Page 135 of Single Teddy
“I can feel it. It’s still in there. I think I can get it out. Scissors?”
Maria handed him the scissors, and Azrael cut Teddy’s shirt. Seeing the blood smeared all over his front, I’d had enough. I tapped out and turned my back on Teddy. I’d never been good with blood. Or death. I couldn’t watch.
Autumn, on the other hand, looked captivated.
I looked around the bar and tried to breathe. Tried to blink. Tried not to think.
What if he didn’t make it?
My eyes burned again, but this time, the tears didn’t hesitate to run. No amount of self-control or thought exercises could stop them. So I withdrew to the restroom and splashed my face with cold water until I felt human again before I rejoined the others.
Everything was blurry, making me squint constantly to try and see more clearly, as if squinting could fix short-sightedness. All it did was give me a splitting headache. The quiet though? The quiet was undeniable. A bar that was meant to be lively and cheerful was somber and quiet. The only source of noise was Azrael and Maria talking to each other and Joey’s voice from the kitchen as he cooked for the kids and kept them distracted.
This was all on me. My fault. My stupidity. I’d caused this. Barnes and me together.
“This was too easy,” I heard Wyatt mutter.
He was standing next to Donovan and Slade as they all watched Teddy being tended to.
“I know,” Donovan agreed.
“Easy?” I croaked.
I had to clear my throat before I spoke again.
“That was easy? What the hell are you talking about? Teddy has been shot. The kids have been traumatized for life. What about this was easy?”
All three looked at me like I was an alien.
“What? You don’t like the truth?” I shouted.
Wyatt took a step forward and put his hands in front of him as if to calm me, but it only made me angrier.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said in a quiet, calm tone.
“Then whatdid youmean?”
I knew I was being erratic, yet I didn’t care.
“I was talking about Barnes and the trap they set for us,” he said.
“Wh-wha trap?” I took a step forward and narrowed my eyes as if that would make me look more menacing or serious.
“The two boathouses,” he started, and my breath caught at the memory of the explosion I’d thought had claimed their lives.
“Oh, that trap. How did you know about that anyway?”
“There was intel. In the phone you cloned,” Slade said and straightened up. “First, we got the wrong location on the Android. Then came the right location on GhostLink. But we still didn’t know which was right and which was wrong, so we went to both.”
“The first location was rigged with explosives, but Joey deactivated them,” Wyatt said.
“He’s good at that,” Donovan added.
“When we scoped it out, we found an obscene stash of drugs inside,” Wyatt said.
“Actually, it was powdered sugar,” Donovan noted.
Wyatt nodded.
