Page 64 of Deceive Me
Fionn tried to pass, but Sheppard fluttered her hand out, almost touching him before drawing back. “Oh, Trapper isn’t in his room. He’s in the cafeteria. It’s Edward’s birthday—you know, cake and stuff. Balloons.” A pause. “You can catch up with him there.”
An unpleasant tingle tripped up Deacon’s spine. “Sheppard, are you sure you’re all right?”
“Oh. Yeah.” Again with the hand waving, such a typical Sheppard gesture. “Just…stuff.” She drew a deep breath. “I think I’ll join you. I hear the cake’s chocolate.” She cut between them to walk back the way they’d come, toward the cafeteria at the other side of the building. With a roll of his eyes, Fionn followed.
Weird. But then Sheppard strayed pretty far from the center of the normal spectrum.
She was also in a hurry. Her short legs had carried her halfway down the hall. As he came alongside him, Deacon noticed Fionn’s attention wasn’t on the floor or the hall ahead; it was centered on the slim lines of Sheppard’s back. He’d have to remember to rag him about that when they had some privac—
The world exploded around them.
One minute he was midstep, looking forward to giving Fionn as good as he normally got, and the next he was slammed onto his face, the sting of a thousand tiny pieces of shrapnel hitting his back. His ears went hollow like someone had pulled their plug and taken the power with it. His eyes clamped closed at the pain of impact, then blinked open to the tan uniformity of utilitarian carpet and something gray. Wispy.
He blinked.
Smoke? Dust?
Shit. A bomb.
Alarms began to sound. That, he could hear; apparently his ears had juice after all, but now he wished they didn’t. Shouts and running registered. Fionn…where was Fionn? Deacon told himself to turn his head, to find Fionn—and Sheppard! God, Sheppard had been with them. It seemed to take forever for the command to leave his brain and travel the relatively short distance to his neck, but it eventually happened, and then he saw Fionn, prone, unmoving.
The shock jolted him to his hands and knees. “Fionn?”
Fionn rolled slowly, carefully to his side. “Could you please not be talking s’loud? I think someone mistook my skull for the home of the Liberty Bell.”
A sharp laugh escaped, mostly from relief. “You can joke. You’re okay.”
“I’m wrecked!” Fionn groaned. “Just a concussion and a stab wound and stitches and… Shit!” He jerked up, a move that had his eyes rolling back in his head. “Where’s Sheppard?”
Farther along the corridor, huddled against the wall, lay a rag-doll bundle of color. Deacon crawled toward it. Sheppard had been thrown against the drywall, her body leaving a huge dent. She lay facedown, but it was Fionn who got to her first, Fionn who ran his hands over her small body. Fionn who gently rolled her over. “Deac?”
“I got it.” He forced his resisting legs to gather under him, push his body upright. Calling for security, he stumbled down the hall, damning the fact that he had no radio or earbud to call medical, get them on the scene fast.
“Mr. Walsh!” One of the security guards from the door—Deacon knew him, George or Greg or… He flagged the man down.
“Get a doc here asap. We’ve got a woman unconscious.”
The guard nodded and turned back toward the building entrance, radio already in hand. His partner passed him, coming toward Deacon, radio at his ear. “Can you pinpoint the blast?” he asked Deacon.
“Down near the long-term medical wing.” Trapper’s wing. A few more seconds and…
That unpleasant tingle returned, snaking up the back of his neck.
“Call the cafeteria and have them get a head count,” he suggested.
“Will do.” A quick relay through the radio. “I think most of the building is over there. I’m not sure who might’ve still been in their rooms or offices.”
“Pray there aren’t any,” Deacon said, voice rough from the smoke and dust and the heavy dread settling on him. “Radio the front office right now and make sure my daughter and her guards are in place. Have every building swept for bombs.” When the guard hesitated, Deacon growled at him. The radio returned to the man’s mouth the next instant.
Deacon waited until he heard directly from Dain that Sydney was safe, then returned to Fionn and Sheppard. His friend continued to hover over the girl on his hands and knees. Deacon thought he heard a soft crooning sound, and then Fionn looked up and the sound cut off. “Well?”
“They’re on their way, I promise. How is sh—”
Sheppard turned her head. “Fionn, what…?”
“Shh.” He eased the broken glasses from Sheppard’s nose, then cupped her head carefully. “You need to be still now, Bat Girl. We’re no’ too sure what all’s going on with you yet.”
“Hate that,” she murmured, eyes closed.
