Chapter 28 Is This Seat Taken?
Farrow rounded a corner on her way back to Dr. Winter’s hospital room where she assumed Alik and Danny would have gone, but what she saw stopped her in her tracks.
“I know you don’t like to wear shoes, big man, but we can’t walk around a hospital with all those germs on your bare feet.”
Farrow watched Danny scowl at the little white socks Alik was carefully putting on his little feet. They were sitting on the floor, Danny plopped in Alik’s crossed-legged lap.
Farrow’s heart tightened in her chest at the sight of Alik’s wide, muscular shoulders moving, curled around the tiny toddler’s frame. She watched his fingers maneuver nimbly as he worked the baby’s foot into each sock before reaching to put on his new racecar shoes. He carefully loosened the laces, pulled up the tongue and slipped Danny’s foot into place before gently tightening the laces and tying a slow, deliberate knot.
“I’ll teach you how to tie your own shoes someday, kiddo, but I don’t mind helping you while you need me. Cool?” Alik spoke to the top of Danny’s head as he worked on the other shoe. When he got to the laces on this shoe he chanted a little rhyme, "Build a teepee, come inside. Close it tight so we can hide. Over the mountain and around we go. Here's my arrow and here's my bow!” Alik’s fingers manipulated the laces to dance through the rhyme. Danny’s eyes were transfixed.
Once his shoes were back on his feet, Alik just let the little boy sit for a minute. His unhurried, gentle ways acted like a tonic to the three-year-old who eventually stood up, turned around and smiled genuinely at Alik before wrapping his scrawny little arms around his thick neck. Instinctively, Alik’s strong arms came up to support the little guy against him.
“You ready to go check on Mom, big guy?” Alik asked rhetorically. He moved into a standing position easily. Farrow loved to watch everything about Alik, his easy gracefulness, his gentle humor, his loyalty and devotion to family, but watching him interact with the small, traumatized child was a thing of absolute beauty.
Danny flopped his head onto Alik’s thick shoulder and yawned deeply. His long slender legs wrapped around Alik’s waist as he clung to his new brother as if he had always known what it was to be held with love and care. Alik responded with equal familiarity. They had only known each other for four days, but no one would know it by how they interacted.
“Hey, Farrow,” Alik had turned just so and noticed the beautiful metasoldier watching him with Danny.
“Hello.” She looked around her, as though she had been caught doing something embarrassing. Alik couldn’t help but smile at the blush coloring the apples of her cheeks.
“I thought you were heading back to the house with the others.”
“I was, but then I thought…well, I mean I was hoping to…” Farrow stammered. “I wanted to stay with you,” she spoke barely above a whisper.
Alik pat the back of the little brother in his arms. It was his turn to blush.
“I appreciate the company. It looks like my little sidekick has passed out for the night,” he said motioning to the soft snores coming from the toddler on his shoulder.
Farrow smiled adorably. She couldn’t help it. She was thrilled to see Alik accept her company with more than just graciousness. He seemed truly happy to know she wanted to spend time with him.
“How about we go find a place to lay him down?”
As if the sleeping child heard his words, Danny’s little hands moved to grip Alik’s blue T-shirt with both fists.
“Or I’ll just hold him while he sleeps and we can hang out,” Alik offered, smiling at his little brother’s affection even in his sleep.
“Sounds great,” Farrow grinned. They began walking toward the sofas nearest to Margo’s room when Alik stopped abruptly and turned to look down into his companion’s beautiful doe eyes.
“Are you thirsty? Or hungry?”
“Um, I’m not hungry, but I could drink something. How about you?”
“Are you kidding, I can always eat. Drinks are just there to help the food go down even faster.” Alik offered a sheepish grin.
Farrow laughed.
“Should we go to the cafeteria and grab a bite to eat? Or maybe order something to go so we can hurry back here to be near your mom?”
“Yes.”
“Yes to which idea?”
“Food, yes. To go, yes. And your use of the word ‘we’ is a big yes.” Alik wiggled his brows at Farrow.
She couldn’t help but giggle at his antics.
Together, they made their way to the elevators.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” Alik started once the doors closed and they were alone, except for the sleeping little brother.
“Sure.” She looked over at him with curiosity dancing in her eyes.
“When is your birthday?”
She smiled. “It just past.”
“On what day?”
“March twenty-sixth.”
“And how many candles were on your cake?”
“I didn’t have candles or a cake.”
“Oh. Sorry about that. Well, if you were to have had candles on a cake, how many?”
“Seventeen.”
“You’re seventeen?”
“Yes. Why? How old are you?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“What?”
“Well, you’re just a little older than me.”
“How much older?”
“Just a little.”
“Alik!”
“Farrow!”
“How old are you? If you won’t tell me, I’m sure your mom or your sister would.”
“Yeah, all you women would back each other up.”
“So?”
“I’m fifteen.” Alik cringed.
“Oh, okay.”
“Okay?”
“When’s your birthday?” Farrow asked.
“November seventeenth.”
“So we’re about a year and eight months apart.”
“Looks like it.”
“That’s not too bad.”
“It isn’t?”
