Page 147 of Beware of Dog

~*~

“Tell me about the gangbangers trying to scare off the friend,” Devin said without preamble when Fox answered his phone with a brief, “Yeah?”

Fox took a breath, turned once more to peer out at the benighted forest over his shoulder—Tenny and Reese had flickedon torches, at this point, confident the perps were long gone, but that they still might find something of use; the high beams panned through the tree trunks in crazy swoops and dives like old-timey movie spotlights over the Hollywood sky—and said, “Tres Diablos. Mexican street gang. I wasn’t there for the parlay, but Reese and Tenny were. And Toly.”

“Yeah, I asked him about it. He thinks this could have been them. That there was some posturing with them and Shep at the meeting.”

If he’d had the ears of a true fox, they would have pricked up. A little coil ofahain his belly, almost excitement but not quite, because it was always a thrill to have a target to point himself toward. “Well, then. It’s a place to start.”

“Sounds like it. When do you want to move?” While Fox was considering, Devin added, to his surprise, “I think we should wait until Cass is awake and see if her man wants to come along. He’ll want his pound of flesh.”

Fox started to say that they didn’t need Shep to “come along.” That the four of them, acting as their own little crusaders, the Six-Hundred, could more than handle a run of the mill street gang, and that Shep, from what little Fox knew of him, was only liable to get in the way.

But then he reflected on what he’d seen tonight, Cass limp and bloody, and Shep barking out orders, gloved up like a real medic, efficient even though he had to be rattled.

If a man was capable enough, he was owed the chance for personal revenge, Fox acknowledged. “Fine. How’s Cass?”

He knew she was still alive; someone would have called sooner if she wasn’t. An uncharitable thought, but an honest one.

“Sleeping.” Devin didn’t sigh, per se, but there was a relieved quality to his exhale. “Shepherd’s with her, poor sod. Asleep on the edge of her bed. The doctor seems confidentenough. We won’t know the extent of possible nerve damage until she wakes, but she should be fine in all the ways that count.”

“Good.” He paused a beat, then added, “Whatever we do to the Tres Diablos, we need to do it quick. No waiting around for Cass to get discharged.”

“Right. I’ll do you one better: there’s not going to be a trial. For that boy? No way. No trial. If you catch my meaning.”

Fox snorted. “I always catch your meaning, old man. Sometimes you’re even right. I agree: no trial. He doesn’t deserve it.”

~*~

The heat was blinding. Or maybe that was the sweat pouring in his eyes, stinging, slowing him down. He dashed at it with his sleeve, but smacked into his helmet, jerking his chin strap, and didn’t get his eyes clear. He blinked instead, without much success, and his next breath sucked the dry, desert heat down into his lungs where it scored his flesh and squeezed tight around his airway.

His hands kept slipping in blood. So much blood, pints of it. How was the guy still alive? He was, though, because he was screaming bloody murder, and the men around them were shouting, and gunshots rattled in the distance, and they were all going to fucking die—

Something cool and soft touched his palm, and Shep woke with a start. The old Iraq nightmare didn’t so much fade as vaporize, and in its place, the shitty evening crashed over him, a drowning wave of gunshots, and Cass limp in his arms, and laid on a table, and his own gloved hands slick with her blood.

He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but, well, hehad. He sat up and rubbed the grit from his eyes with his right hand, and that was when he realized that his left was occupied; that thecool, smooth touch at his palm was Cass’s palm, and that, for the first time since he dragged a chair over and sat down, she was gripping himback.

He blinked his vision clear, awareness swimming under the bright hospital lights, and looked up at the head of the bed. Cass was ghost-pale, more washed-out than her gown and the covers tucked up under her arms. But her eyes were slitted open, that vibrant bright blue electric against a white backdrop.

One corner of her mouth twitched upward, and her hand squeezed on his again, weak, but trying. Her voice came out faint and scratchy. “Hi, baby.”

“Hi—”

His voice broke, so he stood on shaky legs instead, and bent to press the gentlest of kisses against the top of her head.

Thirty-Five

Cass stayed awake just long enough for her family to crowd into the room, touching her arms, expressing their gladness that she’d pulled through surgery. By the time her mother got weepy, Cass’s face had become twisted with pain, and the nurse came to shoo everyone out and hit the morphine pump. When she turned to Shep, her smile sympathetic but her gaze flicking between the two of them like what the hell is this grown ass man doing with this young thing?, and offered to bring him a recliner to sleep in, Toly stuck his head in the doorway, double-fisting paper coffee cups, and said, “Come out here a minute.”

Shep didn’t want to do any such thing.

But Cass was asleep.

And he could tell, by the serious tilt of Toly’s head, that this was important. That he’d want to hear what he had to say.

“Yeah, that’d be good,” he told the nurse, got unsteadily to his feet, and walked out into the hall.

Toly offered one of the cups, the heat seeping through the paper immediately comforting against his palm, and gestured down the hall with the other, where Walsh and Devin waited in an alcove.

---