Page 25 of For Rage

"What the hell is wrong with you, Cross?" Derik said.

Morgan shot him a look. "What? I caught him."

"And you got shot," Derik said. "We're supposed to be working as a team, remember? Here you are, running off alone again."

She bit her tongue. What was she supposed to say? She was determined to catch this guy, and after ten years alone in a cell, surrounded only by other inmates, maybe she had lost a lot of her team spirit. It didn’t feel as natural to work alongside Derik now, not like it had before.

Derik sighed, clearly still frustrated with her. "You should have waited for backup. You could have been killed."

Morgan turned away. "But I wasn't."

"That's not the point," Derik argued. "You can't just go charging in without thinking about the consequences."

Morgan gritted her teeth. She didn't want to argue with him, not now, even though it pissed her off that he kept lecturing her, as if she were a rookie and not a seasoned, forty-year-old agent. Still, her leg was throbbing, and she just wanted to get this guy dealt with.

“All right,” she said, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said, “just—let me help you, Morgan.”

Morgan nodded, biting her lip. She didn't like feeling weak in front of Derik, or anyone for that matter. But she couldn't deny that the pain was becoming unbearable. It was a relief when they finally made it to the ambulance waiting for them outside the maze. At the same time, she knew what this meant: she'd have to go get checked out instead of interrogating that bastard, and the thought made her skin crawl.

"C’mon,” Derik said, “you're getting in the ambulance, Cross. I can't have my partner injured."

Morgan gritted her teeth. It wasn’t about rejecting help now but saving time. She wanted to say no, but how could she when that pool of blood on her leg was only getting bigger? She probably needed stitches.

“I need to talk to him with you,” she said. “I can deal with the wound later.”

"I can interrogate him myself," Derik said. "I'm sure they can get you patched up within an hour, then we can be back in the field."

She sighed, hating the fact that he was right. Morgan had always been stubborn, but she felt it now, more than ever.

Still, she had to recognize when she was down for the count.

Morgan just nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

Derik helped her into the ambulance, and Morgan was glad to see that the paramedics didn't need to be told what to do. One of them began cutting off Morgan's pant leg.

"It's okay," the other one said, "you're a tough lady. We'll get this patched up."

"Thanks," Morgan mumbled. Despite the pain in her thigh, she felt a strong sense of relief.

Now, it would be Derik interrogating the suspect, and her leg would get a chance to heal.

Morgan closed her eyes, but her mind raced. She couldn't shake the feeling that she was missing something. Something important.

She had caught the suspect. That was the main thing. She didn't need to get any more than that, right? It was all she needed to be able to go head-to-head with the FBI. She didn't need that training to become the best. She was enough on her own.

No, she wasn't.

The truth was that Morgan missed the feeling of being a part of a team. She missed the feeling of trust and friendship, the feeling of having people she could rely on no matter what. She used to be more in line, more likely to trust and rely on others, but all of that had changed now. She'd thought she trusted Derik, but maybe some part of her did feel like she couldn't rely on him, that she was better off doing things on her own.

For now, she was stuck, forced to trust him. She just hoped he'd get the right information out of the suspect. He'd said something about being "given orders."

Given orders by who?

***

Derik faced off against the suspect in the interrogation room back at HQ. The man trembled, shaking like a leaf, his eyes looking everywhere but at Derik.

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