Color Me Grey: Book One of the Alexis Stanton Chronicles (27 page)

“
If you want me there, I’ll be there,”
I replied.

“
I’m not sure I can trust anyone though
and I don’t know if you should either,” he said.

“
I know what you mean, but I’m sure
these men I’m with right now are on my side, which puts them on
your side too.” I tried to convince him everything would be all
right.

“
I’m taking a big risk already, just
coming here to talk to you. I think there have been people
following me. I’m not sure, but it’s not the first time I have been
spied on by my family and their friends,” he said, starting to get
more and more agitated.

“
It’s alright,” I said, trying to calm
him down. “The men helping me will make sure everything will be
okay.”

“
Can you take me to them right now?” he
asked. “I would feel better if we just got this over
with.”

“
Of course. Let’s go,” I said as I
stood up from the barstool. We walked together down the hallway and
I knew Mr. Black was directly behind us. Abdullah glanced over his
shoulder and I said, “It’s alright. That’s Mr. Black.”

The three of us stepped out the door and were
walking toward the van in the lot when a white Celebrity station
wagon sped up toward us. I pushed the informant at Mr. Black and
then I fell to the ground. I didn’t know why, but my leg wouldn’t
work. Mr. White jumped from the van and picked me up. He carried me
back to the van where Mr. Black had already stashed Abdullah. The
other two partners that had been inside with us were standing with
weapons drawn, firing at the vehicle speeding away. Then they ran
for their vehicle, I assumed to give chase.

“
Go!” Mr. White yelled to Mr. Blue as
he shut the van’s sliding door. Mr. Blue took off out of the
parking lot.

Abdullah Salah was in one corner of the van
crying. Everything was happening so fast and blending together. I
saw Mr. White and Mr. Black talking to each other and looking at
me. Finally, the excitement of the moment had started to die down
and I was able to focus much better. I had a terrible pain in my
leg. I looked down at it and there was a small puddle of blood
pooling on the floor of the van.

Mr. White came to my side and said, “Wait.
Mr. Blue will look at it.” He had Mr. Blue pull over and Mr. Black
took control of the driving. Mr. White hadn’t left my side and it
was getting crowded in the back of the van. He instructed Salah to
move to the front seat. He had to physically pick him up and put
him into the passenger’s seat. Then he returned to my side. By the
time he had gotten the informant placed out of the way, Mr. Blue
had already cut open my pants leg.

“
So?” Mr. White said with concern in
his voice.

“
She’ll be fine,” Mr. Blue answered him
shaking his head. “The bullet is still in her leg but it should be
no problem to get it out. It didn’t even come close to her artery.”

Bullet? I had been shot? Wow, I thought that
being shot would have been more exciting. Mr. Blue started to feel
around the small hole on my calf.

“
Ouch!” I said when he got closer to
the wound. I felt a bit embarrassed and added, “Sorry.”

“
Don’t be sorry,” Mr. Blue said. “It’s
supposed to hurt. You’ve just been shot.”

“
It doesn’t feel anything like I
expected it would,” I said.

“
Where to?” Mr. Black said looking back
with concern.

“
To the office,” Mr. Blue said. “This
will be a simple removal, it’s right under the skin.”

Abdullah was still crying in the front of the
van and it was beginning to get on my nerves. Not to mention
Colin’s new girlfriend’s chest was larger than life on one of the
screens and I could hear Colin flirting with her.

“
Mr. Jones!” I yelled. “Please stop
that! And turn that thing off!” I said to Mr. White.

Abdullah’s sobbing ceased immediately and Mr.
White jumped to shut off the equipment. We all rode in silence back
to the office.

When we reached a parking spot in the garage
Mr. Blue opened the sliding door and gave me a hand out of the
vehicle. He started to put my arm over his shoulder but I pulled it
away. I had been kicking myself all the way to the office. How
could I have gotten shot? I at least could have waited until we had
Dad back. But no, I have to get shot before we even know where he’s
being held. I was determined to walk on my own. I didn’t deserve
any help.

