Ashton turned the hot water on in the shower and left it to heat up as he went back to Zachariah. After only a second’s hesitation—a second during which he argued with less-than-chaste impulses jabbing at his mind—he started to carefully unbutton the loose, oversized shirt he’d bought and put on the other man before they’d caught the Cessna back to America. It’d done its job effectively enough, hiding the worst of Zachariah’s injuries from prying eyes and doing what little it could to keep him warm. It had done its job a little too well, though, because Ashton had nearly forgotten just how bad the injuries were until he saw them again for himself, this time in better lighting. As he peeled the shirt away from Zachariah’s torso, he drew in a slow breath.
Jesus, how is he even still standing? Ashton thought. He reached out and lightly coasted his fingers over the man’s chest, narrowing his eyes at the sight of the bruising there, then helped Zachariah shrug off the shirt and slip out of his filthy, bloodstained jeans before guiding him to the shower. After adjusting the water, he helped Zachariah into the shower before turning to get a towel.
“Ash?” Zachariah’s voice sounded hollow against the tiles, and Ashton turned to face him, towels in hand. Zachariah stood just outside of the spray of water, his face a picture of embarrassment as he clung to the tiled wall as best as he could. “I, uhm, I think I might need some help,” he murmured, right before his knees started to buckle.
Ashton was suddenly thankful he’d taken his shoes off as he lurched forward to catch Zachariah before he hit the shower’s hard floor. His clothes were instantly soaked as he hooked his hands underneath Zachariah’s arms and hauled him to his feet again. Zachariah slumped against him, his face pressed into his shoulder.
“You okay?” Ashton asked, trying to figure out the best place to hold onto him that would be neither painful nor obscene.
“Not really,” Zachariah said into his shoulder. He let out a slow, ragged breath and dug his fingers into his t-shirt. “I’ve never been through this before. It’s nothing like training.” He huffed out another breath. “We should get this over with.”
Ashton nodded and grasped his hands against the sides of the man’s ribcage. “Let’s just back up one step at a time,” he suggested. “We’ll ease you up underneath the water. You know it’s going to hurt like hell, right?”
“I know,” Zachariah mumbled. He hooked his arms around Ashton’s shoulders for support, and Ashton backed him up a slow step. The water struck Zachariah’s lower back, and the younger man tensed in his arms. Another step, the water reached the middle of his back, and he started to shake, his fingers digging painfully into Ashton’s shoulders. A third step and he was fully under the water. Within moments, he seemed to move beyond the pain and relaxed a fraction, but he didn’t let go of Ashton, clinging to him as if he were a life raft in the middle of an ocean. Ashton didn’t mind in the slightest. Zachariah had been through hell worse than anything Ashton had endured in the three times he’d been held captive, and he fully understood the need for comfort. So instead of stepping back or shaking him loose, Ashton started working his fingers into Zachariah’s dark locks, trying to wash the blood and dirt from them and finger-comb the mats out.
“Do you need to talk about anything?” he asked as he worked on Zachariah’s hair.
Zachariah tilted his head back, letting the water wash through the locks, and said, “No, not really. I just want to forget that it ever happened.”
“I’m not sure that’s going to be as easy as you think it’ll be,” Ashton warned. He let go of Zachariah’s hair and simply stood there, trying to keep his eyes averted and thinking about what a bitch it was going to be to get his wet jeans off. Anything to keep his mind off the terrible thoughts his imagination was filling in the blanks with.
“What makes you say that?” Zachariah asked.
“Because I’ve been there,” he said. “Three times. And though it was nowhere near as terrible as what you’ve been through, it’s still an awful experience no matter which way you look at it.”
Zachariah nodded slightly against Ashton’s shoulder but didn’t say anything, just sagged against him with his fingers dug into his shirt, trying to keep his feet as the water washed the dirt and blood down the shower drain. His breath was ragged and hot against Ashton’s neck, and he let out the occasional pained grunt as the water sluiced over his skin. Ashton resumed his work on the man’s dirty black hair, trying to get the knots and tangles out—along with a disturbing amount of blood.
