“Doubt?” I shook my head. “No. Fear? Yes.”
He grabbed my chin and tilted it up, his lips pressing to mine. The rusty tang from the blood on him couldn’t stop the fluttering of my heart.
“Come on.” He pulled me to the door, bending down to pick up one of the stray guns on the floor as we walked.
I took one last glance back to the bodies of One and Nine. I half expected them to get up, but it wasn’t going to happen.
Six killed his brother in order to save not only himself, but me and the other Cleaners.
I expected a firefight trying to get out of there, but it didn’t happen. Nine and One had minimal security personnel, and Six took care of most of them on our way in. Still, it was eerie, especially since we knew one of them was still alive and seemed to have disappeared or was hiding.
We got in the car like nothing happened. That we hadn’t just killed two of the government’s best killers.
My stomach was in knots, waiting for someone to come chasing after us like they had for months.
Six started the car and hit the gas. A few blocks later he pulled out the detonator and pressed the button.
The explosion was ear splitting a half-mile away. In the mirror chunks of debris fell back to earth and flames licked high into the sky.
The ringing in my ears stopped, and the only sound was the revving of the engine along with the traffic on the interstate as we entered.
“One was the definition of cocky,” he said a few miles later.
I blinked and turned to look at him. “Huh?”
“Tying back to our conversation that first day.”
My eyes widened. “Wow, that was literally another life.”
“She was the lowest ranked,” he continued on, ignoring me.
“Of elite trained killers.” I pointed out.
“And she was beaten by you because she believed you so inferior and that you would never in any life be able to touch her.”
“And you won because of all your self-confidence?” I asked.
“No, I won because I’m a highly trained killer and I got to a gun first.”
I grimaced. “Good thing, too.”
“Why?”
I slipped my fingers in his blood covered ones. “You don’t remember? You’re the only one I want to kill me.”
He glanced to me, his fingers flexing around mine.
There was no letting go.
He only held on tighter.
After over three hours of driving, a pharmacy stop an hour in, and a vehicle change, we checked into some obscure motel in the middle of nowhere. It was a welcomed sight. We were both tired, hungry, and injured.
The moment we were in the door and Six latched it, I was dragging him into the bathroom, pharmacy bag in tow.
I sat him down on the toilet and looked him over. His left eye was swollen shut and he was so covered in blood I couldn’t tell where it was coming from or if it was even his.
“We need to get this off,” I said as I pulled at his shirt.
He blew out a breath and took hold of the hem, his movements stiff. I pulled from the back, working his head through the hole and sliding the rest down his arms.
With his shirt gone, I looked over his chest. There was some swelling and some bruises starting to blossom, indicating there might be some broken ribs. By the way Nine was hitting and kicking him, I wouldn’t doubt it. There were no pulled punches.
I tried to turn off my emotions to get the job done. Six needed to be cleaned and patched up.
Though I did let the relief in, even if it didn’t seem real to me on some levels. Nine and One were dead. I saw the bodies, created one of them. Even with those facts, I couldn’t shake the knots in my stomach.
Six’s head bobbed, his eyes drooped, and his body began to slump.
“Whoa, none of that.” I gave his face a slight slap, the sting making his eyes jump open.
He let out a hiss and glared up at me, but I ignored it.
Wetting a towel and running his hands under the faucet in the sink, I was able to clean off a lot of the blood to get a better look at his hands. They were also swollen, and there were multiple lacerations.
I continued up his arms and his face until as much blood as I could get was gone. His face had a few cuts, but none of them needed anything more than a butterfly stitch. A little antibiotic ointment and some bandages did the trick on the rest.
His hands required a few more of the butterfly stitches, along with some ice to help with the swelling.
“We need to do you,” he said, grabbing my wrist and pulling me to sit on his lap.
I’d been so concerned with him that I hadn’t even registered the pain in my arm or the ache in my chest. Copying my motions, he wet a towel and cleaned up my arm.
The bullet had only grazed me, but it was enough to make a mess.