Saints and Assassins (The Sentinels) (12 page)

At
first,
she wanted to cry but she
did not
, she just couldn’t.
There wasn’
t time and s
he needed answers. Stepping back from him, she just stared
at him. A mix of emotions and questions ran through her. She
found herself wondering why he had touched her when she should have been asking the more obvious questions about Michael’s death and how this man was involved. She shook her head not knowing what to say or do.

“Eve we must move now. If he had anyone else with him and I’m sure he did, they’ll be here soon,” he said as he handed her the bag that she had dropped. She hesitated for a moment.

If she
follows,
will she live?
Finally, h
er inner voice told her to go with him.

“
All right
,” Eve agreed.

Adam started walking as quickly as possible into the forest. 
As she followed she tried
not to think too much about the fact that there was a dead man lying at the entrance of the forest. Eve turned back to see that part of the forest was now long gone as they
submerged themselves
deeper and deeper into the canopy of trees and vines.

Without
warning,
Adam darted
off
the main path and headed up a hill.

“We have to get out of sight for now, we can easily get lost in these hills for a while,” he said. He had stopped and turned toward her
.
As he extended his arm toward
her,
she
noticed h
is already pal
e complexion was even worse due to the loss of blood.

“You need to rest if you’re going to make it through the day.” She took
his hand but did so carefully for his sake.

“I’ll be
all right
for a while. We just need to get buried enough behind the trees that no one will be able to spot us,” he replied.  “As soon as I feel that you’re out of
harm’s
way I’ll have you look at my shoulder.”

She
anxiously
wanted
to check his shoulder
and fin
d out where the bullet had
lodged
, but he
dredged on
as if they were just on a long leisurely hike through the rain forest.

“I just don’t understand. That was over a year ago and they’re coming after me
now
?” Eve mumbled to herself. She asked herself a thousand questions, but it just didn’t make sense.

After another half hour of
climbing,
they reached
a
shelf
of sorts
on the hill where they could hide.

“Okay, you can look now.” He sat down on a fallen tree and laid the gun down beside him.  She didn’t say anything yet as she sat her bag down next to
Adam. His white t-shirt was
soaked with blood, the only way that the s
hirt would serve any purpose
, was possibly as a tourniquet.

“You’re going to have to take the shirt off before I
can help,” she snapped.

“I don’t think I can lift my arm that high, can
you help me?”
The boyish look on his face calmed her ange
r, but only slightly
.

He pulled his left arm out of the sleeve and she slowly slid it down over his right arm. He didn’t flinch as she moved his arm slightly, but it had to hurt and she thought that he was either quite brave or stubborn. Eve used the shirt to wipe the blood away from his wound. The hole wasn’t actually that big, it seemed less than a quarter inch in diameter.

However, she knew that having a bullet in there just floating around was going to cause him pain and slow the healing process. “This is going to hurt,” she said as she pressed on the entry site.

Adam let out a yell that was mostly expletives. She could feel the hard lump under the surface of skin and muscle and immediately released her hold. A stream of blood ran down his arm.

“Can you get it out?” he asked
between pants
.

“Yes, I think so. I have some things in my bag that might help.”

“What in the world could you h
ave in there that would help?” His speculative tone made her smile.
Eve then pulled from the bag a black sheath containing a diving knife. The knife had a
six-inch
blade to it making the appearance of it look like the entire thing was ten inches long.

“Holy, shit! Do you always go around carrying a knife with you?” he exclaimed.

“Do you always go around carrying a gun with you?” She replied snidely as she glanced down at it. He didn’t reply.
She smiled slightly inside that she had him on that one.

Eve unsheathed the knife. It was new and hadn’t
been
used it so there was
a minimal risk of it having a lot of ge
rms on it. However, she had
a small bottle of hand sanitizer in her bag and quickly poured its contents on the knife blade.

“You may want to bite on something here you can roll this up.” She handed him the tank top that was in her bag. He grabbed part of it and stuffed it in his jaw. She
had not
looked at his face since they started hiking up the hill but as she glanced over their eyes met. That deep and dark brown that she had recognized the first day that she saw him captured her thoughts and she didn’t want to look away.

Adam blinked and that brought Eve back to reality.
She
pressed on his shoulder and stuck the tip up the knife in deep enough to reach the bullet. She could feel the resistance as the blade touched it. As gently as she possibly could she pushed above the bullet pressing it downward into the knife
and trying to
back it out.  Within a minute it was out and in her hand, she immediately pressed his ruined shirt back to the wound site to control the bleeding. Adam released his bite on the fabric and let it drop to
the ground. He sat silently and watched her.

Using the
knife,
she cut the tank top into strips so she could use it to create something that resembled a bandage. Eve took a small square and pressed it against the entry site while wrapping the strips around Adam’s shoulder.

