Angel won the toss, and he limped off to the tiny bathroom and closed the door hard behind him.

“Something I said?” Lars shouted after him, and then lifted his hands when Milo shot him an accusing stare. “Sorry,” he whispered. “Forgot this place is crawling with cartel.”

Milo’s eyebrows lowered at the comment. He went into the small kitchenette and began rinsing his face in the basin. Good thing too—it looked like he was wearing a shitty Halloween getup with all that dried blood flaking from his face. Then, without a word to either of them, Milo went to the far corner of the room, wedged himself in between the wall and the side of the single bed, and put his head in his arms like he was going to catch a quick forty before they had to be on the move again.

When Lars turned to Cora, she was watching Milo with a blank look on her face.

Jesus, she looked like she’d been in a car accident.

“Hey, let’s see your face.”

She started at his voice, and turned stiffly on the bed to face him. Her eyes flashed up and to the side, glancing everywhere but on his eyes as he gently took her chin in a hand and turned her face to the light.

“Your gums stop bleeding yet?” he asked.

She nodded, and then looked like she was going to be sick.

“Hey, dental work’s come a long way,” he said. “We’ll have those pearly whites back in there in no time. Give me a smile.”

She glared at him.

“Come on. Let me see how bad it is.”

Cora slowly turned her lips up. Her eyes flickered—perhaps with pain—and then she forced a wide smile on her face. Lars twisted her head.

“See? Only one gap shows.” He touched the corner of her mouth and moved her smile down. “Keep it there, and it’ll just be our little secret.”

She rolled her eyes at him and then looked toward the bathroom. “Shouldn’t someone go check his gunshot?” she asked thickly, glancing back at Lars with concern writ bold in her eyes.

“Fine,” he sighed, pushing himself up. “But then you forfeit your turn. I’m taking a shower next.”

She shrugged, as if the thought was the last thing on her mind. It shouldn’t have been; the rest of her looked almost as bad as her face. Blood had seeped through the thick padding of bandages on her knee, and both her legs were scraped raw. Her right hand was as badly scraped as her cheek, from when she’d fallen off the horse, and she let it rest in her lap as if it hurt too much too move it.

Well, they were alive. But barely.

Lars knocked hard on the bathroom door.

There was a tremulous, “Si?” from inside.

“Housekeeping,” Lars muttered. “Put away your junk so I can get a look at your leg.” He counted to five and pushed through into the bathroom.

Angel’s hair was still wet from the shower, but he’d managed to sling a towel around his waist. He sat on the closed toilet seat, gingerly examining what looked to be a nasty bullet hole in his right thigh.

Lars went to his knees on the scrap of ugly toilet carpet and peered at the precise little hole. Blood slowly filled it, and then began oozing out onto Angel’s skin. Lars almost blotted it away with the edge of the towel, but it was probably as dirty as the rest of this hovel of a motel.

“Need to get supplies,” he said. He grabbed a thick wad of toilet paper, hesitated, and then shook his head. It would likely get stuck inside the wound and fester.

“You wash your hands in there?” he asked, pointing to the shower.

Angel gave him a long-suffering stare, so he tipped his chin and then took Angel’s hands, criss-crossing them over the wound.

“Keep applying pressure. Don’t be a pussy about it either. Do it hard enough so you feel like passing out. Without, you know, actually passing out.”

He glanced over his shoulder and then urged the guy to his feet. When his towel began slipping, he hastily tucked it around Angel’s waist and then led him from the bathroom.

Cora looked up, and then hurriedly looked away.

Yeah, he didn’t quite know what to make of Angel’s bruises himself. They weren’t all fresh, and told a sickening tale of abuse. He set the guy down on the edge of the bed.

“Keep pressing. Cora, you shower so long. I’ll be back now.”

He expected Milo to look up, to question where he was going, but the man hadn’t moved.

Lars ducked out the motel room, and tried not to hurry as he made his way toward the gas station.

Cora almost didn’t have a shower. She could already feel the pain of warm water hitting her torn skin. But the smell of blood, sweat, and puke was making her nauseas.

She stripped as carefully as she could. The small trash bin in the kitchenette hadn’t been used—the plastic lining was still clean. She wound that around her bandage and tried to keep that leg out of the shower’s spray.

She’d been right, of course. It hurt like nothing else. But she lathered soap onto her skin and did her best to wash all the blood from her.

