Goodie stared at the concrete ceiling with the one eye that would still open, and ran on repeat the only thing that had kept her amused over the last week since she’d been shoved in this room. She saw in her mind the storage shed explode and the look on those bastards’ faces as it did, and despite the split in her lip, she smiled. Goodie knew she was dying. One side of her chest wasn’t moving properly, the ribs had been broken and something had happened to the lung on that side. Her left leg was a mess, they’d smashed in her knee with a baseball bat and she could no longer stand on it. Her shoulder was dislocated. Normally she would be able to throw it back in herself, but without the use of her legs, and without being able to move properly with her chest, it was impossible.
She could separate from the pain but not from her memories. That fucking dimple had invaded her consciousness more times than she would have thought possible. His smell, the feel of his hair, the gentle way he touched her: however hard she tried she couldn’t repress those thoughts. When it came to feeling pain she was in complete control, but with Nick … She let her eye drift shut again and her good arm moved so that she could touch her dry, cracked lips; the memory of his mouth on hers was impossible to shake. Her eye flew open as she heard what could only have been an explosion from out in the complex; she frowned and thought about sitting up, but, looking down at her misshapen arm and leg, decided against it. Whatever was going on out there was unlikely to affect her. She’d be gone by the time anyone broke into this room.
She felt herself drifting again when there was another loud explosion, this time seeming to be in the room itself. Turning her head with some difficulty, she blinked through the smoke that had now filled the small space to see a large figure standing in the doorway. She watched as he scanned the room, saw her lying on the mattress and swore violently before running over to her and putting his hands under her back and knees to lift her.
‘You’re okay,’ she heard Sam’s voice say as he pulled her up against his chest.
‘Don’t … lie,’ Goodie managed to croak out, concentrating on pushing the pain away as she was jostled.
‘Fine, you’re not okay. But you fucking well will be.’
He turned them, and then they were running. The movement was so violent that she could no longer block out the pain, and the black closed in around her.
*****
‘She’s so cold. Why is she so cold?’
Goodie frowned. It was Nick’s voice but not as she’d ever heard it in the past. Never before had she heard real fear there, or any real desperation.
‘Get in the sodding seat, Nick,’ she heard Sam shout above the sound of helicopter rotor blades. ‘I said you could come in the chopper if you did what you were told.’
‘She’s fucking ice cold!’ Nick shouted, his voice laced with so much panic it was almost painful to hear. She could feel his hands now, cupping her cheeks and resting on her forehead.
‘I know!’ Sam shouted back. ‘She’s lost a lot of blood. That’s why we need to go right fucking now. So sit down in your goddamn seat.’ Goodie frowned as she felt Nick’s hands leave her face and she slid back into the darkness.
When she woke again it was to bright lights above her head and activity around her. She could feel needles going into her arm, hands cutting away her clothes and people discussing her airway. She blinked open her eye and saw a dark-haired woman in scrubs staring down at her.
‘Hola, señora,’ the woman said, then continued on in Spanish. ‘You are safe now but we must put you back to sleep. You understand?’ Goodie nodded.
‘Hey,’ Goodie heard Nick shout, and looked past the nurse to see him standing just behind her, his eyes wide with fear. ‘Don’t speak to her in Spanish, she doesn’t understand –’
‘She speaks fluent Spanish, Nick,’ Goodie heard Sam’s much calmer voice explain from the end of her bed.
‘Well, I don’t understand Spanish, you prick. What are they doing to her?’
The woman in scrubs ignored both of them and Goodie felt cold creep up her arm, something being injected into her veins. The pain receded and she welcomed the darkness again.
The next time Goodie opened her eyes she could see out of both. The lights above her head were still bright, but there was less activity around her now. She looked down to see her body dressed in a hospital gown and a cannula in her arm with blood coming in from a bag above her head. There was a tube coming out of her chest and draining what looked like bloody fluid. Her arm was in a sling and her left leg was in a cast to her thigh. She looked across at the bed opposite her and saw that the patient had a tube in their mouth and a ventilator breathing for them. She was in an intensive care unit. That much was obvious. She looked to the other side and saw a pair of large shoes next to her bed. Frowning, she scanned up the long legs and to the unshaven man asleep in the chair next to her bed. His hair was longer than she remembered, his cheeks more hollow, and there were dark shadows under his eyes, almost like bruises they were so pronounced. As if he could sense her return to consciousness his beautiful eyes flickered open and locked with hers.
‘You’re awake,’ he told her, relief sweeping over his features as he stood from the chair and came to her side. Then, to her shock, he leaned in and touched his forehead to hers, gripping her good hand with his and closing his eyes. Goodie’s IQ was well over genius level. She could process situations rapidly. Even with all her injuries and having been sedated for days, she knew.
‘You came for me.’ She frowned in frustration as her lips moved but no sound came out.
‘What, baby?’ Nick asked, pulling back and stroking her hair at her temples. ‘What are you trying to say?’
‘You came for me,’ Goodie managed to get out in a hoarse whisper as she blinked up at him in confusion.
‘Of course I did, honey. You’re mine.’
Goodie shook her head until Nick’s hands closed in on either side of her face, holding it still. ‘You’re stubborn. You’re a nutcase. But you’re mine, and I’m keeping you.’
