Now that was a name she knew well from some of Darling’s stories.
She shook his hand. “Ah, the one who doesn’t like explosives. Is it really true that you once hid in a shielded closet for eighteen hours because you thought there was a bomb in your kitchen?” A bomb that turned out to be a plastic kid’s toy.
Hauk growled. “I’m going to kill that little bastard for telling you that… and it didn’t look plastic.”
Syn broke out into a round of evil laughter. “My favorite part was when Darling threw it at him and he screamed like a woman. Hell, I had no idea you could jump that high, Hauk. You should have played sports, buddy.”
Hauk narrowed a dangerous glower at the much shorter man. “Shut the fuck up, Syn, before Darling has to find a new doctor. Be a shame for you to lose that head of yours.”
“Ah now, you know you’re not going to hurt me. Another bomb might run your fat ass up a tree and who would help you then?”
Hauk cut a feral grimace toward Maris. “You’d help a brother out, wouldn’t you, Mari?”
“Not with a bomb. Sorry. I was raised with Darling. I know how volatile they are. Kind of like Nyk on a bad day.”
“Darling’s not still sleeping in one, is he?” Syn asked her.
Zarya gaped. “He wasn’t really sleeping in it, too, was he?”
Maris shrugged. “What can I say? When Darling makes a binkie, he doesn’t joke around with it.” He glanced over to the men. “Fortunately, she was able to get him out of the bomb.”
“I’d say she got him out of a lot more than that,” Hauk said under his breath as he looked around the room, and more pointedly at the clothes strewn about the floor, then trained those spooky eyes on her.
Maris laughed.
“What about the dirty bombs?” Syn asked.
Sobering a degree, Maris folded his hands in front of him. “I’m going to hazard a guess that he’s deactivated them since he’s been rather…”—he cut a meaningful glance toward Zarya—“preoccupied lately and we haven’t died yet. I’m rather sure he’s found something he’d rather tinker with than bomb timers.”
Dying to distract them from this entire line of thought, Zarya faced Syn. “I wanted to mention that Darling cut his hand rather badly last night, and I think he might have bruised a couple of ribs. He wouldn’t let me call the medics to check him out. I field dressed his hand as best I could, but it was still bleeding a little this morning and I don’t want it to get infected. Would you mind taking a look at it?”
“Sure. How did he… uh, hurt it?”
Her face turned even redder as she rubbed the back of her neck nervously. So much for getting them away from this line of thought…“He fell in the shower.”
Hauk let out a low, evil laugh. “How’d he fall in the shower?” he asked playfully.
She couldn’t meet any of their gazes as she remembered the extremely intimate moment that hadn’t ended well for either of them. “He accidentally slipped.”
It was Syn’s turn to laugh at her until he paused next to a bloody hand towel that Darling had tossed at the door leading to her room last night. His humor died instantly as he bent over to pick up and examine the saturated cloth. “How bad was he hurt?”
Fury darkened her brow, but it wasn’t at them. Her anger was reserved for the members of her team. “That’s from a nosebleed.”
Syn cursed. “Are they getting worse?”
“It’s hard to say,” she answered honestly. “Sometimes it’s just a little blood for a few minutes, and others…” She gestured toward the towel in his hand. “That one was severe.”
“Any idea what triggered it?”
“No. They’re random. That one started right after he’d dozed off.”
Syn dropped the towel in the trash. “What about pain? Does his head hurt with them?”
“Sometimes. But it’s not too bad, so I’m not sure if it’s from the nosebleeds or…” She caught herself before she mentioned his eyesight. Syn obviously knew about it, but she wasn’t sure if Hauk knew. “Something else.”
Syn nodded. “Anything else I should know about?”
Zarya hesitated as she remembered the nasty incident Darling had the day before. “I probably shouldn’t say anything, but I don’t know if he will, and it is something that concerns me.”
“What?”
She bit her lip as she glanced to Hauk.
Hauk winked at her. “You can speak freely, little sister. Don’t worry. I’m well aware of his current injuries and limitations. He’s been my wingman for a long time, and when you put your life into the hands of others, you don’t keep secrets. We know everything about each other.”