by Logan Fox
When Lars turned to Cora, she was watching Milo with a blank look on her face.
Jesus, she looked like she’d been in a car accident.
“Hey, let’s see your face.”
She started at his voice, and turned stiffly on the bed to face him. Her eyes flashed up and to the side, glancing everywhere but on his eyes as he gently took her chin in a hand and turned her face to the light.
“Your gums stop bleeding yet?” he asked.
She nodded, and then looked like she was going to be sick.
“Hey, dental work’s come a long way,” he said. “We’ll have those pearly whites back in there in no time. Give me a smile.”
She glared at him.
“Come on. Let me see how bad it is.”
Cora slowly turned her lips up. Her eyes flickered—perhaps with pain—and then she forced a wide smile on her face. Lars twisted her head.
“See? Only one gap shows.” He touched the corner of her mouth and moved her smile down. “Keep it there, and it’ll just be our little secret.”
She rolled her eyes at him and then looked toward the bathroom. “Shouldn’t someone go check his gunshot?” she asked thickly, glancing back at Lars with concern writ bold in her eyes.
“Fine,” he sighed, pushing himself up. “But then you forfeit your turn. I’m taking a shower next.”
She shrugged, as if the thought was the last thing on her mind. It shouldn’t have been; the rest of her looked almost as bad as her face. Blood had seeped through the thick padding of bandages on her knee, and both her legs were scraped raw. Her right hand was as badly scraped as her cheek, from when she’d fallen off the horse, and she let it rest in her lap as if it hurt too much too move it.
Well, they were alive. But barely.
Lars knocked hard on the bathroom door.
There was a tremulous, “Si?” from inside.
“Housekeeping,” Lars muttered. “Put away your junk so I can get a look at your leg.” He counted to five and pushed through into the bathroom.
Angel’s hair was still wet from the shower, but he’d managed to sling a towel around his waist. He sat on the closed toilet seat, gingerly examining what looked to be a nasty bullet hole in his right thigh.
Lars went to his knees on the scrap of ugly toilet carpet and peered at the precise little hole. Blood slowly filled it, and then began oozing out onto Angel’s skin. Lars almost blotted it away with the edge of the towel, but it was probably as dirty as the rest of this hovel of a motel.
“Need to get supplies,” he said. He grabbed a thick wad of toilet paper, hesitated, and then shook his head. It would likely get stuck inside the wound and fester.
“You wash your hands in there?” he asked, pointing to the shower.
Angel gave him a long-suffering stare, so he tipped his chin and then took Angel’s hands, criss-crossing them over the wound.
“Keep applying pressure. Don’t be a pussy about it either. Do it hard enough so you feel like passing out. Without, you know, actually passing out.”
He glanced over his shoulder and then urged the guy to his feet. When his towel began slipping, he hastily tucked it around Angel’s waist and then led him from the bathroom.
Cora looked up, and then hurriedly looked away.
Yeah, he didn’t quite know what to make of Angel’s bruises himself. They weren’t all fresh, and told a sickening tale of abuse. He set the guy down on the edge of the bed.
“Keep pressing. Cora, you shower so long. I’ll be back now.”
He expected Milo to look up, to question where he was going, but the man hadn’t moved.
Lars ducked out the motel room, and tried not to hurry as he made his way toward the gas station.
Cora almost didn’t have a shower. She could already feel the pain of warm water hitting her torn skin. But the smell of blood, sweat, and puke was making her nauseas.
She stripped as carefully as she could. The small trash bin in the kitchenette hadn’t been used—the plastic lining was still clean. She wound that around her bandage and tried to keep that leg out of the shower’s spray.
She’d been right, of course. It hurt like nothing else. But she lathered soap onto her skin and did her best to wash all the blood from her.
There were clean—if threadbare—towels in the bathroom cabinet. She wound one around herself and used a second to blot at some of the scratches on her legs and arms that had started bleeding when she’d washed away the congealed blood.
