Natalia sways again, and I grab her upper arm. “Natalia, stop.”
She grabs the cuffs on my wrists, unlocks and removes them, then stuffs them and a bundle of keys into her pocket. Stifling a pained moan, she peels off her jacket, revealing a holster that holds an extra magazine she didn’t need, and then shoves it into my hands. “Find any blood that’s mine or yours and wipe it off the floor.”
“Natalia.” I start to follow her as she marches away again. “Natalia, what are you—”
“Do what I fucking told you to!” she snaps without even looking back at me. “We need to get out of here!”
I can’t exactly argue with her last point, so I get to work mopping up whatever blood looks like it could have come from either of us. As I’m wiping the floor, I cut my gaze back and forth between what I’m doing and what she’s doing—which looks like the handiwork of a well-practiced, stone-cold killer.
Pulling a thin, white cloth from her other pocket, she uses it to pick up her discarded pistol off the ground and wipes it clean. From there, she stalks with another noticeable stagger to one of the nameless, lifeless bodies, crouches again, then holds the handkerchief-wrapped gun just above the dead man’s hand and pops off a rapid-fire succession of shots in the general direction of Xavier. When she’s finished, she sets the pistol next to the man’s limp hand, stands up, and scans the room with flickering blue eyes hidden below fluttering black eyelashes. Her gaze lands on the knife, and she wobbly shuffles in her heels toward it, then cleans it of blood and fingerprints, and finally drops it next to Xavier’s body.
“Vamonos, cariño,” she mumbles as she turns and starts staggering toward one end of the space.
I break into a run to catch up with her, casting a glance over my shoulder at the death and destruction we’re walking away from, none of the past ten minutes of total chaos completely registering in my mind. We’re only a handful of paces from a door when Natalia sways on her feet again, and I catch her under her arm just before she hits her knees.
“Baby, I need to call an ambulance,” I say, attempting to guide her to lie down on the floor. “You’re losing a lot of—”
“No!” she barks, pulling strength and stamina from God knows where to force herself to her feet again. “We’re going to the car, and you’re going to drive where I tell you!”
I pull her close to me, her blood-soaked jacket still clutched in my fist. “You need a fucking doctor!”
“We’re going to a fucking doctor if you will just follow my directions, God dammit!”
Natalia grabs my sleeve and continues to trudge forward, dragging me with her toward the door, which she attempts to shove open with her shoulder, only to bounce right off of it and bump against my chest. Fed up with this nonsense, I scoop her up into my arms and push through the door.
The desert night is cold, dry, and dark. An orange glow in the distance paints the edge of the blackened sky to the east—at least, I think it’s the east. I’m suddenly totally disoriented as to where the hell we are.
“Follow the side of the building to the back,” she murmurs, her head flopping against the side of my neck.
I do as she says, but panic starts to lurch up my throat. “How far is this fucking doctor, Natalia?”
“Not far.” Her voice sounds so small all of a sudden, and I have to swallow what feels like a boulder blocking my airway.
I walk faster, holding her closer, and she feels colder than she should.
“Querida,” I manage, and even I can hear the fucking crack in my voice.
“Just get to the car,amor.”
Amor.
Love.
I get to the fucking car, and I get the fucking door open, and I put her in the fucking seat, andfuck.
She’s too cold and too still.
Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck.
No. Pleaseno.
I fold up the jacket and press it against the wound on her torso, and she holds it in place. Strapping her in and then me, I pat my pockets on reflex, searching for the key fob, and she reads my mind.
“It’s in my pocket.” Her words slur together like she’s speaking in cursive, andfuck. “Just drive.”
So, I just fucking drive.
The directions she mumbles consist merely of, “Left here,”and, “Right at the light,”and,“Go straight,”all the while she clutches her side, blood seeping through her clothes and between her fingers, and she eventually gives in to letting her head fall against my shoulder.
