Perfect Opposite (17 page)

“You OK?” he asked and rested his eyes on me for a moment.

His face offered no answers, like so many times before, but his eyes glinted in a certain way, showing some unidentified emotion behind that familiar veneer of calm. His question seemed loaded somehow and I thought back to the man he’d slain in the street right in front of me. I looked away, and then down at my pink, girly sneakers. I knew he’d had no choice but to do it, but...

“Well. I am… I got thrown around a lot in the back…”

“I'm sorry...” again I felt his words were charged with an extra meaning, “I couldn’t risk it.”

He reached out with the intention of taking my hand but I shrank instinctively from his touch before I’d had time to think about it. My reaction obviously affected him, because his entire
demeanor changed. He closed his eyes for a moment and then seemed to gather himself once more, but with a little difficulty this time.

“We have to go,” he said in low voice, pulled his thick black sweater up and over his head and handed it to me, still avoiding my gaze.
“Put this on.”

“It’s OK, I don’t need....”

“You are freezing. Just take the bloody sweater. Please.”

I hesitated for a few seconds before taking it, then quickly put it on, feeling his warmth and his scent around me. I wa
tched as he opened the back of another car nearby, using a remote key. He dropped his bag in the trunk which made a loud rattling thud as it landed, as though it contained some very serious metal objects. It obviously wasn’t sports gear that he was carrying.

“I see you're ready for a war.”

Instead of answering, Alex went round to the driver's side door, opened it and motioned for me to get in.

“I'm afraid you’ll have to drive this next lap”.

“What?” I looked at him confused, “I can’t. I haven’t driven for years. We’ll crash somewhere!”

The last time I’d driven a car had been with
Vova sitting next to me, showing me how to reverse park, something I’d never quite mastered.

Paying no heed to my protests, Alex nudged me closer to the door and urged me to get inside. Closing the door once I was sitting, he walked around the front and got in the passenger side.

“You'll have to manage somehow,” he said sharply and pressed the key into my palm, “Drive.“

His tone let me know that protesting more would get me nowhere, so even though I was trembling hard, I got the key in the ignition and turned it, feeling the engine purr into action. Getting it into gear, I pulled away, gripping the wheel tightly
, turned and drove us down the row of cars, as Alex tapped an address into the sat nav.

There were hardly any cars on the road and I turned left, starting to feel I might be getting the hang of driving again. It almost felt good to have something to concentrate on. Feeling sort of hypnotized, I turned from the red arrow on the screen to the lines on the road, then back again. I kept the car in lane and drove like a sensible mom taking her kid to hockey practice.

Next t
o me, Alex moved his seat back and started peeling off his t-shirt.

“What... what
are you doing?” I wanted him to be still, and not distract me, advertising his abs.

“Keep your eyes on the road,” he
snapped, at the same time tearing his t-shirt into two pieces with a loud ripping sound.

I shook my head and tried to concentrate on the white lines rolling by under the wheels of the car, but noticed that he was bending forward and attempting to tie one of the black lengths of cotton around his thigh. I turned to face him and immediately slammed on the brakes.

“Jesus! Who taught you how to drive!?” Alex yelled, but I wasn’t paying attention to his words.

I was breathing rapidly and my hands once again started to shake as I saw the red stain on his pale jeans, his blood visibly soaking into the length of cotton he’d tied there. It felt like someone had gripped me by the throat, and was starting to squeeze.

“They shot you!” I felt the words tumble out of my mouth. “They really shot you! Oh my God! We have to go to a hospital,”

“Follow the arrows on the screen,” Alex was speaking through his teeth, tying the ends of his t-shirt into a knot.

“No, we have to take you to a doctor. You’re gonna lose too much blood. God... Are you OK?”

“Sasha
.“

“Where are we now? There must be some
hospital close by,” I began nervously to pull at the rings on my fingers, feeling tears start to gather in my eyes.

Alex brought his face close to my own, lifted my chin with one of his fingers and forced me to look at him carefully. My eyes were wide open, and my whole body flinched when he gave me the order.

“Pull yourself together, now!”

“But...”

“Everything is OK. We’re going exactly where I told you to go. Is that clear?”

I blinked a few times, shocked, then only no
dded and started up the engine.

Taking the cigarettes from the
glove box in front of him, Alex lighted one and leaning in his seat, closed his eyes, acting as if everything was just fine. I was completely taken aback by his casual demeanor.

By following the instructions on the screen I was able to drive mechanically along deserted roads, turning every now and again, only occasionally meeting a car travelling in the direction we’d come. Every time I glanced over at this crazy person sitting next to me, bleeding all over the place, he looked paler than before and I wasn’t fooled. He was not OK.

Without any changes to my features, tears formed and rolled down my cheeks, and I just let them trickle down to my chin and drip down to my lap.

I almost never cry in front of other people. I never cried in front of my old friends.
I never cried in front of Tyler. I never cried in front of Nikolai. Not for real, at least.

Crying in front of people makes you vulnerable. It shows them your weaknesses, and they can use th
ose weaknesses to hurt you. And I don’t want to be hurt.

There are only three persons in the world who ever saw me cry for real
. The first was my mother. The second was Bethany. I cried in front of them because I knew they would never use my weaknesses. That... they would never hurt me.

T
he third was Alex.

I am crying
my eyes out in front of him now, and not for the first time, knowing that he will hurt me. I don’t know how I know it. I just do. And, somehow... I don’t really care.

With glazed eyes I looked down at the speedometer and watched the needle rise higher and higher. Paying no attention to the speed signs we passed, I gripped the wheel even tighter and let my foot come down harder on the gas.