****

Adam
sat
silently staring at he
r.
             
This entire time he had
focused on her face, the curve of her lips, the line of her jaw and those big green eyes. It brought him some semblance of peace to look at her, knowing that she was still alive and well, even if she hated him.

“Here,” she said as she picked up his left hand. “Hold this while I tie it.” Eve wrapped and knotted the fabric until it was tight enough to stop the bleeding.

“Are you okay?” she asked softly?

Adam nodded. He
could not
find his voice as he stared at her lips.
Eve must notice his eyes aren’t looking into hers and lifts his chin up slightly.

“Hey!” She snapped her fingers. “Your scapula is probably fractured s
o the pain ma
y get worse as you move around so take these.
”
Eve held out two ibuprofen for him to take. What else is in that bag?

“Try not to move your arm around too much. Okay?”
Eve slid
her hand down his jaw. It sent
the strangest feeling
through him.

“It’s time for some answers.” H
er voice was calm and quiet a
nd
she sat down beside Ad
am. The large log that he sat
on was covered i
n moss and other growth. With it w
edged up against the
hillside,
it formed a
couch of sorts.

“Here, you should lie down.” She patted her hands once on her lap. He complied and slowly
twists and lays his head in her lap.

“What answers do you want? I mean I don’t know what else you want to know.” Adam had told her the truth and wasn’t going to
hide anything from her anymore.

“Well obviously you aren’t in real estate. So what exactly is your
job
?” Eve looked down at him there lying on her legs.
She gently pushed a lock of hair
back away from his face. Adam sighed as quiet as possible at her touch.

“Oh. I’ve been in the
protection
business for ten years now. I’m a bodyguard I guess you could say. I’m hired to provide protection for people that the police can’t help,” he replied.

“Hmm.
Next question, I want to know who hired you to protect me.”

“Michael
,
your husband.” Adam looked away at that moment.
He hated that Eve’s husband had died and with Adam’s feelings for Eve being as they were
,
he felt guilty.

“What?” she gasped.
“When?” She demanded almost with a growl.

Adam pushed himself up. H
e did not feel comfortable
touching her
anymore
while talking about her dead husband.
It just didn’t seem right.

“It was just over a year ago. He contacted me through a mutual friend and paid me to keep an eye on you when you were alone. I was informed of the potential risks involved of course, which was nothing new for me. The only condition was that you were never to know that I was watching. I guess
I failed at that part.”

“So for over a year you’ve been well,
stalking
me?”
she hissed at him.

Adam knew that what he was about to tell her would end any possibility he ever had of having her as his own, but as he kept reminding himself he was there to protect her.

“I only watched you closely right after Michael’s death for a couple of months.  This was easy since you were in your town house the entire time, then things relaxed a bit. I heard through sources that the people who had murdered your husband weren’t concerned with you. So, I just kept tabs on you off and on, keeping my distance of course.  That is until two months ago when I found out that for some reason there was a need for you to disappear.”

The prover
b
i
al shit
was
about to hit the fan. Adam sighed as he waited for her wrath.

“So, let me get this right. Someone wants me dead so you move in to the apartment next to me so that you could keep an eye on me and then obviously you followed me to
Hawaii
?” She rubbed her head and sighed. “I don’t feel so good.”

“Are you
all right
?”

“I guess. I just don’t believe this. I always told Phil that I would find an adventure but this isn’t exactly what I had in mind. I think I’m going to be sick
.
” She pushed
him
out of the way and ran to another nearby tree
.
  Eve took several
deep breaths and Adam felt horrific
seeing her this way
.
Who the hell is Phil anyway?

Swallowing hard he walked over and placed a
hand on her shoulder, she jumped. “Eve, is there anything I can do?”

“No. Just give me a minute
!” she shouted. She spun around to him and the glare she cast him was of
pure
anger.

“What? What’s wrong?” he asked.
He knew he probably deserved the wrath that was about to come down on him, but he had to try
to
convince her to stay with him.

“Nothing, just leave
me alone!
I am
sorry you were dr
ug
into this mess. Just leave now and
I will
take care of myself. If they kill
me they kill me!” She shouted and
stomped away from him.

“I don’t understand?
I am
here to take care of you and you don’t want me to? I’m sorry I had to lie to you, I was just trying to keep you safe,” he replied quietly.

“No, you don’t need to be hurt any more than you already have been. I’ll just go ahead and leave you here. I’ll lead them off somewhere else so you can go back to wherever it is that you want to be.”

This made no sense to him. Why would she be worried about his safety? She needed him even if she didn’t
want
him.

“Eve! What the hell is this all about? I’m not leaving you alone,” he
declared.

“You have to!” She snarled back a
t him and started up the hill, b
ut
before she could get away, he grabbed her around
the waist.