. The antibiotics have bought you time. They haven’t fixed you. You leave now, the infection comes back and your doctor girlfriend gets to watch you die slowly.”
“Katya—”
She narrowed her eyes at him. That look again.
He shut up.
One brow arched. “Water?”
He nodded. “Please.”
Katya left. He lay still and ran the assessment.
Body. The fever was gone, but the aftermath was everywhere—muscles weak, joints aching, his head wound throbbingdully. The antibiotics were working. His shoulder was stiff but functional. His ribs were background noise.
Functional capacity? Forty percent. Maybe fifty with adrenaline. Enough to move but not enough to fight, not at the level that mattered.
The men hunting them wouldn’t give up easily. Not after they’d taken the UAZ. It was only a matter of time before their paths crossed again.
One day. Fluids. Another dose. Enough for his body to stop actively trying to kill him. Then they moved. Twenty miles south to the border. Fox would be there. They’d be overdue but Fox would wait.
One day. That was all he needed.
Harper shifted in the chair. Her fingers tightened in his, her sleeping hand gripping him as if she was afraid he’d disappear.
She inhaled and woke with a gasp, her body jerking upright, eyes wide and disoriented.
Her gaze found him, focused, and registered that his eyes were open.
“Hi,” he said.
She stared at him. For a second, her face did something complicated—relief and exhaustion and something fierce and tender collapsing into each other. Her chin trembled before she locked it down.
“Hi.” Her voice was rough with sleep. “How do you feel?”
“Better.”
She fired him a side-eye. “That’s not a metric.”
“It is today.”
She gave him a small smile. Then her doctor brain took over, and she was up—checking the IV, checking his pulse, pressing her hand to his forehead. Her fingers were cool against his skin and he closed his eyes without meaning to.
“Fever’s broken,” she said. “Pulse is stronger. Respiration’s improved.”
“Katya already checked.”
“Katya isn’t your doctor.”
He opened his eyes. She was so close, standing beside the bed, her hand still on his forehead, her face inches from his. Bruising on her jaw. Shadows under her eyes. Hair escaping everywhere.