The pains from the cuts on my wrists seemed to disappear and fears for my own safety flew out of the window. Khalil’s men became characters in some bad gangster flick I’d seen weeks before as everything lost its significance except for Alex.

When we stopped at a set of lights a half hour later, I quickly undid my belt and leaned over to put my hand against the side of his face.

“Hey
?” I whispered.

He opened his eyes, and I saw warmth reflected in them as he smiled. It was almost as though my concern amused him.

“I'm fine, Princess, really. They just nicked me. Don’t panic,” he took my hand in his and pulled my fingertips to his lips, kissing them softly, “Keep going, it’s green.”

“You are not fine!” I let his hand fall away from my own and took the wheel again, moving the car forwards, “If you pass out, I’m turning the car and taking you straight to a hospital.”

“There’s no need for that. Where we’re going there’s someone who can patch me up, a friend of mine. It won’t be the first time.”

“Is he a doctor?”

“Sort of...” he lit another cigarette and I heard it burn as he inhaled.

“What do you mean? Is he or isn’t he?”

“Mike’s a veterinarian,” he finally said.

“A
ve… Have you lost your mind?”

“Why? I am uncivilized savage according to you. Who better to treat me?”

“You dumbass!” I hissed, but realized all of a sudden that the screen was showing our destination up ahead and pulled over by the curb next to a small house with a picket fence. “I guess we’re here!”

I flew out of th
e car and up to the front door and pressed hard on the bell with my thumb, seeing with the corner of my eye that Alex was trying to get out of the car.

“You stay there!” I pointed a finger at him, “Don’t move an inch!”

He wasn’t listening to me, and I was just about to go over to him when the door opened to reveal a disheveled guy with a shock of long, wild red hair.

“Mike?” I asked cautiously.

The man at the door looked more like a mad scientist than a veterinarian, with his five-day beard and clunky black glasses. The fact they were resting at an angle on his nose made the impression even stronger.

“And who are you, if you don’t mind?” he asked sleepily, letting his eyes wander to the car when the door shut loudly.

“Ah shit. Again? I don’t believe this!” he sounded exasperated as he ran over to Alex who was hobbling towards us.”

“Occupational hazard,” Alex answered.

“Why, of all people, do I always end up stitching you back together in the middle of the night? Did it ever occur to you to get shot in the morning?” Mike grumbled as he helped Alex up on to a cold metal table.

“It is morning, Mike.”

“It’
s 5 a.m. My morning starts at noon.”

“I’ll make a note
. For the next time.”

“Can’t wait.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s nice of you to stop by when you’re around, but come on! The last time you came all sliced up. And before that it was with badly broken bones in your face. And now – a gunshot wound. Again. Maybe I’ll transfer to the ER with all the experience you’re giving me.”

“I'm glad to be of help
.”

While Mike was moving around the room gathering various bottles and shiny instruments, Alex leaned up on one elbow and looked for
all the world like he wasn’t worried. I just stood in the corner, wondering at the scene being played out in front of me.

“
I’m serious. When’s the last time you just stopped by to hang out. You know, a six-pack of beer and game on TV?” Mike tossed over his shoulder.

“That would just be boring.
”

“Yeah, right.
So long as you’re having fun.”

Once he seemed to have everything in place, Mike took a pair of very sharp scissors and started cutting along the length of Alex’s jeans.

“It’s not as bad as it looks like,” he made an observation, “the bullet only just caught you. But I could have guessed it. You’ve got some angels on your side my friend. A few stitches and you’ll be right as rain.”

He snapped on some surgical gloves and moistened some gauze with a clear liquid that made me think of hospitals, then started to clean around the place where Alex was bleeding. I moved a few steps closer just to confirm what Mike had said about the wound, but when I looked down at it, my stomach turned right over. The gash was over two inches long, and blood kept on oozing out of it.

“Where's the bathroom?” I yelped, cupping my hands over my mouth.

“Women...” Mike shook his head, “first door on the left,”
he pointed.

I ran to the bathroom door
thanking the heavens the toilet seat was already up, because I immediately fell to my knees and threw up violently. For a full fifteen minutes I retched even though my stomach was empty. Rising unsteadily to my feet, I lowered the toilet seat and sat down, then leaned back and took a few deep breaths.

The idea that in the past few hours I’d been kidnapped, drugged, threatened, shot at, and ultimately rescued seemed wholly unreal to me now. When you added the crazy vet into the mix and the fact that Alex was being sewn up like a cat this very minute, well abstract just wasn’t the word. Shaking my head in disbelief, I could only bury my face in my hands and lose myself in the darkness behind my eyes, hoping not to witness anything more.

Eventually, I took several deep breaths and got up from the toilet to examine my reflection in the mirror. Leaning my hands on the rim of the sink, I studied the shape of my face and felt I was looking at a different person all together. Apart from the fact that my hair was all over the place, I had dark circles under my eyes and spots of blood on my lower lip. I did the only thing I could do, which was to splash water on my face a few times, find a towel and rinse out my mouth before going back out.

“I think these wil
l do,” Mike tossed a pair of gray sweatpants to Alex as he passed in front of me.

“Is he going to be OK?” I asked quietly.

“Sure.” Mike waved his hand, “Look at him, he’s as good as new.”

I made my way over to
Alex and watched as he got up from the table, putting most of his weight on his muscular right arm as he did so, a clean bandage newly tied around his thigh. What I noticed most clearly of all though, was that he had a scar worse than any I’d seen before, stretching from his right knee right up almost to his hip. Running the length of it were marks from stitches, and there had to be at least twenty of them. When Alex saw me looking shocked, he quickly pulled on the sweats and turned to Mike.