There were clean—if threadbare—towels in the bathroom cabinet. She wound one around herself and used a second to blot at some of the scratches on her legs and arms that had started bleeding when she’d washed away the congealed blood.

She tried desperately not to look at herself in the mirror, but caught glimpses of her swollen face too many times. Curiosity eventually got the better of her, and she turned slowly to her reflection.

Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them back. She lifted a trembling hand to the lump on the side of her face. Her mouth was still coated with copper and, when she couldn’t stand the sight of herself anymore, she bent over the sink and rinsed her mouth out. The water ran pink for several rinses.

Salt water would have been better. Did this place have salt? When she straightened, Finn stood behind her in the mirror.

“Shit!” Although, with the swelling in her mouth, it came out more like, “Shid!”

She let out a harsh breath, hand clapping on her breast. Her heart thundered like it was trying to get out. “Oo sca’d me,” she mumbled.

“You done?” Finn asked, his voice hollow.

There was still blood on his face. And she knew it wasn’t his. Some dark streaks in his hair, hard and stiff now like a macabre version of hair gel.

She swallowed, and backed out of the bathroom as he stripped his shirt and unbuckled his pants. She pulled the door closed behind her, And then squeezed her eyes shut to will away the image of Finn wearing such an intense look of pleasure on his face as he—

“Señorita.”

She spun to Angel, and shifted her towel so it could make her more decent. But Angel didn’t seem to care how naked she was. His dark eyes drilled into her.

“I won’ ‘ell them,” she said.

Angel blanched, and then gave a quick nod of thanks.

She sank down beside him, studying a hideous, and thankfully faded, portrait of a forest scene. It looked like it came from the 1920s.

“Zachary has your brother?” She swiped away a trickle of water that was running down her neck from her wet hair. She touched his hand, and he flinched, so she drew back.

“Si.”

“I would have done the same thing.” Cora drew a ragged breath. “It’s different, when it’s family. You’d do anything—”

“No,” Angel cut in. “I put you in danger. After you trust me. You bring me with…I betray you.”

She pressed her mouth closed. Angel studied her hard for a few seconds and then looked away with a disgusted grunt. He peeled his fingers from his leg, and a slow, thick wave of blood coated his legs.

“Angel…”

His face was ashen. Should she be tying up his leg?

She was about to stand and find something to stem the blood with when Lars came through the front door. He saw them on the bed, and his face hardened.

“Why don’t you get dressed?” he suggested calmly, shooing her away with a hand.

“My clothes are filthy,” she murmured.

“So your plan’s to walk around in a towel the rest of your life?”

“Lars, what do you want me to—?”

“Christ, move already,” he snapped. “This guy’s bleeding to death while you’re harping on about clothes.”

Her mouth fell open. He made to grab her arm, but she scrambled away from him before he could touch her. “You’re the one that—”

“Quiet. Go sit in the corner with—” Lars cut off when he saw that Finn wasn’t between the bed and the wall anymore. His eyes went to the bathroom, and he let out a frustrated sigh. “Course I’ll be the last to shower,” he muttered. “Probably won’t be any fucking hot water left.”

He sat beside Angel and upended the bag of supplies he’d bought. A bottle of cheap whiskey rolled out, some bandages, paper toweling, scissors. More candy bars, and some bottles of water. She grabbed water, hesitated, and then glanced up at him.

Lars rolled her eyes at her. “Christ, take it. This too.” He tossed a candy bar at her and then turned his attention back to Angel. “Grab me a glass, if this shithole’s got one.”

She searched the cabinet, found a glass, and took it to Lars. He motioned to the whiskey with his chin while he dabbed at Angel’s leg with a wad of paper towel. “Pour. Real generous like.”

She filled it halfway and held the glass out to Angel. Lars snatched it from her. “That was for me,” he said, before downing it in three large gulps. “Now pour one for him.”

Cora gaped at him. She’d known he wasn’t exactly Mr. Charming, but why the hell was he so pissed off with her? Whiskey sloshed in the glass, and Angel gave it a suspicious look.

“You’re gonna need it, buddy,” Lars said. “I’m literally going to dig a bullet out of your leg with a pair of scissors. And it’s going to hurt like a motherfucker.”

Angel slumped down onto the bed, perhaps too weak to keep himself up any longer.

Lars looked up at her. “So…bunny…you ready to play nurse?” There was the faintest hint of a smile in his eyes.

“Sure,” Cora said, her anger ebbing away.

“Then come hither,” Lars said, standing. “And bring the scissors and the booze.”