Shades of Gray

CHAPTER 21

P.J. was grateful that Cole was driving as Donovan quietly attended her wound. It gave her time to collect her thoughts and regain her composure.

She’d broken down like some fucking weak-ass ninny who’d never made a kill, who’d never seen blood. She closed her eyes, horrified by the way she’d allowed her team to see her at her most vulnerable. What the fuck were they doing here anyway?

“You okay, P.J.?”

She opened her eyes to see Donovan look worriedly at her. She tried to nod but ended up bumping her head as the SUV hit a series of potholes on the crappy-ass road Cole was driving.

“Yes,” she said, trying to infuse strength into her words. But she still sounded faint even to herself.

Donovan lifted the bag of fluid and secured it to the window with several strips of heavy-duty duct tape. Donovan was nothing if not a master of improvisation.

“I’ve started antibiotics and I’m also going to give you something for pain,” he said. “It’ll make cleaning out and bandaging this wound a hell of a lot easier. I’ll have to stitch you up later. No way I’m going to try to use a suture kit when we’re bouncing off our asses every other quarter mile.”

She smiled faintly but didn’t respond.

Soon she felt the burn of the medication when it hit her veins. A moment later, she relaxed and the pain started to fade into a mellow memory.

Some of her newfound zen was interrupted when Donovan began cleaning away the blood over her wound. She clenched her teeth, stared up at the roof of the vehicle and replayed Nelson’s death in her mind.

She’d never considered herself a bad person. Flawed. Definitely flawed. But even at her lowest points, she’d had enough esteem and honesty to recognize her faults and strengths.

Now she’d entered the gray world where nothing is or was. Had she become the monster that she’d accused Brumley and his entourage of being? Was she no better than he, and was her soul irrevocably tarnished?

She’d hunted down and killed three people in cold blood. Never mind the others she’d taken out who’d gotten in the way of her objective. It wasn’t self-defense. It wasn’t to prevent her teammates from being killed. It wasn’t to save someone in peril. She’d gone after the assholes who’d been in that room that night with nothing more than revenge on her mind. She’d murdered them viciously with no remorse or pity.

Maybe she was the coldhearted bitch that members of her S.W.A.T. team had accused her of being.

Fuck them. No, she wasn’t going to let them back into her consciousness. That was a lifetime ago. She’d moved on. They weren’t worth the dirt on her boots, and she’d be damned if she let them make her doubt herself now.

She searched her consciousness for some sign of regret. Something that told her she had a soul worth salvaging.

But she didn’t regret their deaths. She didn’t regret making sure they’d never hurt another human being. If that consigned her to hell, then she’d just have to plan a date with the devil.

She wanted to ask Donovan questions, but she bit her lip and remained silent. She didn’t want to open the door, because if she started demanding answers from him, then he’d want the same from her.

“How is she doing?” Cole asked from the front.

The edge in his voice rattled her. It wasn’t like Cole to sound so unhinged. Cole was either utterly focused on the task at hand or he was cracking jokes or hurling insults at his teammates, herself included.

It was a Cole she was familiar with and comfortable with.

But ever since the night they’d slept together, he’d become a different person. Or maybe it wasn’t that he’d become someone different. He was just someone she hadn’t recognized before now.

There was something possessive in his tone that nipped at her. She couldn’t decide whether to be annoyed or . . . Or what? Triumphant? She shook her head, which made her surroundings spin a bit as a result of the meds Donovan had administered.

She needed to stop all this because important conclusions couldn’t be reached when she was high as a kite.

“She’s going to be fine,” Donovan called back. “She kicked some ass and only has one measly bullet wound to show for it. It’s going to hurt like hell for a while and she’s going to be laid up until it heals, but she’s good.”

“Of course she kicked ass,” Cole said, a hint of impatience in his voice.

For some reason that confidence in his words—just the way he said it—warmed her in places that had been encased in ice for the last months.

Cole believed in her. He always had. He might give her the most shit of anyone else on her team, but he was also the first one to boast of her abilities. They had a long-running rivalry over who was the better shot, but P.J. knew it was all in fun. Cole respected her. He respected her position on the team. For that matter all her teammates did. Which was more than she could say for her S.W.A.T. team.

And yet, Cole and Steele . . . Dolphin, Baker, Renshaw . . . They weren’t her team anymore. She’d quit. She’d walked away. But here they were, risking their lives to save her ass.

Tears swam in her vision and she blinked rapidly, unwilling to give in to another emotional meltdown. She’d managed to remain detached for the last months. She’d switched off everything. No feelings. No memories. No fear and no pain. She couldn’t lose control now. Not when she was so close to achieving her objective.

Somehow she had to find a way to break away from her—no, not her—the team. Break away from the team and get to Jakarta in three weeks’ time.

Until she brought Carter Brumley down for good. Until that day, she couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t rest. She couldn’t relax even for a moment.

The thought of all those innocent little girls plus the countless other women they’d victimized haunted her. She knew what it was like to be one of them. For a very short time, she’d been a victim as well, and it was enough to convince her that she’d rather die than ever become one again.