The Grey Blood #2

A Job Needs Doing

Oliver twists his ring as he watches Alicia run her fingers through her hair, braiding the chestnut locks. She's stalling and it's making his nerves jump under his skin.

He's desperate to know everything that happened to her. He's desperate to shove a knife between the ribs of the person who shot her. But he holds his tongue, waiting for her to speak about it before he turns to Sam and Galya to demand answers from them.

He studies the dark circles under her eyes, stark against her now pallid skin. The usually golden hue of her skin has been stripped from her. But he knows from experience being shot is an exhausting ordeal. He rubs his chest with that thought, the memory of taking a bullet for Sam in the trenches still vibrant even after over four years.

"It was Warren," she says, her voice as soft as ever, like silk that wraps around him and dulls the sharp edges within him. He hated that at first, hated the way her voice affected him, hated the way her honey and moss eyes would peer at him and he'd forget that he's a man honed by war.

Hated it until he began to crave it.

Then he registers her words and his eyes narrow. "Warren?"

She settles a hand on her thigh. "It was Warren who shot me."

Oliver clenches his teeth and finally tears his eyes away from her so she doesn't have to see the glint of death within them. He should have worked harder to hunt that man down when he was in the Commons, but there was always something else he needed to focus on. Like a particular, elusive woman.

Letting out a breath, Oliver reels himself back in. Focusing on such a seemingly distant past won't help them now. "Did they say where they were going?" A calm washes over him like a cool breeze as conviction settles in his blood, an understanding that there's a job that needs doing.

Warren will die.

"A camp? Anything?"

"Oliver," she says, her voice barely a whisper.

"All I need is a direction."

"Oliver," she repeats, her voice harder this time and he looks at her.

"Any information you give me could help me find Warren."

"Oliver, you're not going after them."

He doesn't miss the use of the word 'them', but still he narrows his eyes. "Why?"

Leaning forward, Alicia captures his hands in hers, rubbing her thumbs across his knuckles in a soothing gesture that reminds him just how much he missed her touch. "You're needed here. You can't go after them."

"Alicia. Look what they did to you." He nods to her knee, even through the leg of her trousers he can see the ridges of thick bandages. "I'll find and I'll kill every last one of them."

"No, you won't. Warren is nothing—nothing—compared to the Ghuls if they choose to betray us. I can't..." she draws in a breath, torment fluttering across her features, "I'm useless injured like this. I need you here."

Useless. He could never apply that word to her, not after the fire she's walked through and survived. But leaving her again is the last thing he wants to do. Getting revenge on Warren—as sweet as that would taste—would leave his heart ravaged knowing Alicia was behind him, injured and feeling worthless.

Sighing, Oliver drops his head, his cheek resting in her lap as he snakes his arms around her hips and holds her as he's been craving to do since he left. Her fingers tangle in his hair, the touch making him close his eyes and relish her closeness.

"I'll stay," he finally murmurs. "For you."

"Thank you."

They stay like that for a handful of heartbeats, holding each other, the world around them merely a distant hum of activity, one he knows he needs to get back to. Before either of them do, there are things she needs to know.