Page 18 of Running Scared
“Okay, I’ve got that.What are you doing?”
“I’m getting the cat into the carrier,” Dean said, keeping all the trepidation he could out of his voice.
Marcus stared at him.“Have you ever—and I mean ever—done anything like that before?”
Dean grimaced.“My, uhm, siblings always helped Mom out when it was time to do it at our house.I understand it can be quite… unpleasant.”
Marcus nodded.“I, uhm, imagine.Where’s the cat?”
“In the bedroom.I closed the door so he’s in a limited space.”
“Good planning.Here, let me get the first two bags, and hopefully you’ll be done by the time I’m back.”He gave a baffled smile.“Good luck?”
Dean nodded, thinking of the other calls he was going to have to make.He was definitely going to need it.
IF NOTHINGelse, the long dripping scratch along the inside of his arm looked like a reason for him to be in the ER.
He strode down the corridors, one of Bailey’s washcloths wrapped around the thing, and hoped Bailey and Mr.Bumble could forgive him.He’d been doing so well!He and Mr.Bumble had a rapport!Dean would rub his ears and scratch under his chin until Mr.Bumble flopped over onto his side in perfect bliss.Understanding boundaries himself, Dean had never trespassed to that perfect angel-soft fluff on his tummy—he understood that for the trap it was.
But fueled by desperation and the knowledge that he and Marcus had a limited time to sweep in, grab Bailey, and get out again before Vlade’s people started asking questions about the adorable doctor with the tired blue eyes who was so important in his life, Dean had trespassed those boundaries in a big way.
Mr.Bumble had not approved, but the scratch was worth it to get to the hospital in a timely manner.
Dean had to literally vacuum Bailey out of the area and shuttle him someplace outlandish quickly, and while this should have been a job for the US Marshals or even the Rangers, Dean just didn’t trust anybody else to do it.Bailey washis,and he had to be with people Dean trusted on a molecular level.
Besides, if Dean and Marcus did their jobs right, Bailey would never be a threat to Texas Bratva, and the Corazones de Sangre never needed to know his name.
Thanks to Vlade they’d been close to fingering the key players of Texas Bratva, and the ambassadors to Corazones.Sever the relations between the two groups and they shrink in on themselves like slugs, taking time to rebuild.That time was a tool for Dean and Marcus, and the disorganization caused by breaking off an alliance like that gave them an opportunity to quietly pick up as many key players as possible without triggering a turf war.
Yeah, the war against the cartels was a war of attrition, and Bratva was an awful parasite, sucking the country dry, but while there was no one head of the snake to chop off, whacking off a good three-quarters of the many-headed beast could give them some peace and chill out the drug trade for a good five years.Who knows—maybe there’d be time to fix what was wrong in the world in that time.
Dean and Marcus were ever optimistic, and that kind of dogged determination to fix the world one case at a time was what made them good—if highly feared by their peers—active agents.
“Where do you want me?”Marcus asked, breaking into Dean’s thoughts.
Dean had been studying his phone for the hospital schematics.The place wasn’t big, but there were always extra entrances and exits, and that’s what Dean needed now.
“South side,” Dean said.“Maternity entrance.We’ll be coming out there.”
Marcus grunted.“Because you won’t stick out thereat all.”
Dean scowled.“Please give me some credit, why don’t you.Besides, I’ll be with a doctor.I mean, adoctorin ahospital.How many times have we actually had a real one of those!”
Marcus gave a low chuckle under his breath, and Dean thought sourly that he was probably thinking about the time Dean had ended up stitching a suspect’s lacerations himself, because that particular gang had a habit of offing the doctors they forced to care for them.Marcus had been hiding in a supply closet with the real doctor, which was good because when their slimeball had reached for his gun and found his hand stitched to his chair, somebody had been needed to fix the damage.
That fucker would never use his hand again, because while Dean knew how to stitch up a basic cut, the guy had torn some nerves going for his gun, and those didn’t repair.
He’d been about to shoot an innocent woman for doing her job, and Dean didn’t have any regrets, but he and Marcus had one more story they managed to carefully screen from their superiors, because, well, they weren’t really sure how it would be received.
And nobody could deny it would be easier to get out of the hospital with a real doctor in tow instead of Dean in a lab coat and Marcus cradling a nonexistent gunshot wound.
“Fair,” Marcus said.He held up his phone and added, “I’ll be tracking you through the building.It’ll be fun.It’ll look like Pac-Man.Let me know if you need me.”
Dean made a sort of ambiguous growl in his throat, and Marcus raised his eyebrows in reply.
“The op I can handle,” Dean said with dignity.“I, uhm, don’t know how Bailey’s going to handle everything else.”
Marcus let out a breath.“Well, I’ve got an idea for how to get him to the middle of the Chihuahuan desert to meet your brother, but let’s hold that until we have to push him out of the plane.”
