When Chloe awakened a few hours later, just before sunrise, everything was quiet. The men that had surrounded her cot were gone, and she was alone. She sat up, blinking her eyes, looking for anyone who could update her on what she had missed. It only took a few minutes for Cindy to see her sitting up and join her.
"You're awake, good. I was getting worried." Cindy said as she sat next to Chloe on the cot.
Chloe looked at Cindy, noting that she had bathed and changed.
"Is everyone getting downtime now?" Chloe asked. "What did I miss?"
"Yes. Robert and Petrov worked on the man that you and Juric saved together. I don't know what Juric said to Petrov, but he looked like thunder when their conversation was over." Cindy whispered, looking around for eavesdroppers.
Great, Chloe thought, that meant that Petrov was probably going to be all over her case when she started working again.
"The man's alright?" Chloe asked.
Cindy nodded, looking around again. "His name is Dimitrie, something or other, and he is enemy number one. Nadia and Alena are all worked up about it. They think it will bring the fight to the hospital."
"Does Juric know?" Chloe asked as she wondered what kind of mistake she had made by saving the man.
"You're back to calling him Juric now?" Cindy raised her eyebrow at Chloe's use of his surname. "He was Valentine earlier."
"It was the heat of the moment. I thought his first name would soften him up." Not a complete lie, even if she was omitting part of the truth.
"Hmmm, how did you know he would be able to help?" Cindy asked, unwilling to let it go so quickly.
Chloe shrugged. "I must have read that he was a doctor somewhere or other." It seemed plausible.
Cindy watched her, debating if she wanted to ask more questions or not.
"Please, Cindy. Let it go." The women's eyes met, and Cindy nodded. She knew there was more to the story, but she wasn't going to push the issue.
"Juric wants to see you, but I would get cleaned up first," Cindy suggested as she stood.
Chloe looked down at herself while nodding. She had figured that Juric would want to see her. "Where did all of the men go?" she asked Cindy while looking around at all of the empty cots.
"Juric had the ones that could be moved transported back to the capital. The others will stay here for as long as they can before he feels they need to be moved as well." Cindy explained before she wandered off to check on some patients.
It took Chloe a little over half an hour to shower and track down Juric. She found him in a tent that had been erected at the back of the camp. There was a soldier standing guard, and she gave him her name, mentioning that she was expected. He looked at her for a moment before he entered the tent.
It was less than a minute before the soldier returned and held open the flap for Chloe to enter.
She wasn't the only one that had bathed and changed. Juric had as well. He was sitting behind a desk, and when she entered, he stood like the gentleman he was raised to be. He then motioned to two chairs that sat in the middle of the tent. Chloe took one, and he took the other.
"How are you feeling?" he asked, looking closely at her freshly washed face and hair, which was pulled back into another ponytail.
"A little sore from all of my running around, but otherwise fine. What did you say to Petrov?" she asked before she lost the nerve.
Juric frowned at her. "Why? Has he said anything to you?"
"No, but I heard he's not very happy at the moment, and I can't help but worry about how his anger will affect me?" Chole stated baldly.
"It shouldn't affect you at all, but let me know if it does, and I will address the situation," he assured her.
"So you're not going to tell me what you said to him?" she asked.
"No." He didn't appear to be bothered by her frustration.
"Did you tell my father I'm here yet?" Chloe asked another question that had come to her when she had been cleaning up. What would they do if he had told her father she was here? Decide together, once again, to get her out of the country as fast as they could?
"No, I haven't had the chance. Why? Does it bother you if he knows?" Chloe had the feeling that he was playing with her, and she didn't like it.
"I want to see him. I've come this far, and I'm not going home until I see him," Chloe insisted as her eyes met his, and she allowed him to see all of the anger she had pent up from her years of isolation.
"I promise you; you will see him before you go home. Is that good enough?" His voice remained steady as Chloe's had risen.
Chloe nodded, and they regarded one another for a moment while Chloe debated telling him about the Dimitrie fellow.
"What else, Chloe?" he asked, and as usual, the sound of him saying her name did funny things to her insides. She looked at his hand, where it rested on the arm of the chair, and she wondered if his touch would do the same as his voice. His hand on her arm had affected her when he had taken her blood, but if he were to touch her less clinically as if he loved her, how would that feel?
He used to touch her like that; a gentle kiss, a stroke to the back of her hand, or a caress of her cheek. They were ways he used to touch her and let her know he loved her. How could all of that just vanish overnight?
"What else do you have to say!" his voice was harsh as if he could read her mind, and he didn't like where it was going.
"The man you saved, do you know who he is?" her voice was clipped in response to his harshness.
"I didn't save him, you did, and yes, I know him."
Chloe looked at him, watching her calculatedly, and it suddenly dawned on her. "You knew who he was when you saved him, didn't you?"
"What kind of leader would I be if I didn't know who my enemies were?" he stood, moving back towards the safety of his desk.
Chloe was sure it was meant to be a dismissal, but she saw it as a coward's way out of having to explain himself, and Chloe wasn't going to let it go that easily.
"Is that why you saved him?" she asked, standing to face him, anger radiating off of her.
Juric let his eyes wander over her for a moment. "You're not a girl anymore, are you? Now you're a woman." He spoke the words almost to himself.
His words and the evident desire she saw in his eyes for a quick moment made her tremble, so she ignored the rhetorical question. The look was gone so fast that she wasn't even sure she had read it right.
"Why did you save him!" she demanded once more.
"Because you asked me to," he growled. "You could ask me to cut off an arm, and I would do it." The words were ripped from him as he slammed his fist down onto his desk. "You are my one weakness, and I cannot take the chance that it is exposed." He was talking to himself once again. "Which is why I'm going to use my mistake to my advantage by keeping our injured patient here in hopes that his men come looking for him when they hear he is alive."
"You are bringing the war here to the hospital!" Nadia and Alena had been right.
Juric gave a smile that made her shiver in dread. "Yes. Hopefully, I will be able to get everyone out before they arrive."
"Including Dimitrie?" Chloe crossed her arms defensively as she asked the question.
"Perhaps, let's see how well he heals?" His eyes were cold as he said the words.
Chloe turned on her heel to leave, unable to deal with Juric's heartless attitude.
"It's not true," she had to point out the obvious before she could walk away.
"What's not true?" he asked, not bothering to glance her way as she spoke.
"If you would do anything for me as you claim, you would have let me stay twelve years ago, and if you don't honor your promise to let me see my father, I will keep coming back as many times as it takes until I do see him." Chloe turned and left before he could respond.
He was right, she was a woman now, and she was not going to let Valentine Juric push her around as he had been for the past twelve years.