She tried desperately not to look at herself in the mirror, but caught glimpses of her swollen face too many times. Curiosity eventually got the better of her, and she turned slowly to her reflection.
Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them back. She lifted a trembling hand to the lump on the side of her face. Her mouth was still coated with copper and, when she couldn’t stand the sight of herself anymore, she bent over the sink and rinsed her mouth out. The water ran pink for several rinses.
Salt water would have been better. Did this place have salt? When she straightened, Finn stood behind her in the mirror.
“Shit!” Although, with the swelling in her mouth, it came out more like, “Shid!”
She let out a harsh breath, hand clapping on her breast. Her heart thundered like it was trying to get out. “Oo sca’d me,” she mumbled.
“You done?” Finn asked, his voice hollow.
There was still blood on his face. And she knew it wasn’t his. Some dark streaks in his hair, hard and stiff now like a macabre version of hair gel.
She swallowed, and backed out of the bathroom as he stripped his shirt and unbuckled his pants. She pulled the door closed behind her, And then squeezed her eyes shut to will away the image of Finn wearing such an intense look of pleasure on his face as he—
“Señorita.”
She spun to Angel, and shifted her towel so it could make her more decent. But Angel didn’t seem to care how naked she was. His dark eyes drilled into her.
“I won’ ‘ell them,” she said.
Angel blanched, and then gave a quick nod of thanks.
She sank down beside him, studying a hideous, and thankfully faded, portrait of a forest scene. It looked like it came from the 1920s.
“Zachary has your brother?” She swiped away a trickle of water that was running down her neck from her wet hair. She touched his hand, and he flinched, so she drew back.
“Si.”
“I would have done the same thing.” Cora drew a ragged breath. “It’s different, when it’s family. You’d do anything—”
“No,” Angel cut in. “I put you in danger. After you trust me. You bring me with…I betray you.”
She pressed her mouth closed. Angel studied her hard for a few seconds and then looked away with a disgusted grunt. He peeled his fingers from his leg, and a slow, thick wave of blood coated his legs.
“Angel…”
His face was ashen. Should she be tying up his leg?
She was about to stand and find something to stem the blood with when Lars came through the front door. He saw them on the bed, and his face hardened.
“Why don’t you get dressed?” he suggested calmly, shooing her away with a hand.
“My clothes are filthy,” she murmured.
“So your plan’s to walk around in a towel the rest of your life?”
“Lars, what do you want me to—?”
“Christ, move already,” he snapped. “This guy’s bleeding to death while you’re harping on about clothes.”
Her mouth fell open. He made to grab her arm, but she scrambled away from him before he could touch her. “You’re the one that—”
“Quiet. Go sit in the corner with—” Lars cut off when he saw that Finn wasn’t between the bed and the wall anymore. His eyes went to the bathroom, and he let out a frustrated sigh. “Course I’ll be the last to shower,” he muttered. “Probably won’t be any fucking hot water left.”
He sat beside Angel and upended the bag of supplies h
e’d bought. A bottle of cheap whiskey rolled out, some bandages, paper toweling, scissors. More candy bars, and some bottles of water. She grabbed water, hesitated, and then glanced up at him.
Lars rolled her eyes at her. “Christ, take it. This too.” He tossed a candy bar at her and then turned his attention back to Angel. “Grab me a glass, if this shithole’s got one.”
She searched the cabinet, found a glass, and took it to Lars. He motioned to the whiskey with his chin while he dabbed at Angel’s leg with a wad of paper towel. “Pour. Real generous like.”
She filled it halfway and held the glass out to Angel. Lars snatched it from her. “That was for me,” he said, before downing it in three large gulps. “Now pour one for him.”
Cora gaped at him. She’d known he wasn’t exactly Mr. Charming, but why the hell was he so pissed off with her? Whiskey sloshed in the glass, and Angel gave it a suspicious look.
