Savage Vandal (82 Street Vandals #1) - Heather Long Page 0,40

the bath products.

Opening the vanilla body soap, I took a deep breath of it. It was sweet and clean and probably the nicest thing I’d smelled since they’d brought me hot spaghetti and garlic bread the other night.

My stomach growled at the memory. It had been a while since lunch, I thought. Maybe longer than normal, but my jailer was currently occupied with another task.

I managed to strip off my pajama bottoms when it seemed like he really wasn’t coming back. Bracing my foot on the edge of the tub, I began to unwrap it. I’d figure out the splint in a minute.

Jasper appeared in the doorway with a drill and some metal rods and a few other items. Kestrel was right behind him. “Move her,” Jasper told Kestrel, and the other man shot me what I thought might be an apologetic look and held out an arm.

I gripped it and stood, ignoring the fact that once again, I was in a T-shirt and panties. At least they were pink and solid this time. He braced me as I climbed out and then maneuvered me back out to the bedroom.

“Want me to grab your bag so you can get out clean clothes?” Kestrel asked as soon as I was perched on the bed.

Though I opened my mouth to respond, the sudden whine and scream of the drill in the bathroom filled the room. Holy crap, that was loud. Kestrel actually rolled his eyes and shook his head with the first real hint of a smile I’d seen since this damn odyssey began.

With great exaggeration, he motioned to my bags and then to his clothes before he made a strangling motion at the bathroom and flipped it off.

That shouldn’t have been funny.

Nothing about this situation was humorous.

Yet, I laughed. ’Cause that was the Kestrel who’d been driving me around for a few days and whose intensity appealed to me alongside his wry sense of humor. His expression sobered at my laugh, and I tried to wipe the smile from my face, not that I had a terrific amount of luck with that one.

The whine of the drill climbed again, then cut off as Kestrel set the bags on the bed. I concentrated on collecting a change of clothes, clean panties, and still skipped the bras ’cause I wasn’t asking anyone to help with it, and as much better as my ankle was, my chest wasn’t. The cracked and bruised ribs protested nearly every movement.

Hammering from the bathroom made me jump, but Kestrel just folded his arms and waited. A couple more whines of the drill followed by a couple of minutes of hammering, then Jasper reappeared in the doorway, covered in fine white dust. It coated his henley and his beard.

“Gotta clean this up, then you can test it.”

Kestrel rolled up the sleeves on his shirt and went into the bathroom. The water ran, then turned off. Jasper reappeared with the drill and the bag of tools I hadn’t seen before. He’d cleaned off his face. The bag went outside the door and then he went back.

It was weird as fuck sitting on the bed while those two did whatever in there. The water came on a couple more times and then Jasper called, “Come give it a try.”

In the bathroom, I found the new bars he’d installed. One on the wall right next to the shower, another fixed into the wall inside the shower, and a third one mounted to the edge of the tub. I could literally use it to climb over and hold my weight on my good arm without risking slipping.

After putting my clothes down on the closed toilet, I used the first railing and climbed right in.

“Perfect,” Jasper said. “Can you reach everything?”

I nodded. “I tested that when you were gone.”

“Okay, now you can shower. No more complaints.” Then he shoved Kestrel out and closed the door behind them.

No more complaints.

I flipped the closed door off, and at the same time, I looked around the shower. There was a small box in the corner with plastic sleeves in it. I dragged it out and pulled it up and over my splint. It had a little tape seal to tighten it closed. Not perfect, but it would do.

I got out of the shirt and panties pretty easily, then dragged the curtain closed and turned on the water. This close, I was gonna get hit by that initial cold spray, but that would be good for my chest