Page 84 of Constantly Cotton
George looked over his shoulder at the terrified group of kids. When Ace and Jai had taken out the driver of the shitty RV, they’d been dressed in filthy rags and scared. Jai, who spoke Russian and Ukrainian apparently, had calmed them all down, and both men had provided the water and the peanut butter and crackers, as well as—miraculously—some clean clothes, which apparently Burton’s boyfriend had stocked up on. They’d been good as gold for the long drive from the garage to this bustling metropolitan hospital in LA, but they were also confused as hell.
Jason didn’t blame them.
“Amal!” George called. “We need food, stat. Can we snag one of the orderlies?”
Amal nodded. “I’ll have Jenny raid the cafeteria—we can get them some fresh fruit too. You start with the physicals. Give me ten minutes.”
“Groovy!” George looked at Jason to see if he was good with that, and Jason wasn’t sure what showed in his eyes but George looked behind him and added, “And a big carafe of coffee, with some fixings. Even if he doesn’t like sugar, I have the feeling he’s going to need all the stimulants we can give him!”
Jason let out a little laugh. “You’re Jai’s boyfriend?” he asked again.
“Yup! How’s my giant Russian bear?”
Jason felt a bright smile spread to his cheeks. “Taciturn and terrifying,” he said honestly. Then he sobered. “And just like Ace, he’s doing good works and not telling the world about it.”
George nodded, like he expected nothing less. “There’s nothing sexier than a hero,” he said happily. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take some temperatures and write down some vitals.”
Jason gave himself permission to tilt his head back and close his eyes while George was there. Per the military, he wasn’t sure when he’d get another chance to nap, right?
He must have been out for more than ten minutes—maybe it was closer to thirty—when George interrupted his snooze by crouching next to him and shaking his arm.
“Constance?”
Jason blinked hard. “What? What? Are the kids all right?”
“Kids are fine,” George said and nodded over his shoulder. “Jenny’s giving them all fruit and sandwiches and milk and water. That’s not the problem.”
“What’s the problem?”
“There’s military guys here—they’re in the front of the hospital, being total dicks, and I told Amal that you might have violated some protocols to get these kids back to their homes. Am I right?”
“Yeah,” Jason said, every fiber in his body alert. “Shit.”
“Okay—here’s the thing. Amal’s okayed you to grab a hospital transport. We usually use it to bus patients to and from the nearby convalescent hospitals, but this one’s a little older, so it won’t be missed for at least a week. Me and Jenny will take you and the kids, but you need to be quiet. Your dick general or whoever came in through the front, and this bus is over in the wing close to him. We’re literally going to be crawling under the windows to get to it, and we have no time. Are you game?”
Jason remembered Brigadier General Barney Talbot’s voice as he’d told Jason to keep the children where they were because they were valuable assets in an upcoming op.
Ace had needed to keep him from flinging his phone across the desert.
These kids had been freaked out and stunned. They’d been dragged from their home neighborhoods, stuffed in a stifling, filthy RV, and deprived of food and water for what Jason suspected was a number of days.
He wasn’t putting them through anything else besides a ride home.
“I’m game,” he said. He took a breath. “Sophie? Maxim?”
Two of the kids—they looked between twelve and fifteen, and related, with dirty blond hair and enormous gray eyes—stepped forward from the back.
“Mr. Constance?” Sophie, the more gregarious of the two, asked him.
“We need to sneak off this bus and onto another one,” he explained. “I need you and Max to help me keep the kids from making noise.”
“Can we keep the apples?” Max asked, sounding pained.
Jason managed a smile for the boy, who seemed frightened but functional.
“Of course,” he said gently. “Go get everyone ready. I’ll get out first.”
He grabbed his phone and his small go-bag, which included a first-aid kit and a change of clothes. After looking at George to lead the way, he glanced behind him and made sure the kids were following.