“Do you think I’m too old?”
“Too old for what?”
“Too old for you.”
“For me?”
“Ugh, never mind, Alik Winter!”
“Wait a minute Farrow Schone.” The elevator doors had opened on the hospital’s ground floor. Farrow took advantage of the escape route and nearly ran down the corridor just to get away from her embarrassment.
Alik hurried to catch up; keeping one hand on Danny’s back so as not to jostle him too much.
“Would you slow down? I’ve got my baby brother asleep on my shoulder so I can’t exactly go for a run right now.”
Farrow slowed her pace but still wouldn’t look up. She was sure her cheeks were crimson red.
“Would you please stop?” Alik called from behind her.
Farrow finally stopped walking and leaned her back against the peach colored walls of the hospital hallway. The almost yummy smells of the cafeteria hung in the air.
Alik finally caught up with the girl who stood with her arms crossed over her simple white T-shirt. The blue jeans she wore hugged her tight gymnast’s figure perfectly. If Alik weren’t so worried about what was going on in that pretty head of hers, he would have enjoyed walking behind her the entire way just so he could watch the way her body moved in those snug blue jeans.
“Why would you be worried about being too old for me?”
“Are you really this clueless or are you trying to embarrass me further before you call me ‘old lady’ and walk away laughing?”
“First, I will never walk away from you or anyone else I care about. Second, I honestly am not trying to embarrass you. And last, yes, apparently I am painfully clueless.” Alik’s voice softened as he said the last part, but it was his sky blue eyes looking down at her with genuine confusion that squeezed Farrow’s heart.
“You care about me?”
“Of
course, I do.”
“Like a sister?”
“Um, no. Definitely not like a sister.” Alik cringed at the thought of watching Meg’s butt move in her blue jeans.
“Well, then? In what way?”
“Listen, Farrow. From the first time I carried you into Paulie’s house on the island and laid you down on the gurney, I thought you were drop-dead beautiful. Then on the plane back to the States, we seemed to get along really well. I mean, once you got over trying to kill me and my family,” Alik grinned mischievously. “At the ranch we spent every day together, training, hanging out, just…together. Of course, Evan was with us a lot of the time. But I’ve never cared for you as a sister. You’re beautiful and sweet. You can kick some serious ass and you can keep up with me.”
“Oh Alik, let’s be honest. I can absolutely surpass you in many ways!” Farrow’s eyes turned into sparkly slits as her face lit up into a wide smile.
“Yeah, that’s what I mean. You don’t let me get away with anything! You challenge me, you spar with me, you’re not afraid to call me out when I do or say something…clueless. I just assumed you weren’t interested because I’m younger than you.”
“You don’t look younger than me,” Farrow’s voice dropped to a wistful whisper. She locked eyes with him and added, “And you certainly don’t act younger than me,” she nodded toward the baby drooling happily on his shoulder.
Roses blossomed in Farrow’s cheeks, but this time she refused to run from them. The bangs of her dark hair, cut pixie short, draped beautifully across the pale skin of her forehead. Her slender neck and strong shoulders looked as shapely as any dancer’s, but this nimble doll wasn’t the least bit worried about having an audience watch her move with grace on a stage. Her eyes were beautifully shaped, rounded with a slight upturn at the outside corners. Women use gobs of makeup to try to create the illusion that Farrow’s eyes did naturally.
“You’re beautiful,” Alik blurted.
“So are you,” Farrow countered without missing a beat. She grinned mischievously at Alik’s surprised expression.
“Guys aren’t ‘beautiful’!”
“You are.”
“So…” Alik started, blushing deeply at her compliment, “I think we would make a pretty amazing team.” Nervously, he started gnawing his bottom lip.
Farrow waited patiently until his eyes met hers again.
Alik waited impatiently for her to respond to his offer.
“Don’t you think?” he prodded anxiously.
Farrow loved how blue his eyes looked when he was embarrassed. She almost wanted to kiss his lids.
“I think,” Farrow whispered, starting to rise on tiptoe, her back still against the wall, Alik mere inches away, “we would make a pretty amazing couple.”
With that, she leaned up to place a light kiss on the side of Alik’s mouth. Had he not been holding his little brother, he would have grabbed her by the shoulders and demanded even more of her attention, but as it was, he had a three-year-old drooling heavily on his chest.
Farrow grinned beautifully up at Alik, knowing full well how tied his hands were with the baby in his arms.
But what made her full-out laugh was the look of over-the-moon excitement on Alik’s face as she held her hand out to him. He looked as proud as a peacock when he took her hand in his and started walking down the corridor to the hospital’s cafeteria.
“So does this mean I can call you my girlfriend?”
“Only if I can call you my boyfriend.”
Alik let out a joyful whoop loud enough to echo down the hall, and wake his little brother.
Chapter 29 Miro “Slider” Reznikov
Slider watched the glistening red of his cigarette in the moonlight wondering what the hell he was doing. The moon was a crescent shape glinting in the velvet black night sky. He took another drag on his smoke, sitting on the hard cement his body didn’t even feel under his jeans. The stars shimmered like crystal diamonds in the sky as he stared at his red smoke. Another drag on the smoke caused part of him to spit the vile taste from his mouth. He grimaced as he washed the taste of the smoke he loathed with another sip of the wine so readily available. His head fell into his arms outstretched to his knees, held close to his face.
