Page 185 of The Wild Charge

A rough scrape of breath. “Everything.” Another breath. “Ribs, mostly.”

Tenny knew exactly how badly that hurt. He pulled back, and looked down at the knife sticking out of his leg. Skimmed a fingertip alongside the entry point, biting the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood. “You want it out?”

“I don’t think…I can walk…with it in.”

Tenny nodded.

Behind him, the sounds of a fight. Squeak of boot soles and thuds of impact.

Tenny dug betadine and gauze from his pants pockets. He took a deep breath, with his hand on the knife hilt, said, “Breathe,” and pulled it out in one quick movement. Reese inhaled sharply, and his foot kicked, but he held otherwise still.

There was blood, but only a trickle. He doused the wound with betadine, packed it with gauze, and did a few quick turns with the tape to hold it in place.

“Let’s get you down.” He dragged over a crate and stood on it to get to the carabiner. It was a simple screw kind, but that was the least complicated part of it. He hopped off the crate and debated how best to lift Reese without pressing one of his broken ribs into his lungs.

Reese said, “I can’t feel my arms anymore.”

Tenny swallowed around the lump in his throat. “Alright. That’s okay.” His eyes stung, and he blinked hard. “I’m sorry, darling, but this is going to hurt. I have to lift you up.”

“…’Kay.”

“Here we go. Hold on.” He wrapped his arms carefully around him: one around his waist, the other hooked down below his butt. When he lifted him up, Reese let out a low grunt of pain that made Tenny want to turn and empty an entire magazine into Marshall Hunter. Instead, he lifted a little higher. “Can you…”

But Reese couldn’t. Couldn’t even feel his arms, he’d said. So Tenny tightened the arm around his waist to the sound of another grunt, and reached up to press at his biceps, until his chained wrists slipped free of the carabiner.

His arms flopped straight down, utterly lifeless, and his good eye bugged wide, mouth opening on a gasp.

“I’m sorry, love, I’m so sorry.” Tenny had never felt so murderous, nor so tender, as he eased Reese’s feet down to the floor. “Can you stand?”

“Yeah.”

He swayed like a drunk, but he could stand, though he shook horribly and his teeth started chattering.

Tenny got the chains off his wrists, and rubbed them briskly; chafed the outsides of his arms, trying to work the circulation back into them.

“Pins and needles?”

Reese made a low, hurt noise, and nodded.

“It’s alright. It’ll get better.”

Careful and slow, he pulled one of Reese’s arms across his shoulders, his own left shoulder flaring painful-hot with protest. He gritted his teeth and held steady, other arm hooked around Reese’s waist. His own pain was nothing compared to what Reese must be feeling.

“Time to go. Hold on to me, and I’ll get us out.”

“Kay.”

It was then, as he maneuvered them so they were aimed at the door, that he finally caught a glimpse of Devin and Hunter.

When the government owned him, they’d recorded most of his training exercises and played them back for him later, while he sat on a cot holding a bag of frozen peas to his face. They rewound the films again and again, pointing out his flaws, merely nodding when he’d performed his best. They’d played them until Tenny knew exactly how he looked when he was in his element.

That was what it was like watching Devin fight.

Hunter was good: he held a knife in each hand and he dodged, and spun, and blocked.

But Devin moved like smoke. Twice as fast, anticipating every strike and countering with one of his own. It was like gravity didn’t apply to him. It was ballet finesse and brutal aim. Blood stained Hunter’s arms, and his teeth were bared and gritted with effort. Devin didn’t look so much as winded, as he drove Hunter back and back across the width of the room, knives winking and glinting.

Tenny patted Reese’s side, a gentle reassurance. “Come on.”

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