“You’re gonna need it, buddy,” Lars said. “I’m literally going to dig a bullet out of your leg with a pair of scissors. And it’s going to hurt like a motherfucker.”
Angel slumped down onto the bed, perhaps too weak to keep himself up any longer.
Lars looked up at her. “So…bunny…you ready to play nurse?” There was the faintest hint of a smile in his eyes.
“Sure,” Cora said, her anger ebbing away.
“Then come hither,” Lars said, standing. “And bring the scissors and the booze.”
60
Cora Fucking Swan
Angel was the shade of a ghost when Lars was done. Even Cora felt a bit lightheaded, and she’d only glanced across twice when her curiosity had gotten the better of her.
Lars sat back, hands bright with blood, and looked around. She tore off a few sheets of paper toweling from the roll and handed it to him. He gave her a grudging nod and wiped his hands. “Check on Milo would you?” he said as he bent and began bandaging Angel’s wound.
She looked over her shoulder and shivered. The temperature had dropped in the room, and the towel she wore was scant protection against the cold. She knocked on the door, and pushed it open at a mumbled, “It’s open.”
Finn stood at the basin, washing her cutoff jeans. There was a pile of wet clothes beside him; Angel’s and hers. His shirt too. He stood bare chested, a few scratches and bruises on his torso.
“You didn’t have to—”
“Here,” he said gruffly. “Toss them over the radiator. They should be less wet tomorrow.”
He twisted her jeans so hard that water streamed off them, and then laid them down on the pile over her underwear.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He ignored her, bustling past so she had to crane her body out of the way for him to get out the door.
Seriously, what the hell was wrong with everyone? They’d barely survived the ransom drop, and now everyone was pissed off at her?
She stormed out the bathroom, and scanned the room until she saw the radiator against one wall. It was still off. She turned it on and threw the wet clothes unceremoniously on top of it.
Then she spun to the men. Finn was hunting through the supplies, his mouth in an unhappy line as he took in the unhealthy snacks Lars had bought. Lars was just getting to his feet, seeming intent on going into the bathroom.
“Enough!” she yelled.
Everyone, even only half-conscious Angel, flinched and looked at her.
There was no place for her jeans on the radiator, so she threw them on the bed. She ran a hand over her hair and then crossed her arms over her chest.
“What the hell is wrong with you two?” she demanded. “We’re alive. We should be celebrating. Instead you’re both just…just…” she waved her hands, suddenly at a loss for words.
“What?” Lars prompted in a quiet voice. “We’re both so fucking glad we made it out of there, we just gonna pretend we didn’t notice how you’ve suddenly become BFF’s with the guy who wanted to put a bullet through your fucking skull?”
Lars surged toward her so fast that she took a hurried step back before she could stiffen her spine.
Cora held out a hand to Lars. “You don’t understand. He was the only way—”
“No, I don’t understand, Cora fucking Swan!” Lars thinned his mouth. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go take a lukewarm shower. That okay with you, bunny?”
He turned before she could reply, and she threw Finn a helpless look. He stared deadpan at her, shrugged, and bit into a candy bar with a faint grimace on his face.
“You know it’s not like that, Finn,” Cora said.
He shrugged again, inspecting the inside of the candy bar like he was trying to figure out what it consisted of.
“Finn, please. My father—”
“Is dead.”
Her chest closed up at his words. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. She looked up, blinking hard so the tears threatening to spill wouldn’t. “If it hadn’t been for Angel—”
Finn looked up at her. “If you’re supposed to become some kind of cartel leader, then you’ve got a long fucking way to go.”
She gaped at Finn in disbelief, but he simply finished his candy bar, went to the dressing table, and poured himself a plastic cup of whiskey.
“I’m tired,” he said. “We’re all tired. You want to talk this out, we do it in the morning.”
And what was she supposed to say to that? Angel had his eyes closed, possibly already passed out from the pain or the whiskey. And from the sounds coming out of the bathroom, Lars was well into his lukewarm shower.
