The Queen Of Spades

Chapter 8, Continued, Again

Ten minutes later, the door burst open and Nada ran in and up to me. I blinked dumbly and waited for her to speak. When she didn't, I took matters into my own hands. "Nada, um, I've lost like a liter of blood. Do you, like, have some in your car?"
Nada reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out a hospital bag of blood and an IV.
"Is it poisoned?" I asked, remembering my last IV. Ignoring me, she took the needle in her fingers and expertly put it in my hand.
"You," she pointed to Gideon, "Hold this above her head. Everyone else, get out. This is now a crime scene and I am essentially commandeering this room for the next four hours."
"On whose authority?" One girl asked.
"Mine." Nada said, flashing her badge. "CIA. Now get the Hell out."
"So," I looked at Gideon, "you like my scars?"
While keeping the bag high above my head, he leaned down so that I could feel the warmth of his breath on my face and said, "I love them, babe. They tell stories, and some of them match mine.”
Reaching up with the hand that wasn't otherwise occupied with receiving blood, I pulled him down and kissed him. “Trophies. And painful reminders.”
"Sometimes we need those reminders." He said, and before I could respond he kissed me again. I smiled as we kissed, thinking of how perfectly our faces fit together and how he was so gentle, unlike some memories of kisses that never I never wanted to happen. And although it might've been the major blood loss talking, I could swear I loved that boy. And if I wasn’t reading things wrong, he loved me too. But it was soon broken up by Nada clearing her throat and making Gideon stand up so straight and so quickly that I thought he might get whiplash.
"Maddie, who stabbed you."
I groaned, "Really? Already? Okay, um I think they were triplets. Ugly as all get out. You know, pasty skin, long face. All that. You should go find them. We'll be fine here." Clenching her jaw, Nada spun or her heel and left, leaving Gideon and I alone in the room.
"Congratulations," I said once Nada had left, "You just saved my life."
"Yeah, I guess I did."
"Don't let it go to your head though." I laughed, then stopped and clutched my stomach in pain. "Okay, note to self, don't laugh."
"Hey," Gideon said, "take it easy. Let your body recuperate."
I sighed, "You sound like my brother."
"Your brother was really smart."
"Yeah, he was. He was a good kid." As I said it, Gideon took my hand in his and squeezed it reassuringly. Then he let go, and my heart plummeted for the three minutes it took him to find something to hold the blood bag up. I watched him as he hooked it on a coat stand he’d dragged from the corner of the room and sat down in his desk next to me. Gideon rummaged through his backpack and finally pulled out a package of baby wipes. I gave him a questioning look to which he responded with: "They work better than napkins." He must have seen my continued confusion because then he said: "For the blood, Lyn. It's everywhere."
"Right." Was all I said as he took out a baby wipe and cleaned his hands of my blood before starting on mine. "I can clean my own hands, you know." I told him.
"Be quiet and let someone do something for you for once." He told me with a ghost of a smile on his face.
"Fine." His smile grew as he continued to clean the blood from my hand gently. "On one condition."
"And what's that?" He asked.
"You have to tell me why you know my password."
"Oh, that's easy. I saw you put it in a couple weeks ago and just kind of committed it to memory."
"That sounds like a lie."
"It isn't. I had a feeling I might need to call someone for you someday."
"Really? Am I that predictable?"
"You, Madelyn Everhart, are in love with death. You pick a fight wherever you can and don't give a crap about the consequences. You think you should already be dead so you don't fear it. You think you've evaded it and soon enough it will come to claim what it's owed. You weren't meant to die in that warehouse. You were meant to live. Because I know that you lied in court." He brought his voice to a whisper, "You still have the files and you are gonna use them to take those bastards down so hard that they can never get back up."
"Have you been rehearsing that?"
"Every morning in front of the mirror."
I had to bite the insides of my cheeks to keep from laughing and hurting my stomach. Then, on a more solemn note, Gideon lifted my shirt that I had pulled back down after the cauterizing and started cleaning up all the blood that was there. "But," Gideon said after a while, "the other one doesn't want to die."
I frowned, "What do you mean?"
"The other personality. She doesn't want to die."
"She has anger issues." I stated matter-of-factly.
"She has anger issues?"
"I do not have anger issues!" I shouted playfully.
"Uh huh." Gideon smiled and placed a small kiss on my forehead. "I think that should suffice until you go to the hospital."
I scoffed but said nothing, I knew Nada wouldn't take me to the hospital. Just like I knew she really wouldn't have cared if I had died. She was kind of like Oliver that way, but Nada would at least have the decency to shed a tear at my funeral.