“I know this is a stupid question, and I probably don’t mean it the way it’s going to come out,” Ashton started, almost hesitantly, “but…are you okay?”
“Do you mean mentally or physically?” Zachariah asked, and his voice sounded weak and tired. “Because honestly, I don’t think I’m anywhere in the same category as okay.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Ashton asked. He felt utterly useless as he finished loosening the last of the tangles from Zachariah’s hair and pulled his hands out of the thick strands.
Zachariah sounded pathetic as he asked, “Do you have anything to take the edge off the pain so I can sleep?”
“Yeah, sure,” Ashton said. “I need to patch you up, anyway. Better I do that after you’ve had something to dull the pain.” He gently pushed Zachariah away from him, holding him at arm’s length and looking him over quickly to make sure he no longer had any dirt or blood on him. “I think you’re about as clean as you’re going to get right now,” he said. “You ready to get out?”
“I guess,” Zachariah said with a one-shouldered shrug.
Ashton frowned at the man’s lack of enthusiasm but didn’t comment. Instead, he reached past him to turn the shower off then kept a hand on Zachariah’s arm as he stepped out of the stall to grab a towel. Zachariah clutched his arm in return as he followed him unsteadily out of the stall and stood, shivering and naked, in the cool bathroom. Ashton offered him the towel, and Zachariah took it with a grateful look, starting to halfheartedly pat at the water on him before wrapping the towel around his waist. Ashton couldn’t help but notice the formerly white towel had fresh bloodstains on it; clearly, some of the other man’s wounds had begun to bleed again.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you on that bed before I give you the painkillers so you don’t fall on your face between here and there.”
“Still no guarantee I won’t, either way,” Zachariah muttered. But he didn’t say anything further as he slowly made his way to the bed and collapsed onto it bonelessly.
Ashton changed his wet clothes for a set of dry ones before he dug out the medical kit he’d brought with him. He approached the bed and cracked the case open, taking out the supplies he’d need to administer a painkiller to the younger man. Zachariah barely flinched from the needle stick as Ashton started an IV on him, and a few minutes later, as his eyes started to do a slow, heavy blink as the medication set in, he murmured, almost inaudibly, “Hey, Ash?”
Ashton leaned closer to him so he could hear better, bracing a hand against the mattress beside him. “Yeah?” he said, just as quietly.
Zachariah’s hand came up and brushed lightly against his jaw then hooked around the back of his neck and tugged him down. Their mouths collided, a bit sloppily, Zachariah’s lips already slightly parted as he kissed him. It wasn’t a spectacular kiss, nothing like the incredibly hot ones they’d shared in their encounter three months before, but it was gentle and sweet, in thanks rather than in passion, even though it tasted like blood. That observation was what jolted Ashton out of the kiss, and he pulled back from it, just enough that their lips were no longer touching.
“Thank you,” Zachariah breathed.
“Of course,” Ashton said softly, and Zachariah gave him a small smile before his eyes drifted shut and he slipped into sleep.
Fourteen
Sunlight oozed through the cracks around the heavy curtains that hung over the windows, splashing in thin lines across the foot of the bed, the room’s desk,
and the wall above the headboard. It took every inch of energy Zachariah had to pry his eyelids open, and when he managed, he almost wished he hadn’t.
His entire body hurt. It felt like he’d become one big ball of ache and pain, even more so than he’d been when he was being held captive; clearly, the painkillers that Ashton had been so kind to inject him with had worn off while he’d slept. His eyes slid sideways to the saline IV drip the man had duct-taped to the wall; the bag was nearly empty. His bladder, however, was nearly fully.
Zachariah let his head loll to the left, and he found that he wasn’t the only person in the bed. Ashton was lying beside him, his long body stretched out on his right side on top of the bedclothes. His head was pillowed on his folded arm, resting against his bicep, his eyes closed and his face relaxed. The man looked younger, less stressed, in his sleep. Zachariah contemplated waking him up to ask for help getting to the bathroom, but then he decided against it. If he couldn’t make it to the bathroom on his own, then he needed to just quit his job and go ahead and crawl into a hole.
