Page 190 of The Wild Charge

He glanced up and noticed Fox. Shot him a wink. “You missed the fun, lad.”

Movement on the ground caught his attention.

Fox lurched into a run, a shout forming on his tongue. But he was too far away, too slow.

Hunter pulled a gun from the small of his back.

“Fuck,” Devin muttered, as he realized what was happening.

Fox saw the gun kick; heard Devin’s low grunt; saw the high-speed spray of blood hit the glass a second before the bullet shattered it.

Devin staggered back, knife falling as he clapped his hand over his gut, in the same strip of exposed belly between vest and belt that Fox had targeted on all the guards they’d faced. Devin’s heel caught the edge of the ruined window, and he flailed, eyes wide, before he fell backward through it, and was gone.

Hunter pushed up into a sitting position, head whipping toward Fox.

Fox drew the Browning holstered between his shoulder blades left-handed and emptied the whole clip in Hunter’s face, advancing on him as he shot, chasing his falling form, so the final shot was fired from directly overhead, one boot planted on his unmoving chest.

Only when the echo of the last shot died away did he realize that he was screaming.

He sucked in a breath, his throat raw, and stared down at what had once been Hunter’s face. The floor seemed to tilt, and it was an effort to stay upright.

This high up, the wind was vicious. It swept in through the shattered window…and carried with it the sound of a strained voice. “Bit…dramatic…don’t you…think, Charlie?”

Fox blinked stupidly at the gaping hole in the glass a moment, then nearly tripped and fell in his haste to cross to it. He dropped down to his knees and looked over the edge to see Devin’s sweaty, effort-flushed face staring back up at him. He clung to a bit of concrete building ledge with his fingertips, legs dangling over a thirty-nine-story drop to the alley below.

“JesusChrist.”

“He would…be quite useful…right now,” Devin huffed. “What with…the whole…gut wound…cliffhanger…situation.”

“Shut up, I hate you,” Fox said around the lump in his throat, and reached to take his hands.

Too late, he realized the right was useless; he couldn’t even force it to curl around Devin’s wrist, all of it managing to be numb and throbbing with pain at the same time. “Fuck.”

“Here,” a warm, Cajun-accented voice said. “I got him.”

Mercy knelt beside him, big and warm and solid; leaned over the edge and gripped both of Devin’s wrists in his massive hands. He hauled him up and over, back into the building, as if Devin was nothing more than a wayward kitten. He situated Devin so he laid back against his knees, and dug out a thick wad of gauze to press over the wound in his belly.

Fox was swamped with the overwhelming desire to sleep. To curl up right here on the floor and pass into oblivion.

But Devin breathed in rough scrapes, gaze rolling up toward Mercy’s face. “Look at that…hair,” he said on a chuckle that turned to a cough. “I’ll be damned. Jesus really did come…through.”

“Almost,” Mercy said, chuckling himself. He caught Fox’s gaze. “You ready to blow this taco stand, brother?”

Fox wiped his good hand down his face, eyes squeezing shut a moment until the stinging subsided, then nodded and gathered himself to stand. “Yes.Fuckyes.”

~*~

“What are the odds she brought her whole squad with her?” Walsh asked, as they jogged down a rear hallway to an exit. Each of them supported a girl who’d been hastily clothed in a waitstaff jacket and who were all slowly losing the buzz of their sedatives, their breathing increasingly frantic.

“Pongo says we can trust her,” Maverick said. “And I trust him.”

Walshtsked.

Pongo righted the girl he was helping as she stumbled, and pushed out the emergency exit with a prayer that his trust hadn’t been misplaced.It has to be you, and you gotta come alone, he’d told her over the phone earlier.No other cops. Do what you want after we leave, but all my guys have to be clear of the scene before that. Please, Dixie.This is important.

The emergency exit let out into an alley, dark and foul-smelling, the light from the streetlamp at the far end drawing them forward.

“Where are we?” the girl at his side murmured. “Oh my God, I’m gonna be sick.”

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