Who the hell am I?
His mind spun.
He took another drag and watched the white plume echo from his lips.
Head leaning against his thick right forearm, he tried to force a memory, only to be confronted with a sharp pain behind his eyes.
Shit.
It wasn’t letting him remember, but maybe that was for the best.
The walls around him were near crumbling, but at least he felt.
For the first time he could remember, he felt and damn if it didn’t hurt to remember.
Images flashed in his mind’s eye and he couldn’t stand the pain he had caused. He remembered just enough to know he had done some horrible things, but not enough to understand why.
He snuffed his first smoke against the cement beneath him and grabbed his lighter to start another cigarette.
The first inhale left him buzzing.
Where had he gone during his blackout and why was he back at the Facility?
Nothing made sense. Time was disconnected and warped in his mind. He only had a few strobe-like images of what may have happened and they were scary as hell. Maybe it wasn’t what it looked like. Maybe taken out of context, his snippets of memories seemed more horrible than what really happened.
I couldn’t have killed Gavil Young, right? And shooting Dr. Winter in the back, that had to have been…no, I couldn’t have done that. I wouldn’t have hurt that nice lady who offered me a home. Right?
The last thing Slider remembered for sure was heading into battle against Williams.
What the hell happened?
Where were his friends, Farrow, Creed, Meg, Alik and Evan?
Why was he outside, wearing only a T-shirt and cammo pants smoking cigarettes? Where was everyone? What happened?
In the light of the moon he sat, half-leaning against a cold, brick building. The lighter illuminated his hands. They were shaking. He couldn’t help but notice the dark red splatters on them…sticky and smelling strongly of copper. So instead of trying to figure out what they were, he used one cigarette to light the next and inhaled the poison deeply.
His world was spinning.
Slider tried to piece together the time he lost.
He had chosen to fight against Williams. Slider looked around warily.
Yes, he was definitely at the Facility.
This was his home, wasn’t it?
He smelled smoke and saw red flames coming from the general direction of the Research Hospital.
Did I have something to do with that?
He looked down at himself again, looking for scorch marks. He held his T-shirt up to his face and inhaled. No, the only smoke he smelled was cigarette, not the scent of burning wood.
He was sitting on the front stoop of the Administration building. The squeaking of the chains on the obstacle course southwest from his position could be heard as clearly as if he were sitting beside them. The night breeze came from the east, so not only was the sound coming toward Slider, but so was the smoke from the burning hospital.
It was obviously the middle of the night. He estimated he’d lost three or four hours of time.
What the hell happened? He kept asking himself, willing the answer to come to him.
Slider took another deep drag willing the nicotine to clear his cloudy brain—to no avail.
He spat into the dry grass beside him, reached out and took a deep swig of the red wine from the glass sitting innocently beside him.
Nothing made sense, so he allowed the void to swallow him even as he swallowed the red wine. It splashed heartily in his otherwise empty stomach—the alcohol rushing to taint his blood, to dull his sense. That’s exactly what he wanted.
The trees were thick with leaves. When was the last ti
me he paid attention to the trees? What season was it? Was it supposed to be so warm? Seasons blurred. Nothing mattered, did it?
As long as he kept this buzz going, there were no worries, no commitments left unmet, no soul blackened by anything. What soul?
His laughter startled him not only with the loud volume but with the raspy cynicism, too.
The metal on metal squeaking caused by the midnight breeze swinging the objects shouldn’t bother him, should they? They were more like a lullaby. Isn’t it time for rest? Hadn’t he earned sleep? He sighed deeply, letting the smoke jet from his nostrils unnoticed.
Alone.
He was always alone.
He squinted at the thought.
Hadn’t he found others? Had there been others helping him? Yes, maybe.
His mind was starting to lose the little memory he had maintained of his lost hours—like waking from a dream and having the memories of it start to dissipate with each wakeful breath.
Maybe he had found others who wanted to know him and believe in him. Hadn’t he chosen to work with them toward—?
The pain in his head hit hard enough for him to grimace and bury his head into his knees that he’d instinctively pulled tight against himself.
There was nothing left, again.
Nothing.
All he had was the pack of smokes and bottle of red wine beside him.
He lifted the bottle of wine and tried to read the label…the words were written in another language. Russian?
The smokes lay beautifully pure white beside him. He reached to grab another and used the nub of the still barely burning one to ignite the next. A deep drag caused the new cigarette to give him the rush of nicotine he craved. Reaching out with a thick hand, he found the bottle of wine and lifted it straight to his lips, tossing it back for a thick, deep soul-quenching gulp or three. It slipped down his throat as easily as water, leaving his lips numb and lickable.
Who am I?
Why am I here?
Where have I been?
Slider sat quietly—deadly still except for the throbbing behind his eyes.
Winter's Warrior: Mark of the Monarch (Winter's Saga #4) Page 13