He pushed the covers off, slowly, so he didn’t wake Ashton. The task of sitting up was long, arduous, and excruciatingly painful, and he only barely managed to stay silent as he gritted his teeth and forced himself to the edge of the bed. It took half the effort he had left in him to swing his legs off the bed, and he sat there for a long minute, fighting to not let out a groan of pain or piss himself as his need for a bathroom increased. He closed his eyes, silently counted to three, and boosted himself off the bed.
Every muscle in Zachariah’s body screamed at the movement, and he nearly fell right on his face to the floor. He groped for and found the wall, pressing his hand against it to steady himself. Digging his blunt fingernails into the cheap wallpaper, he breathed heavily through his nose. The room was spinning around him, and the pain was such that he felt disconnected from his own body. He tried to settle back into himself and the task at hand. He grabbed the IV bag taped to the wall and pulled it off; the duct tape ripped a strip of the wallpaper off with a tearing sound, and his eyes flickered to Ashton’s sleeping form. Ashton didn’t budge, so he grasped the bag and held it up high enough to keep the fluid flowing as he slowly, gingerly shuffled to the bathroom.
After he’d relieved himself, almost groaning out loud with relief in the process, Zachariah clamped the top of the IV bag in his teeth while he washed and dried his hands. At the edge of the sink to his right was a bright orange medical bag, and he vaguely recognized it as the one he’d seen Ashton take the painkillers out of before. After only a second’s hesitation, he grasped the zipper and opened the bag, rooting through it until he found the pain medication in a pre-made syringe inside a plastic case tucked into the side of the bag.
Within a moment, he had the syringe prepped and slid into the injection port on his IV line, and he pressed the plunger down with a sigh of relief. He deposited the syringe into the portable sharps box inside the bag and leaned against the sink, closing his eyes as he waited for the medicine to kick in and take the edge off the ache in his entire body. The marble countertop was cold under his palms, and he delighted in the chill seeping into his skin.
As he pushed away from the sink and stumbled toward the bathroom door, he heard Ashton’s voice in the bedroom area. He grasped the doorframe to keep from falling over and, despite his better judgment, closed his eyes and listened in on Ashton’s half of whatever conversation he was having.
“Hey, Henry,” Ashton said. He sounded tired, like he’d just woken up; Zachariah could practically hear the yawn in his words. “I’m just checking in now that I’m clear.” He paused again, as if listening to Henry saying something, and then added, “I got him out, yes. He’s here with me. Henry…he’s not in good shape.” Then there was another pause before he said, “I don’t know. He’s not in the shape to travel right away. We’re going to need—” And then, “Wait, I need to do what? You’re kidding, right? I finished that!” Then there was another long pause, and Zachariah heard him let out a heavy sigh before saying, “When do I need to bring him in?” And then yet another pause before he said, “If you expect me to interrogate him—”
Zachariah felt his abdominal muscles clench at the word “interrogate,” and it took everything in him to not throw up. He swallowed hard and dug his fingers more firmly into the doorframe, closing his eyes as he tried to listen more closely to Ashton’s side of the conversation and ignore the sudden shock of memories that tried to surge forth.
“Look, I’ll find out what I can, but you’re fooling yourself if you think I’m going to get anywhere near intensive with my line of questioning,” Ashton snapped. “He’s been through enough. I’m not putting him through anything else unnecessarily.” Then a pause, and Zachariah heard him snarl out with more anger than he’d ever heard from him before, “Fuck you, Henry.”
Ashton let out a low, slow sigh, and then there was the scuff of a foot on carpet before he called out, “Zach, you can come out now. I know you’re lurking in there.” Zachariah hesitated then took a deep breath and pushed away from the doorframe, shuffling into the bedroom area. Ashton was sitting on the edge of the bed, his feet resting flat on the floor, his elbows propped against his thighs as he leaned against them. He looked tired; Zachariah could see the dark circles under his eyes even from where he stood.
“So,” Ashton started, directing his words to the carpet between his feet and not bothering to look up at Zachariah, “exactly how much of that did you hear?”