Finn sat down on the edge of the bed, took off his jeans, and folded them up on the nightstand. His pistol and holster went on top. He pulled the top sheet down and slid into the bed, curling up to face the wall.
Cora hobbled over to Angel’s bed and sat at the foot, carefully unwrapping the plastic from around her bandaged knee. The bandage came next.
The doctor at Javier’s compound had done a neat job, but the stitches he’d put in place had torn. The gash under her kneecap looked grey and bloodless, and she wasn’t quite sure if that was good or bad.
She was still bent over, inspecting her wound, when the bathroom door swung open.
“You should clean that out,” he said.
She glared up at him. He stood in the doorway, toweling his hair dry. Like Finn, he’d taken his shirt off, and hadn’t bothered to put his jeans back on. He wore bright red boxers that made his pale skin look that much paler.
She looked away from his slim body.
“Is there any way I can…” she wriggled her fingers over the wound. “I don’t know. Stitch it up again?”
“Yeah, I’ll do it,” Lars said grudgingly through a sigh. He gestured at the towel on her head and she unwound it and handed it to him. He slid it under her leg and then hitched up the towel she’d slung around her body to mid-thigh. She shifted a little at his touch, keeping her eyes fixed on a nearby stain in the carpet.
Lars tossed his towel on the brown carpet, folded it twice, and used it to pad his knees as he came to kneel in front of her. He poked and prodded her for a few seconds, and then reached to the side and pulled the bottle of whiskey down from the table. There were only about five fingers left.
“Don’t yell,” he said, a second before pouring the whiskey over her knee.
She clamped her jaw shut, her eyes watering with the searing pain and then more from the slow throb where she’d used to have three teeth. Lars glanced up at her, for a moment seeming surprised that she hadn’t made a sound. Then he went to work on her wounds.
His fingers were cool, and worked deftly to clean out the gash.
Behind them, Angel’s breathing grew heavy and slow. Lars sat back when he’d tied off the bandage.
“Like what you see?” he asked casually.
Cora’s eyes flashed up. She’d been staring at his chest again. It was the color of buttermilk. Unmarred by a single freckle. The little bit of hair he had was so pale as to be almost transpare
nt.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. The whiskey made her thoughts foggy and her body heavy. Exhaustion washed over her like a wave of lead, and her shoulders slumped.
“Let me clean your face, then you go sleep.”
“Thank you, Lars.”
He used the few drops of whiskey that were left in the bottle for that. She’d probably smell like a drunk tomorrow morning. Some of the cuts burned, but some she could hardly feel.
This close, she could see Lars had tiny flares of yellow by his pupils. A few flecks of darker color scattered through the rest of the green.
Lime. That was the color she’d been trying to think of since she’d met him. Pale lime. Or new grass.
“What’s going to happen now?” she murmured as Lars was dabbing at the corner of her mouth.
“We’ll figure out everything in the morning.”
“We’re safe?”
“As we can be,” Lars said. He tapped her thigh. “Now go get yourself tucked in.”
She glanced over her shoulder, trying to see which bed had more space in it. Angel had fallen asleep on his back, Finn on his side.
“Milo will make space for you,” Lars said pointedly.
She nodded and went over to Finn, touching him on the shoulder. The man murmured in his sleep until she shook him lightly, hating the fact that she had to wake him up. His eyes fluttered open, and took a while before they focused on her face. Then he shifted back in the bed, holding open the sheets for her to climb in.
Hobbling awkwardly in a circle, she perched on the edge and lay down, trying not to touch him.
Maybe he’d already fallen asleep again. Maybe in his drowsy state, he’d forgotten to be mad at her. Because he reached out an arm warm from sleep, and dragged her closer until there was no space between them.
Her eyes flashed open guiltily. There hadn’t been any time to think about what had happened last night with the three of them. How her relationship with Finn and Lars had changed.
If it even had.