*****
‘I don’t know how Nick does this all day; it’s so boring.’ Goodie could hear Sam’s low rumble cutting through her dream, and clawed her way back to consciousness with some effort.
‘Well, what would you do if it was Katie lying there?’ Goodie heard another low voice reply, and blinked her eyes open to see Sam and Geoff facing each other at the side of her bed.
‘Fair point,’ Sam conceded. Goodie shifted slightly on the bed and sucked in a sharp breath as pain shot through her chest and into her shoulder. Both men turned to face her instead of each other.
‘Hey, Sleeping Beauty,’ Sam said, stepping close to the bed and laying both hands on the railing. ‘How’re you feeling?’
‘Like …’ Goodie cleared her throat but, frustratingly, was still only able to force out a hoarse whisper, ‘… shit.’
Sam’s face softened for a moment, and then he hardened his expression. ‘Yeah? Well, you deserve to feel like shit. Do you know how many risks we had to take to get you out? How worried we’ve been? Do you even care?’
‘Didn’t … ask you to come,’ Goodie rasped past her painful throat. Sam looked up at the ceiling as if seeking patience, then focused back on her.
‘Did you think we’d leave you there? Did you think we’d leave you to die?’
Goodie closed her eyes to block him out and slowly nodded. When she opened them again Sam was scowling down at her.
‘Damn it, Goodie,’ he snapped. ‘You’ve got people who care about you now. That carries responsibility. It means that you don’t go off on suicide missions on your own. You’re not alone anymore, myshka.* You have to learn to think about other people.’
‘Never asked …’ Goodie cleared her throat again, trying to make her words stronger, ‘… never asked for that. Never asked for people to care.’
‘Well, that’s life, isn’t it? That’s what it’s all about.’
‘Not my life.’
Sam scowled again and ran both his hands through his hair. ‘I owe you my life, Goodie – have you forgotten that?’ She looked away from him and then felt his finger under her chin to turn her head back again. ‘Even if I didn’t owe you I would still have wanted to get you out. I care about you. Katie cares about you. Even bloody Geoff cares about you.’ Geoff gave a grunt of agreement from Sam’s side (which by Geoff’s standards was actually quite a display of emotion). ‘And that bloke of yours …’ Sam shook his head, a slow grin spreading over his face, ‘… you know he bought up half the artillery, light aircraft and helicopters in the southern hemisphere to help us get you out. Even insisted on coming with us – was a job to make him stay with a chopper. Had to tell him in the end that some city nancy-boy who’s never even held a bebe gun before, leave alone a submachine gun, was only going to hold us back and put you in more danger. We had to wrestle him out of the ward today – he was starting to smell, he’d been sitting here with you so long.’
‘Not … mine,’ Goodie rasped, frowning up at Sam, who just chuckled and rolled his eyes.
‘You two make a right pair of stubborn nutters, don’t you?’
‘I told Sam what you said when you left that night, Goodie,’ Geoff put in, and Goodie looked at him. ‘We need to know what you meant. What was there to finish?’ Goodie’s mind flashed to the tremble of fear in Dmitry’s voice as she’d held the knife to his throat, and she smiled for the first time in days. Coming to Colombia for this job was a small price to pay to the agency that shut down Dmitry’s security to allow her access.
Dmitry Alexandrov had been under surveillance for a while, and when Natasha had begged to do something to help, Goodie foolishly gave her his details. It was only after Goodie found out who was responsible for the knife attack in the alley and then the shooting, that she realized how dangerous Dmitry was. He would do anything to protect his overpriced flow of oil. How he thought he could buy a bloody great mansion practically next door to the Chamberses and still escape Goodie’s notice only showed just how incredibly arrogant he was. Goodie had called Natasha off, but not before Tasha had managed to make sure Dmitry was going home alone the night of the ball. The rest was taken care of by people with far more influence than Tasha and only after Goodie had agreed to go to Colombia to finish what she started nine years ago.
‘You don’t need to know,’ she rasped. ‘Is finished.’
‘Whatever you did, you didn’t need to do, Goodie,’ Sam told her, his face now serious. ‘The danger had passed for Nick and Ed. All the deals were done.’
‘Make …’ Goodie swallowed; her throat was beginning to hurt now, ‘… sure. Make them … pay.’
Sam rolled his eyes. ‘So why did you take this job?’
Goodie turned away from him again and heard him sigh loudly. ‘We agreed when they approached us last year that it was too high-risk, Goodie. I didn’t think you would ever come back here.’
Goodie shrugged, then winced as the movement sent another bolt of pain through her ribs. Sam narrowed his eyes at her.
‘I used to believe you were so brave, so resilient; but really, when it comes down to it, really you’re not brave at all are you? You’re scared stiff.’
Goodie grumbled some particularly unpleasant Russian under her breath and Sam smiled. ‘Give life a try, myshka,’ he said softly as he laid his hand over her good arm on the bed. ‘Just let yourself give it a try. You trained to adapt to any environment, to be anything you needed to be. Can’t you let yourself be happy? Can’t you be who you need to be to be with him?’
Goodie blinked rapidly against the stinging at the back of her eyes and turned her head away again, muttering about the dry air from the air conditioning.
* myshka – little mouse
