Page 3 of Altered By Lead (Undercover Sinners 2)
"Hey." My voice comes out louder than I intend and she looks startled.
"Hey," she whispers back. Her voice is weak, her face so pale it's practically gray, and her arm ...
"Natalia, you're bleeding. Have you had that looked at?" I reach for her arm, but she flinches away from me. I try really damn hard not to let that hurt my feelings but...
"It's fine," she replies, then clears her throat. "It didn't even hurt until we got back here, so I don't know when it happened."
This has me frowning. "It could be serious, you need to get it checked out."
Her eyes flick over to Colt and the team working on him. I'm trying not to look; it's only stressing me out. "They need to work on Colt," she says, her voice rough with emotion. "Is he ... is he going to be okay?"
My throat tightens, but I refuse to acknowledge it. "He'll be fine," I snap, and she flinches again. Fuck. "Look, just let me check your arm out. I'm not medic good, but I've done enough field patch-ups for the guys."
She stares up at me for the longest time, like she's seeing me—or all of us—for the first time. Yeah, getting run off the road and shot at by an army of your father's minions will change a person’s perspective.
"You came for me?" she asks, and I open my mouth to give a reply that I feel will satisfy both Natalia, and the higher-ups, but ... "Or you came after me, I can't tell which."
"I ..." I start, but I'm not sure how to answer that question. Instead, I take a seat beside her as the doors to the surgery unit swing shut, and we're left to sit outside, in the waiting room of one of the organization's safe houses. "Aren't those the same thing?"
The way Natalia looks at me makes my jaw tight with anger; it's a pitying sort of look, like she feels sorry for me or something.
"No, West, they're not the same thing at all." She turns away and sighs, clutching her arm close to her chest. This time, when I reach out to take it, she lets me.
"We weren't looking to hurt you," I say, and then pause. "Well, maybe Arsen was. I seriously don't trust him for shit, but the rest of us ..."
"I overheard you talking with Hawke," Natalia admits, turning caramel brown eyes to me. The hurt in them makes my chest feel tight. Aw, fuck, come on, West, you're not seriously falling for this weepy girl are you?
But maybe I am?
I swipe a hand down my face, but this isn't the time nor place to be thinking about crap like that, not when Colt is lying on a table with his life hanging on the line.
Grabbing the first aid kit off the floor, I look around and realize we're the only two left in the room. Hawke is probably off dealing with the higher-ups, Mace by his side. We have to pay for that favor somehow, and it isn't going to be cheap. Arsen ... well, who the hell cares where that crazy fuck is anyway?
"We were just talking out our asses," I hedge as I open the kit and pull out some antiseptic wipes, butterfly bandages, and gauze. Looking a bit more closely at the wound, I can see that it's long, and deep, but we might be able to get away without doing stitches. Natalia's face tightens with pain when I start to clean her arm, but she doesn't pull away or cry. Little Miss Petrova over here is one tough bitch.
"I don't want to be dumped at some random town and left to fend for myself," she says, and I grit my teeth. Ah, crap, she really did hear everything, didn't she? "I deserve more than that, don't I?"
We lock eyes, and I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to say.
"We won't leave you without making sure the threat of your father's been neutralized ..."
Natalia lets me put the bandages on, wrap her with the gauze, but then she pulls away, face hardening. I have a feeling that things might change a bit after tonight.
One of the nurses races out the door, the front of her scrubs covered in blood.
Let's just hope it doesn't change for the worse.
Because if I lose my best friend, I don't know what the hell I'll do.
"Natalia," Hawke says, coming into the room, still dressed in his bloodied clothes, smelling like old pennies and gunpowder. "I need you to come with me for a minute."
She looks at him from across the room with that same hard, dark expression on her face, and then stands up, lifting her chin in defiance.
I wonder if she thinks they're going to kill her, to keep her quiet?