“
Let me at least try,” I
said.

The four of us walked to the elevator inside.
I hobbled and they walked. It was pretty painful, but nothing I
can’t handle, I told myself. I was grateful for the rest when we
reached the elevator. If I didn’t put any pressure on my leg it was
numb, otherwise it hurt like hell. I think the endorphins had
started to filter out of my system.

We reached the seventh floor and the elevator
doors opened. Each man in the elevator looked to me to start the
trek to the office. It had never seemed so far away before. I
limped to the door and Mr. White jumped to open it for me. I could
feel the hot blood running down my leg and soaking my sock.

When I got inside I noticed Gabriella must
have gone home for the evening. I looked to Mr. Blue for direction.
He nodded that I should go to the big office.

“
Can you make it to the couch?” Mr.
White asked me, the worry lines I had seen at the cabin had
returned.

“
Yes,” I said. I was still extremely
mad at myself for getting shot and wasn’t going to let the pain get
to me.

I made it to the couch and sat down with
relief. I had worked up a sweat and Mr. Black went to the bathroom
that was on the opposite side of the room and brought back a wet
washcloth for my face. When he handed it to me he gripped my hand
tight and gave me a nod of approval.

Mr. Blue had gone straight to one of the
closets and gotten what looked like the typical doctor’s bag. I
hoped he knew what he was doing. I presumed he did since neither
Mr. White nor Mr. Black had any objections to him taking over.
Nonetheless, I was still a bit skeptical.

“
Do you know what you’re doing?” I
asked.

“
I’m a certified and licensed doctor so
don’t worry,” he replied. That made me feel slightly better about
him when he pulled out a scalpel and syringe.

He filled the syringe with a liquid and asked
me if I was allergic to Novocain or any related drugs. I told him
no and he stuck the needle right in my leg at the wound sight. I
flinched with the pain but it was already starting to subside.

Abdullah Salah was in the corner of the room,
red faced and looking like a cornered animal. Mr. White’s face had
worry lines throughout and he was hovering over the back of the
couch. Mr. Black was sitting in a chair in front of the desk all
signs of concern gone, but with a somewhat proud look on his
face.

“
I’m going to give this some time to
kick in fully.” Mr. Blue said to me. He stood up and walked to the
back of the couch. He took Mr. White by the shoulders and told him
to sit down and quit worrying because he knew what he was
doing.

“
I know that,” Mr. White replied
indignantly and moved to the chair next to Mr. Black.

The door to Mr. White’s office had been left
open and we watched Mr. Red and Mr. Green come in the door. Mr. Red
wore a mad look on his face, but Mr. Green was as serene as they
got. They had totally different walks. Mr. Red was cocky with his
head held high and Mr. Green was like a cat slinking across the
room. They seemed almost to be the opposite of each other.

“
Where’s Mr. Brown?” I asked no one in
particular.

Mr. Red answered me in a fluid and clear
voice. “He’s back at the club retrieving our equipment from
DeLange.” Then he went straight to Salah and brought him to a
comfortable chair. He began speaking to him quietly. Salah answered
his questions with a shaky voice and frequent looks to me. I
couldn’t hear what exactly they were saying, but hoped they were
making progress.

Mr. Blue walked back to me on the couch and
knelt down to my leg. He pushed on the wound and got no response
from me. Then I watched him feel over to where the bullet sat and I
felt no pain there either.

“
Okay,” he said and reached for his
scalpel. I watched him take the end of it and make an incision
about half an inch wide and not at all too deep. Then he pushed the
bullet out. He handed me the bullet and said,

“
Good job. The bullet’s in nice shape
too. You should be back to normal in a couple of days.” He placed
the needle and syringe in a plastic bag and closed it. Then he
reached over and applied something to my incision. He explained it
was like super glue and would keep the cut closed. Then he applied
some sort of ointment to the entrance wound.

