Page 40 of Atone in Darkness
That would be Chase’s assessment, too, but only if the man was a normal human being. It all depended on whether there really was any significance to those red sweatpants he waswearing. If he was another Paladin, the time frame could be far different. It could be the bullet had originally done more damage, but he was healing at the accelerated rate of a Paladin. Before Chase could point that out, the man moaned and his eyes fluttered open. Although he didn’t seem worried to see Chase hovering over him, he went batshit crazy the second he spotted Marisol.
“What the hellis she doing here?”
He fought to get away, scrambling backward over the floor, leaving a fresh trail of blood on the way. Edgar kept his attention on Marisol, looking as if he half expected her to come after him with the knife she’d just laid down on the floor.
Chase held up his hands, palms out, trying to calm him down. “She’s a doctor, a damn good one. You need her to tend to your shoulderbefore you bleed out.”
Edgar wasn’t having it. “No way I want her working on me. Not after she’s spent the past four months torturing me.”
What the hell? She’d been his keeper, too? Hot and bitter rage roared through Chase’s mind. He wanted to deny the man’s claim, to call him out for the lies he was telling, but for an instant doubt reigned supreme. She’d denied knowing about any other prisoners,and the closest she’d come to hurting him was when she stuck a needle in his arm to draw blood. Chase jerked his gaze up to meet Marisol’s and read denial and a big dose of hurt in their dark depths. Hehated that, but now wasn’t the time to demand answers or reassurances.
Instead, he would start by learning as much as he could from Edgar and go from there. If he could be believed, he’d beena prisoner at least two months longer than Chase. “Where were you stationed, and how did you end up at the compound?”
“I served out of central Costa Rica. Hell, I hadn’t even been back to the States for a couple of years. The last thing I can remember was walking along a street in San Jose on my way back to headquarters. I woke up in a glass cell in the compound. No thanks to the doctor here,I barely managed to escape with my life, and her friends are still out there hunting for me.”
He glanced at Chase with wild eyes. “Hunting for both of us.”
Marisol was ashen. “Chase, I swear I’ve never seen this man before, and I never heard of anyone named Edgar.”
The man sneered. “That’s because you always called me Number Three like I was some damn lab rat. She instructed my captors on exactlyhow she wanted them to beat on me. Hell, half the time she stood by and watched with a sick smile on her face. I heard she had another play toy in the other lab at the compound. The guards liked to take bets on which one of us could survive the most damage. Hell, they even had a pool going on how many times we could die and not come back crazy.”
Well, shit. Even if Marisol hadn’t yet figuredout what that marker in Chase’s DNA meant, Edgar had just connected the dots for her. It didn’t help that his wound was already visiblysmaller, verifying he was another Paladin. Sure enough, she was looking at Chase now, so many questions whirling in that incredible mind of hers, ones he had no business answering. But after last night and everything else they’d been through, he was done lyingto her.
The real question was whether or not Edgar’s claims had been designed for the sole purpose of destroying the fledgling trust between Chase and Marisol. Divide and conquer and all that. There was no way to know for sure, but there was something about the man that didn’t ring true to him. Still, the experiences he was describing were identical to what Chase himself had gone through. Somany questions, so few answers.
“Chase, what does he mean about dying multiple times?”
“Later, Marisol. I promise.”
Shoving all his anger and his doubts down deep to be dealt with later, he turned his attention back to Edgar. “The guards were bastards, every last one of them. And maybe you have good reasons not to trust anyone connected to that place, but she’s the only doctor we have handyright now. I’ll be right here to keep an eye on things. Let her see what she can do to stop the bleeding.”
Marisol had flinched at his assessment of the situation, but he pretended not to have noticed. She’d proven her loyalty to him time and again. Edgar was the unknown in this equation. He needed to learn what the man knew about the camp and the people behind it. Maybe he was another victim,another Paladin captured and tortured for weeks. That didn’t mean Chase was ready to declare the two of them blood brothers and start singing kumbaya anytime soon.
Edgar finally nodded. “As long as you keep an eye on the bitch. I’ll warn you, though. If she comes at me again, I’ll kill her.”
Enough was enough. Chase lunged across the short distance to clamp his hands around Edgar’s throat. “Threatenher again, I’ll gut you myself. I’m telling you straight up, the same guys hunting for me are after her, too.”
The other man was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. He simply went limp, offering no resistance as Marisol washed away the blood. She snapped out orders with cold efficiency. There was no sign of the warm woman Chase had slept with last night. “Get me the soap and hot water. Also,that open bottle of scotch in the top cabinet. I’ll need it to disinfect the area before I bandage the wound.”
He did as she asked, still keeping a wary eye on Edgar. Even wounded, the man was quite capable of snapping her neck in seconds. One wrong move, and Edgar wouldn’t live long enough to draw another breath. Paladins were hard to kill, but not impossible.
Once again he knelt beside Edgarto hold him down if the pain became too much while Marisol cleaned his wound. When she finally doused the area with the cheap scotch, it became clear the man had a real talent for creative cursing. Chase made note of a couple of expressions he planned to try out on Jarvis the next time the two of them crossed swords in practice. Maybe the shock value would throw the older Paladin off his game enoughso that Chase could actually win a bout against him. If so, it would be the first.
Meanwhile, Marisol cut up another of their unknown host’s T-shirts to use as a bandage. Once she had it securedin place, she left it to Chase to help Edgar pull on another shirt. After he got the wounded man situated in one of the club chairs, Chase cleaned up the floor and packed up the last of their few firstaid supplies.
Marisol’s silence was starting to get on his nerves. It wasn’t as if he felt free to talk in front of their guest. He still didn’t know how much of the guy’s story he believed or if he even believed any of it at all. Because if Edgar was telling the truth about his experience in the compound, then Marisol had lied to Chase about everything.
And after last night, holding her andloving her every which way he could think of, learning she’d been a willing participant in torturing a fellow Paladin would be a betrayal he wasn’t sure he’d survive. He wanted to believe her, but he wasn’t a fool. He hadn’t exactly been thinking with the head on his shoulders when it came to her.
Shortly after bandaging Edgar’s shoulder, she’d disappeared into the bathroom. There’d been a longsilence followed by the sound of water splashing. If he had to guess, he figured she’d taken it upon herself to start wringing out their clothing. Maybe she could use some help.
When he stepped into the bathroom, he might as well have been invisible for all the attention she paid to him. He watched as she struggled to wring the water out of the uniform pants he’d stolen from the guard.
“Needsome help?”
She shook her head and went right on twisting the fabric with renewed effort. He suspected she was imagining that was his neck she was twisting right now. “He’s like me.”
“I figured that much out for myself.” She finally glancedin his direction. “So you really were dead on the floor of the cell. I didn’t imagine it.”
