So, when Sam finally came out of the room, it was with barely-checked frenzy that both Clara and Annabelle rushed him with questions.
At once, he held up his hands and motioned for them to head back into the living room.
“He’s fine,” he told them as he ran a hand through his thick white hair. He looked tired. And still pale. “He lost a lot of blood, but it isn’t the first time, and he’s tough. The bleeding’s stopped, more or less, and he’s stable. Just needs to rest, is all.” He took a deep breath and sighed, his shoulders slumping. “And drink a hell of a lot of juice.”
He headed into the kitchen and Annabelle and Clara were hot on his heels.
“How long will it be before he’s on his feet again?” Annabelle asked.
“Knowing Jack, not long.” Sam shook his head and opened the refrigerator door. He peered into its depths and then his shoulders slumped even more. “Wouldn’t ya know. No juice.”
“I can go buy some,” Annabelle offered right away.
“I’ll go with her,” Clara joined in, eager to help in any way she could.
“Not a chance. I’ll call it in.” Sam turned back to face them and pulled his cell phone out of his front jeans pocket. He’d taken off his sports coat in the room where Jack was and his long-sleeved shirt had been rolled up to his elbows. As he pressed a speed dial number and placed the receiver to his ear, his eyes fell on Annabelle and narrowed.
He studied her, then, as Jack sometimes did – from head to foot, and methodically.
“Yeah, it’s me.” Sam spoke into the phone, not taking his eyes from Annabelle. She shifted from one foot to the other beneath his gaze, growing steadily more self-conscious.
“I need red supplies delivered to house three ASAP.” He paused. Then he nodded. “Good. See you soon.” He closed the phone and straightened, re-pocketing it.
“Drake, go back and tell Miss Reid to look you over. You’ve been shot at least twice and you’re suffering from shock.”
Annabelle blinked. She’d been shot? She hadn’t noticed anything. She looked down, suddenly quite startled to see that her bullet-proof clothing was dented, for lack of a better description, in several places. And her boots were soaked through. She should be freezing. But she barely felt anything at all.
And then, as if with the realization came the symptoms, she shivered violently.
“You need to get those clothes off and get into a warm shower.” Sam moved forward, taking her by the shoulders and spinning her around. “Right now.” He walked her down the hall toward the first room on the right, where they’d taken Jack.
There, she paused, forcibly stopping Sam in his tracks. She didn’t want to go in. She wasn’t sure she could handle seeing Jack in whatever condition he might be in. What if he was white as a sheet? All bandaged up? What if he looked like he was dying?
She would throw up again. And she didn’t have anything left in her stomach.
“Fine. Wait here.” As if sensing the reason for her hesitation, Sam let her remain in the hall while he stepped around her and poked his head into the room.
“Miss Reid, out here, please.”
Sam stepped back and Cassie came out into the hall. Sam didn’t have to tell her why he’d wanted her to step out, because when she caught sight of Annabelle, her eyes widened and her brow furrowed.
“Jesus, Ann, you look like shit.” She rushed forward and took her friend’s hands. “And you’re cold as ice.” She began to feel Annabelle’s arms, moving the sleeves up as if searching for wounds. When she got to her right shoulder, Annabelle suddenly let out a piercing cry. Pain had stabbed through her joint, shooting down to her finger tips and even down her right side.
“Your shoulder’s jacked up, at the very least.”
“Is that the medical term?” Annabelle joked, trying to hide her fear and exhaustion behind humor. “’Jacked up’?”
Why did everything bad always have to be named “Jack?” Like when someone was messing with you, they were “jacking” with you. And when someone was hurt, they were “jacked” up. What was the deal with that? She didn’t like it.
“It is,” Cassie replied, not pausing in her examination. She continued to look Annabelle over, pulling the edge of her shirt up to expose a taut stomach that was already bruised from Annabelle’s unpleasant treatment by the Colonel’s men. And now there were new scrapes and bruises forming, but nothing life-threatening.
Sam remained with them in the hallway, watching in that careful way that Annabelle realized long ago just came with being an assassin.
When Cassie got to her right thigh, Annabelle barely stifled another cry of pain.
“You see these strange sorts of dents or tears in your clothing?” Cassie pointed at the two larger anomalies in Annabelle’s bullet-proof outfit, one over her right shoulder, the other over her right thigh. “That’s where the bullets hit you. And that’s why those areas hurt so much. Your leg is going to be really bruised, and will probably hurt to walk on, but nothing’s broken. Your shoulder, on the other hand, is sprained.” Cassie sighed and straightened. “The force of the bullet striking you must have jerked the ligaments back until they tore.”
Annabelle didn’t say anything. It made sense, after all. And, what was there to say?
“Now, you need to get warmed up. I know you can undress and bathe yourself, Ann, but the truth is, I want to make sure there’s nothing I’m missing. Plus, you might need some help when it comes to using your right arm.”
“Fine,” Annabelle nodded once and headed back toward the second bedroom on the left, which sported a large bathroom and a rather nice shower.
It wasn’t until she was standing under the water and Cassie had left the room that Annabelle remembered the vial of Craig’s Erythromelalgia cure. What had happened to it? Had Jack ever gotten the brick out and retrieved it? The men had come around the corner and begun shooting before Annabelle had had a chance to find out.
She thought of this as she washed her hair with one hand and then rinsed it out as best she could. Then she used the same hand – her left – to soap her body. This wasn’t nearly as difficult. When she was clean and rinsed, she stepped out and dried off.
It seemed to be the night for late revelations, however, because it was then that she realized she had no clothes to change into.
“Mr. Brandt, thank you for everything you’ve done.” Sam stepped into the room where Jack lay propped up against the head boards. He nodded at Craig, who stood by the bed, monitoring Jack’s blood pressure. “When you’re done there, give us a minute alone.”
Craig looked up at Sam and then back at Jack. He pulled the cuff off of Jack’s arm and laid it on the table beside the bed. Jack nodded at him and Craig nodded back.
“Sure.” He stepped around the bed and left the room, softly closing the door behind him.
When he was gone, Jack straightened a little more and pinned Sam with a blue-eyed gaze that would have made a lesser man wet himself.
Before Jack could say anything, Sam raised his hands in a gesture of placation. “I’m more sorry than you can possibly imagine, Jack. I had no idea-”
“You gave me an untried weapon, Sam. You nearly got us both killed.” Jack’s tone was low and deadly. His expression turned lethal. “I trusted you,” He ground the words out through clenched teeth.
Sam swallowed audibly, slowly lowering his hands to his sides. “It was tried, Jack. I swear it. I never would have given you that gun without testing it first.” He shook his head, once, from side to side. His eyes were wide and pleading. “I shot it and cleaned it and shot it and sighted it and goddamned cleaned it and shot it again.” He ran his hand over his face. It was shaking.