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36. Cat and Mouse be Damned

"Normally I'd be cheering you both on and leaving you alone to continue . . . this," She says as she waves a hand in our direction. My face is turning redder by the second and I bury it in Ryder's chest.

Ryder glares at her. "So why don't you?" He asks. I feel like my entire body is going to start turning red, not just my face. I peek out at her.

She narrows her eyes. "Purely selfish reasons. I don't want you ruining your stitches," She says flatly. "I'm not patching the two of you up again." She smiles sweetly. "Good morning," She adds in an overly sweet voice.

I keep my face pressed into Ryder's chest. "I'm going to die of embarrassment," I mutter.

Ryder laughs before unzipping the sleeping bag and helping me to my feet. "We should actually get ready to continue on," He says simply.

He takes a long moment to look me up and down, devilish mischief shining in his eyes. "So you can either change and give me back my shirt or I can remove it myself."

My cheeks heat up yet again and I can see in his eyes which option he's expecting from me. So I decide to go with option number three. I mean, it's not as if I'm not still in my underwear. I still have clothes on. Everything's still covered.

So, I reach for the hem of the shirt and slowly pull it over my head and then hold it out to him. Ryder's cheeks start to flush and his eyes aren't on the shirt I hold out him oh so innocently.

"Shouldn't we get going?" I question innocently as I wave the shirt at him, finally getting him to take it. Quinn, who was previously trying her best not to laugh, finally gives in. Ryder glares at her.

***

A phone's ringtone splits through the silence as we walk through the forest, going on nothing but Quinn's reassurance that we're almost there.

Ryder curses me out. "We're running from bad guys through a quiet forest and you have your volume on the entire time? How does anyone consider you a genius?"

I glare at him. "That's not mine," I growl.

He actually looks slightly sheepish when he realizes that it isn't mine and then it turns back to glare as he watches Quinn pull it out of her pocket.

She frowns down at the screen. "I don't recognize the number," She says.

Dread immediately pools into my stomach as I stare at the phone like it's a ticking time bomb.

"Don't answer it," Both Ryder and I say in unison.

"It's probably Volkov," Ryder says quietly, voicing what I had been thinking.

Quinn looks down at the phone as it continues to ring, a determined kind of anger settling over he face. She hits a button and then puts the phone up to her ear.

"Quinn," She answers.

Ryder curses her out and I stare at her wide-eyed. I feel like yelling at her because she just doesn't seem to grasp how dangerous Volkov is.

She listens to whoever's on the other end and then her determined anger turns into a look of confusion.

"I'm sorry, who is this?" She asks. She listens and the confusion doesn't go away. "Who is this?" She repeats.

Suddenly the look of confusion turns into a look of utter annoyance, frustration, and anger. "Did you think changing your number would fool me?" She growls out. "No, I'm not helping you, get that through your thick skull."

Ryder and I share a look. Somehow, I'm no longer thinking that it's Volkov. And since it takes a lot to piss Quinn off, I'm also thinking that whoever that person is, well, they're screwed.