It didn’t even occur to Zachariah to lie or deny that he’d been listening in on Ashton’s side of the conversation. “Pretty much all of it,” he admitted.
Ashton scrubbed both hands over his face and stifled a yawn then motioned to the bed beside him. “Have a seat,” he instructed. “I’ll disconnect that IV bag while I explain.” Zachariah nodded and limped over to the side of the bed, slowly sinking down onto it and barely suppressing a groan as his muscles protested the movement. Ashton waited until he was settled before he took his arm and pulled it closer, shut off the IV drip, and started to detach the line from the saline lock in Zachariah’s wrist as he continued. “Henry isn’t happy with me,” he said, and it was obvious he was trying to sound casual about it.
“That’s not a surprise,” Zachariah said. “Handlers are never happy with any of us. They have to clean up too many of our messes.”
“Director Hartley isn’t too happy with me, either,” Ashton said, and this time, Zachariah heard the faintest tremor in the man’s voice. “Says I’ve abandoned my assignment.”
Zachariah raised an eyebrow. Ashton was a level ten field agent—a ranking he’d never have gotten to if he had a habit of bailing on assignments; hell, he’d have never gotten past bailing on one assignment. The consequences for doing so were sometimes dire. “Well, did you?”
“Did I?” Ashton repeated, almost sounding like he was about to get angry, but then he abruptly shook his head and instead focused on finishing his removal of the IV line from Zachariah’s arm. “I’d like to say no, but unfortunately, I did. On a technicality.”
“How so?”
“I didn’t finish writing my narrative and submitting my report before I left on this self-imposed assignment,” he explained. “So in all technicality, I abandoned my assignment.”
Zachariah groaned and shook his head, closing his eyes for just a minute. “You can’t seriously tell me Director Hartley is going to drag you onto the carpet over a technicality.”
“I expect it, and he will,” Ashton said. “I’ve been told that we are required to report in within twenty-four hours or we’re going to be knee-deep in shit with the Agency and Hartley.”
Zachariah groaned again and rested his forehead against the heel of his hand. “I don’t know that I can tolerate a plane ride right now,” he admitted. “I hurt too damn bad.”
“Well, it’s looking like you’re going to have to tough it out,” Ashton said. “If we don’t show up by the end of our time limit, w
e’ll both be labeled rogue, and then it’s fair game.” He mashed a cotton ball against the place where the IV catheter went into Zachariah’s skin and then gently pulled the catheter free before taping the cotton ball down. “Suffice to say, I’m in big trouble, and you’re probably not far behind,” he added. “At the very least, you’re in for a long bout of questioning and interrogation while they try to find out exactly what happened in Bolivia.” He paused, smoothing the tape out, then let go of Zachariah’s arm and asked cautiously, “Did you really see Nathan Chambers there?”
“Not until he beat the shit out of me personally,” Zachariah said, “but I’m pretty sure he’s the one who blew my cover. It was after some big-wig visited that I got busted.”
“So you think Chambers is involved with this drug cartel?” Ashton asked.
“Do you think he’s not?” he countered. “I saw him with my own eyes. He’s definitely involved, if he’s not the mastermind behind the whole damn thing.”
Ashton shook his head slowly, as if he were still in disbelief over the idea that Nathan Chambers was still alive. “He’s supposed to be dead. Angelique told me that she put two in his chest and blew up the car with him in it.”
“If she tried to kill him, there’s no evidence of it,” Zachariah said. “He looked as healthy as he did that evening when he met up with us in that bar. Not a visible scratch on him.” He paused before adding, “Maybe Angelique made a mistake. Maybe she killed the wrong guy.”
Ashton shoved off the bed to his feet and paced across the room. “No, Angelique doesn’t make mistakes like that,” he said. “She’s not your average freelancer. She doesn’t fuck up that drastically. If she says she killed him, then she believes she killed him.”
“So what are you thinking, then?” Zachariah asked, watching the other man as he paced.
“Maybe a body double? I don’t know.” Ashton sighed and scrubbed his hands through his short, dark hair. “When did all of this shit get so complicated?”
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