Page 115 of Lash

She bites her lower lip, scrubs her eyes with the heel of her hand. "No, I'm good. I'm good. I just…" she gives me a bright but watery smile. "I've always been one of the guys, you know? Dick jokes, roughhousing. Coed locker room because I’m the only girl, not just in the unit but the whole fuckin' section. I've never had a girlfriend either."

"Oh." I swallow. Look at her. "So…girlfriends, then?"

She wraps her arms around me and squeezes me with such sudden strength that I have to gasp for breath, and then return the hug.

When we break, she holds me by the arms and looks at me. "I'd like that. Sol says I'll like the other girls, but…they haven't hoicked their asses all over fuckin' South America with me. We're blood sisters, Tat." My nickname, Tati, is pronouncedTah-tee, but she shortens it further to Tat, like the first half of the English word tattoo. "We've been through firefights andslogged through jungles together. Can't get any fuckin' closer than that."

"Tat." I grin. "I like that."

She passes a hand through her loose, chin-length black hair. "Used to be I'd tell you to call me Scar. You know…” she taps her scar. "Plus it's short for Scarlett. But I think you oughta call me Maria. I'll try it out on you before I let Sol call me it."

"Maria."

Sol glances over at us, leaning back from the conversation among the men. "What're you two into over there?"

Scarlett—Maria—grins at him. “Oh, nothin' much, baby. Just bonding over firefights, nicknames, and sore vaginas."

As if on cue, the whole lobby seems to go suddenly silent right as she says this, and I feel a host of eyes on us. I hold it in for a moment, but then laughter bubbles up and spews out of me, and Scarlett…it'll take time for me to adjust my thinking…Maria, I mean, laughs with me. The men look at us, curious, but we just laugh all the harder, and they shake their heads and go back to whatever manly things they were talking about. Guns and beer and weightlifting, probably.

The ding of an elevator is a faint sound, swallowed by the ambient din of the bustling lobby. It announces, however, the arrival of Inez. We all see her approach at the same time, and no one seems to know how to react, how to greet her.

She's wearing a new pair of dark blue jeans, a plain black V-neck T-shirt, a pair of calf-height combat boots, and a black ball cap with the logo of a prominent sports clothing company, her hair pulled into a ponytail through the back of the hat. Her black eyes are in the shadow of the cap's pulled-low brim, making them somewhat less noticeable. She also seems to have applied some basic makeup to lessen the severity of their appearance. She walks with a slight limp and a shuffle, favoring her left leg, one arm braced across her middle to protect and supporther injured ribs. Her face is carefully blank, as if she's working overtime behind the scenes to chide the pain she's in.

When no one greets her, she snorts sarcastically and rolls her eyes. "You all need to get your shit together. I was tortured, not raped, and I'm not dead. Quit tiptoeing around me. I fucking hate it."

Scarlett stands up and goes to her, reaches for her hands, hesitates, and then takes them. "None of us were sure if you had been, and we weren't sure how to ask. We all care about you, and we just want to support you."

Chance moves to stand behind her, resting his giant paws on her shoulders; she hunches and stiffens at his touch, but doesn't flinch away or otherwise resist. "And I say this with affection and respect, Boss, but you don't make it easy."

One by one, the men surround Inez and put a hand on her shoulders or back.

"We're here for you, Boss," Saxon says. "You saved all of us. We all owe you our lives."

Inez clears her throat. "This is all very touching, but—"

Rev speaks over her. "Receive it, Boss. Quit fighting it. The Ice Queen is no more, and we still respect you."

"Might be we respect you more," Kane puts in, "now that you've shown us that you're human."

I'm unsure whether I should be part of the group or not, so I hover just behind Nico, watching. Inez's eyes find mine, and she swallows hard, and then scans the eyes of her team. Grabs my hand and pulls me into the circle surrounding her.

She blinks hard, swallows again, ducking her head. "You guys came for me," she whispers, her voice thick with emotion.

"Of course we did," Silas says. “Like we'd leave you with that fuckin' monster a second longer than necessary?"

"You ain't just the boss, Boss," Kane says. "You're one of us. You're the original."

She nods, blowing out a shaky breath. "More so than you know." She meets every pair of eyes again. "You came for me. I'll never forget it, no matter what happens. Thank you, everyone." She looks at me. "You don't even know me, but you still fought for me, Tatiana. I am in your debt."

I shake my head, emotion riding high in my throat. "You are important to Nico. Where he goes, I go. What he fights for, I will fight for." I take her hand and squeeze. "There is no debt."

Inez hisses. "Goddammit," she whispers, blinking hard as tears drip despite her efforts to hold them back, to hide them. "Fuck you guys for making me cry. I hate it."

Chance laughs, wrapping his long, powerful arms around the whole group and pulling us all in closer, so we're crushing Inez in a group full-body hug. "Ya'll, Inez is crying. Someone take a picture for posterity."

Solomon's phone is out before anyone else can react, and he snaps a photo of Inez.

She reaches for his phone, but he dances out of reach. "Delete that shit, Solomon Cabot, or so fucking help me, I'll murder you in your sleep, oathbound or not."