Page 191 of The Wild Charge

“Hang on, we’re almost there.”

A figure stood beneath the streetlamp: slight and unassuming; pale hair flared out as she turned to face them, and her hand ghosted down to her hip, an automatic instinct.

“Dixie, it’s me,” Pongo called.

She stilled, and then her shoulders dropped a fraction. “I told you not to call me that,” Dixon griped. But her face changed when Pongo stepped into the puddle of light, and she saw the girl slumped against his side. “Good God, Pongo! What the hell?!” She took a step back, expression horror-stricken.

“You’re Detective Dixon?” Maverick asked, joining them. Then Walsh and Michael, all of them propping up a girl.

“I…” Dixon’s jaw worked, eyes wide as saucers.

“It’s like I told you,” Pongo said. “This is Waverly. He was hosting an auction. We’re bringing the girls out a few at a time. We’ve got people taking care of Waverly himself.”

“I – I don’t–” She pulled herself together visibly with a deep breath, shoulders pushing back. “Taking carehow? Pongo, what’s–”

“We don’t have time for this,” Walsh snapped. “We’ve still got people inside we need to get out. Can you help us or not?”

Two of Walsh’s brothers, Pongo reminded himself, were part of the strike team, and still unaccounted for.

“Dixie,” he said, and she didn’t fight the nickname this time, attention snapping to his face. “I’ll tell you whatever you wanna know later. But right now, we’ve got guys to get out, and a whole mess of girls. They’re all drugged. Some of them are hurt.Can you help us?”

Her gaze shifted to the girls, one after the other, throat bobbing as she swallowed hard. Then her pale eyes got that flinty look to them that had attracted him from the start.

She nodded. “I can help.”

Someone’s phone rang. Walsh dug one from his pocket with a curse and pressed it to his ear. “Yeah? How bad?” Expression grim, he announced: “We got two gunshot wounds. One’s a gut shot. And Reese is in bad shape.” He traded glances with Michael and Maverick, and Pongo felt his stomach sink.

Bumps and bruises they could patch up themselves. But a belly wound needed an OR.Now.

“I might be able to help with that, too,” Dixon said, drawing their attention. Her face had gone sour, but she said, “I’m guessing you don’t want anybody to call the cops? That’s standard procedure with GSWs.”

“Yeah,” Maverick said, “we know.”

“Well, lucky for you, my best friend’s a trauma surgeon.”

Pongo beamed at her. “Dixie. Coming in clutch.”

She scowled. “Stop fucking calling me that!”

~*~

“Son of a bitch,” Toly murmured, his accent lending the words extra gravity. “He did it.”

Raven had long since stopped trying to contain her smile, even as a crowd had swelled around them, people exclaiming and whispering as they watched Jack Waverly confess to all the horrors he’d committed. Pale, bleeding out slowly, a masked Ian standing over him with a sword cane, he admitted everything. She’d never seen such a damning display.

“There you have it,” Ian said. “From the man himself.”

The screens all went black at once, to shouts of protest from the crowd. Raven spotted a uniformed cop off to the side, eyes glued to the screens, speaking into the radio clipped to his shoulder.

When the feeds cut back on, Ian was gone. The camera panned slowly through the private viewing box, highlighting Waverly, Nikola, the Morettis. All dead. Clean bullet holes in their foreheads.

Then the screens all reverted back to their usual, colorful advertising displays.

It was pandemonium down on the street.

Toly turned, head ducked beneath his hood, and caught Raven with an arm around the waist, steering her back the way they’d come.

“Oh, please. There’s no need to manhandle me,” she chastised – but still couldn’t wipe the smile off her face.

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