“
I can’t glue the entrance wound shut
because it needs to flush itself out. But in a day or so, if it
looks good I might do that for you. It will minimize the scarring.”
Then he wrapped a bandage around my leg with instructions to change
it twice a day and reapply the ointment each time.

“
Now this next part is the hard part,”
he said. He stood up and helped me to my feet and led me to the
bathroom. When we got inside he shut the door and said, “You need a
tetanus shot. I could have given it to you out there, but I didn’t
know if you would be comfortable. I can give it to you in your arm
or your butt, your choice.”

“
What a choice. The arm,” I said
pulling my shirt down over my shoulder so he could get to my
arm.

“
Not good enough,” he said. “I need you
to take your arm out of your sleeve and pull your shirt out of the
way. You should be able to keep yourself covered that way
still.”

I did as I was instructed and he gave me the
shot. It hurt almost as bad as the bullet had, almost. I still
remembered the last time I had a tetanus shot and my arm had ached
for a week afterwards. Something else to look forward to, I thought
to myself.

“
You handled that well. It’s good to
know blood doesn’t make you pass out.” I sensed a bit of humor in
his words but wasn’t sure because he didn’t show it in his face. I
had put my arm back into my shirt and was smoothing it out when he
opened the door to the bathroom. All eyes in the room were on us as
we walked out of the room. Mr. Blue brought his medical bag back to
the closet it had originated from and I walked without a limp back
to the couch.

Mr. Red was still talking to the informant
and Mr. Brown was now present. He looked to me with that smile on
his face again. I tried but couldn’t resist smiling back at
him.

I listened in on the conversation that was
being held between the rest of the men. I would have been more
interested in what Mr. Red and Salah were talking about but they
had changed from English to some other language.

The other men were discussing the shooting
and the chase. It was the general consensus that the bullet had
been meant for Salah and not me, which was a relief. Then Mr. Green
told them about the chase.

After a while, they had slowed to let the
perpetrators think they had lost them and were able to follow them
to a building not far from our office. They called in some other
men that periodically worked for them to sit and wait for the
people inside to make a move. The backup had orders to report in
any changes and to continue to follow the men if they left the
building.

Then the mood lightened and Mr. Brown said to
me, “You holding up okay over there?”

“
I’m fine, thank you,” I
replied.

He walked over to me and showed me a scar on
his arm. It was barely noticeable. “See this here?” he asked. “Blue
over there did a good job on this one. You probably won’t even be
able to see your scar without looking for it.” He smiled at me some
more.

Mr. Green walked up to me and said, “Since
nobody is going to introduce us, I will introduce myself. I’m Mr.
Green. It’s nice to finally meet the prodigy girl,” he said with a
wink. “I hear you got yourself a hell of a buck.”

“
I guess,” I said not sure what to
think of this little man in front of me. None of these men were
unattractive, but Mr. Green seemed to be hardly there. He was
skinny and didn’t have the muscle tone the other men had. He was
wearing a long sleeved t-shirt and jeans that hung on him. He
didn’t look starved but he definitely didn’t look buff
either.

Mr. White interrupted and said, “Gabriella
was to pick up the skin and bring it back this evening before she
went home. I told her to put it in one of the closets.” He was
moving to the other side of the room. The first door he opened held
my deerskin. All the men had gathered around it as Mr. White laid
it out on the floor. Mr. Black came to stand next to me while the
other men oohed and aahed over the dead animal.

“
Good job back there,” he said. “You
did better than most men,” he added.

“
I hear women handle pain better than
men,” I said.

“
They must,” he said back with a
smile.

I looked to the cluster of men in the middle
of the office and Mr. Red and Salah had joined in the admiration of
my kill. Salah had regained his composure and came up to me.

“
Ms. Stanton, I am truly sorry for the
way I acted in the van. I hope you can forgive me,” he said with
his head bowed.

“
Not a big deal. I’m sorry I snapped at
you too,” I replied.