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He nods and opens a compact first aid kit (why does he have that in his backpack? I should have one of those), pulls out scissors, and cuts away my sleeve above the wound. I don’t look. I hate blood.
“I’m going to call someone. Be totally silent. He can’t hear you.” I push the 1 on my phone and it rings twice before James answers.
“Fia, beautiful, are you done? Do you need me to arrange a flight home?” His voice is light and easy, but there are questions there. He’s worried about me; he didn’t want me to do this job in the first place. I want to read into it, but I can’t let myself.
“Ambushed,” I say, gasping in pain at something Adam does. “I got shot.”
“Where? How bad?” James tries to sound like he is all business, but I hear an undercurrent of genuine concern. Maybe I’m just pretending I do. I don’t know.
“In the shoulder.” I grit my teeth, then swear loudly. Adam’s hands are steady and sure, and I wonder why he can be this calm over something a gun did when he was so terrified by the gun itself. “I’ll live. Three guys, don’t know who they were with. They weren’t ours.”
“Of course they weren’t ours!”
“You never know. I left all three down but alive.”
“And the mark?” He asks this more carefully. He knows what this will do to me. He knows, but he still couldn’t stop his father from sending me.
The mark is carefully applying tape and gauze to keep me from bleeding too much. The mark has gentle hands that are stained with blood now, though not in the same way mine will always be. The mark is a person, and he has beautiful eyes and he helps puppies and he trusts girls he really, really shouldn’t. The mark is breathing very deeply and evenly, deliberately. The mark is silently mouthing something to himself and I want to know what it is. I want to know what this boy who has to be scared out of his mind is mouthing to keep himself calm while he patches up my arm.
“Dead. Body in an alley with the three guys. I’m guessing they’ll do cleanup duty since there’s a lot of their own blood there and they don’t want to get fingered.”
“Can you get back?”
“I’ll manage.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
I almost hang up when he talks again. “Fia?”
“What?”
“I’m glad you’re okay. I’m sorry this happened.”
I want to believe him. So much. “Sure you are.” I end the call. Adam puts the finishing touches on my bandage, then looks up into my face. “Congratulations,” I say, smiling weakly. “You’re officially dead.”
He frowns, then unbuttons his black shirt and puts it around my shoulders so it covers up the bandage. He’s wearing just his thin white tee now. “Can we talk?”
“Just as soon as we steal their car.” I stand, wobble slightly, which is humiliating because I do not wobble, then walk quickly in the direction Cole said the car was. Adam follows, a half step behind. There’s a car idling, a black sedan, with a driver. No one else. I wish I hadn’t been shot, because this would be much easier.
I should go for stealth or something, anything, but I’m too tired. I walk straight up, reach down and open the driver’s door (should have locked it, that was phenomenally stupid of them), and am surprised to see a woman, midtwenties, behind the wheel. She has brown hair and brown eyes and a kind face that is frozen in shock.
“You,” she says, like she knows me.
I answer by grabbing the stun gun out of my purse and using it on her.
“Pull her out,” I say. Adam doesn’t move, so I say it again. “Pull her out.”
He does, gently setting her on the sidewalk. She isn’t unconscious, but she’s curled up against the pain and I almost feel sorry for her.
“I should drive,” Adam says, looking at my arm.
“You don’t know where to go.”
“Do you?”
“No, but my guess is always better than yours.” My guess is always better than anyone’s.
