GUNPOINT | 2

12.| The Evening Stranger

After a short rest at the hospital that night, Keith wakes up to the bright morning light attempting to beam through the white fabric window shades. He slides off the hospital bed just before Noah walks in frustrated.

"Shacks.", Keith greets Noah in acknowledgment as he checks the time on his phone, "How's Nat?"

"She's fine now, I gave her some pain killers. Although there is a question that needs to be clarified..."

Keith powers off his phone and looks over at Noah who had walked to the other side of the bed and began arranging the sheets.

"Does she always wake up with her arm hurting?"

Keith picks up the duffle bag filled with the supplies he ordered Felix to buy and bring over to the hospital.

"If she would be completely honest", Keith begins before he looks up at Noah, "it would be a yes. But she rarely complains about it."

Noah nods; obviously expecting that.

"I would recommend her recovering here for today at least, we might have a possibility of finding a cure for her arm if she stays.", Noah advises, hoping Keith would at least agree with his plan again.

Keith drops the bag in the bathroom and shakes his head.

"I'm sorry Shacks, by seven we have to be at Carson's house. Justin, Kaleb, and Lavi are in danger and I need backup since Felix and Jasper are still on Angela's case."

Noah nods in understanding.

"How are the injuries and the swelling?"

"Healing slowly, but I need my painkillers refilled."

Noah pulls out a small bottle of painkillers and tosses it over to him before taking his leave as Keith pulls off his shirt and examines his wounds from last week. Although he was positioned at the Miller's cabin, he was assigned many missions; rarely any with Natalia, but without her on the missions he found himself doing ridiculous mistakes which did cost him in the end. 

Keith lets the water from the sink run as he begins to peel off the bandages when the door to the room opens and shuts. Natalia walks up to him, a little taken aback at the number of scars and bruises running across his back and chest after she had obviously forgotten about their existence.

"When'd you get those?!"

"Evening Stranger.", he looks back at her with a small grin.

"When you were held hostage.", Natalia recalls as she quickly peeled a bandage off his back making him winch violently, crashing into the sink with a hiss escaping his lips.

𐊜

The car ride to Carson's house was all revolving around a "safety" plan for Keith's younger siblings. Keith had brought up the idea of taking them along but Natalia quickly shot it down.

"Keith, I'm a freakin' assassin! Not a babysitter."

"Okay", he says with a shrug, "Then...we'll just bring them with us and stay with them at a hotel until we can find someone who can stay with them."

"It's the same thing.", she responds sarcastically with her head shaking back and forth, "They'll never be safe."

Keith slowly comes to a stop when the light at the intersection turns red. He rolls down the window just as a black Mercedes with its own windows rolled down pulls up next to Keith.

Both the driver and passenger were dressed in black with the driver being the only one to possess sunglasses. The driver and his buddy look over at Keith and Natalia with a smug grin.