Page 28 of License to Kill

“She’s very good at telling people my name. She took two rounds at the warehouse despite my suggestions she avoid getting shot.”

“Tried watching your back and hers at the same time?”

“Bad luck, fast draw. I didn’t shoot the one in time, and he got a pair of rounds off. She was busy taking down his friend.”

“And you two were wearing that getup? Were you auditioning to be Rambo?”

Great. Jake and Amelia were getting on perfectly. At least she was the right species for him. The pack would welcome her without hesitation, leaving me alone yet again. “If you two are done flirting, I wouldn’t mind a chance to go to the bathroom and get some of this grime off me.”

Jake’s solution to a lot of problems often involved picking me up and moving me to where he wanted me to go, an easy task for the man when I weighed in at ninety pounds. In the time it took me to suck in a breath, he had me tossed over his shoulder, an arm wrapped around the back of my legs, leaving me to clutch his jacket.

The fear of falling choked off my breath, and I squeezed my eyes closed.

“She’s going to bleed all over your nice suit like that.”

“That’s fine.”

“She’s afraid of heights. I assume you know this, right?”

“Convenient, as it keeps her from putting up a fight. I did this entirely on purpose.” Jake carried me, and he walked with a smooth stride. “Have you notified them she’d been shot?”

“That cop from the Georgia State Police said he’d call an EMT, then you showed up. How long has it been since the bust?”

“Six hours.”

“Well, she hasn’t bled to death yet, so she probably won’t. That said…”

Amelia smacked my leg and everything went dark.

I missed the transition from unconscious to rabid wolverine on a mission to kill everyone and everything. While vaguely aware of my attempts to murder anyone who got near me, I slipped back into a semi-aware haze before climbing my way to coherent consciousness.

Jake’s mother sat in the chair beside my bed, and she flipped through a binder on her lap. Of all the babysitters, why had I gotten her? She’d been the first to question if I really had anything of substance with Jake. I understood the reasons why, but it hurt all the same.

Most of the time, I couldn’t tell if she liked me at all or if any acceptance I’d gotten from her had been due to her love for her son rather than anything she felt for me.

I was too tired to deal with it, and I couldn’t afford to trust her. Not now.

Probably not ever.

“If you’re going to try to kill someone, try not to rip the catheter out this time. You’re running out of usable veins,” Pauline said.

It took me several long minutes to figure out my arms were mottled with bruises and puncture wounds. I’d always had a talent for yanking out the catheters despite the nurses working hard to keep them in place. In most people, they didn’t come out on accident, but somehow, the slippery bastards popped right out of my veins if I looked at them wrong. “I’m a pin cushion.”

While I slurred, I was pleased I could understand myself.

“I was thinking more of a colander, as you’re full of holes.”

“I sieve.”

Jake’s mother looked up from the binder, arching her eyebrows high. “That was absolutely awful.”

“It was draining coming up with it.”

Pauline twitched. “I’m not sure if I preferred when you were on the other medications; all those did was turn you into a psychopath out for blood.”

I swallowed, and before I could put a brake on my mouth, I said, “Ma killed Pa, and then she tried to kill me, too. She wanted me to know I was the reason she killed my pa.”

Jake’s mother set her binder aside, stood, and brushed her hand against my brow, pushing my hair away from my face. “I know. Your friend Amelia told us everything. We’re taking care of the details. With Amelia’s help, all the crime scenes have been identified, and we’ve gathered more than sufficient evidence to cover you. I doubt there’ll even be an official hearing of any sort. You’ll be able to go home, and once you’ve been given medical clearance and go through a round of retraining and evaluations, you’ll be able to go back to work. That will fix one of the big problems, right? We built a timeline showing when you’d been kidnapped up to your escape, right up until you, like the little idiot you are, decided to raid a building on your own with guns blazing.”