RISK & REWARD

30 | 𝘴𝘪𝘹 𝘭𝘢𝘺𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴

SLADE ends up sitting me down on one of the dusty bales of hay. She's lapsed into quiet; her focus is entirely on my arm, which has now begun to sting as the adrenaline of the past who-knows-how-many-hours starts to fade.

I wince as she pries a tiny glass shard from my skin, flicking it unceremoniously toward the wall. I don't break her silence; I've come to recognize the dull gleam in her eye and the slight pinch of her brow as a sign that she's thinking.

And so, I let her. I still feel dizzy; the ghost of her lips are still pressed against mine. She tasted like alcohol. I realize that now as the memory replays and I can catch details I hadn't noticed before. I feel her nails on the back of my neck. I feel the squeeze of her grip around my waist. I feel...I feel...

"Hey!" Slade's eyes suddenly flash in my vision, a mere two inches from my face. "Hey! You hear me?"

I flinch so hard I nearly fall, gasping when Slade's hand closes around my shoulder. She's scanning my face with hard eyes; her brow furrows, cheek catching in her teeth.

"You good?" she asks, sitting up on her knees. "Look at me. You feel sick? How hard'd they drug you?"

I blink at her in confusion before I realize what she's thinking. My silence seems to make her more concerned; she sits straighter, one hand landing on either side of my legs.

"You didn't hear me," she says, tone laced with stiff concern. "I asked you what happened and you -"

"I'm fine!" I blurt, cutting her off. "It's not...that. I'm okay. It wasn't as bad."

Slade isn't happy with that answer. Her eyes narrow, and her mouth turns downward. "So you didn't hear me because...?"

I know she's asking because she thinks I've been drugged as bad as last time. I know it's because she's concerned for my wellbeing.

Still, when I gulp and shiver and reply with "I was thinking about...that," and gesture weakly to my mouth, I can't help the hot flood of embarrassment that washes over me. Half-knelt in front of me, Slade's expression doesn't change; then her eyes widen by a fraction of an inch, her nostrils flare, and she looks down with a gulp and a quiet "oh."

We lapse back into silence. Slade keeps dusting off my arm, ignoring the blood smearing her hands. It's just a lot of little cuts and scrapes - I'd just gone through the window, that's all - but the look on her face is drawn tight with concern.

I clear my throat. Slade glances up.

"He didn't do anything to me," I finally say, trying not to look her in the eyes even as she gazes up at me. "He...drugged me at the bus stop, and I woke up in this fancy dining room...thing, and -"

"Did you feel sick?" Slade interjects, eyes narrow. "Nausea? Dizziness? Sweating? Anything?"

I gulp. "No, I...I was fine, they blindfolded me going to...wherever that house was, and then they let me go to sleep, and Hawk was watching me and he brought me a change of clothes and - what?"

Slade's eyes have dropped in temperature. They flick down to my clothes, glacially cold; she takes in the thin tee, the baggy shorts.

"Those're his?"

"The - yeah. Sorry, I...was gonna change into something warmer, like you said, but I didn't have time, and..."

Her eyes flash. "We'll fix that tomorrow."

"Fix that? We're - we're going back to the city?"

"Yeah. Obviously." Slade stands up abruptly, dusting her hands off. "We'll go after."