Page 5 of Fire and Ice

"Castle was hit."

Jack tensed at Derek's words. Phone calls at 1am were always bad news. Holding his breath, Jack asked, "Brett?"

"Brett is fine, not a scratch on him."

He frowned. Derek sounded pissed-off.

"Any casualties from the Guardians?"Was Maia okay?was what Jack really wanted to know.

"Nothing major: broken leg, concussion, GSW. We better get there soon before Maia throttles that brother of yours."

"What happened?"

"I don't have all the details. Brett bolted, got himself in trouble. Maia took two bullets trying to shield him."

Christ! I'd strangle that brother of mine, myself, Jack thought angrily.

"I should be on the helipad of your building in ten," Derek said and disconnected.

There wasn't much left of Castle. The front was blown out and so was the side and back of the house. No cops were present. The place was crawling with AGS agents. Under the radar! Twelve bodies were lined up in front of the house.

"Jesus Christ," Jack muttered. "Brett's lucky."

Derek grunted in agreement.

A woman with glorious wild red hair was railing at Brett whose head was hung, face red with embarrassment.

"Seriously, I would shoot you myself, you pull a stunt like that again! I told you to stay down, not go tearing into the kitchen. You could have distracted Danner and gotten him killed!" Maia yelled.

"Maia we need to look at your leg and any injuries under the vest," an AGS paramedic said.

"I'm okay!"

She whirled around her, blue eyes blazing, her hair a flaming mass gleaming against the residual fires around the house.She looked magnificent, Jack thought. She caught his eye and stalked towards him and Derek.

"Agent Pierce, you've had quite a night," Jack said lightly.

"You need to knock some sense into that brother of yours," Maia told him, still pissed before giving a chin lift to Derek. "Derek."

"Sweetie, go get yourself checked out," Derek said quietly.

Maia huffed and followed the paramedic to the medical van.

Brett walked up to them. Before Jack could lay in to him, his brother said. "I think I'm in love. Man, you should have seen her move. She took down four hostiles in a span of minutes ... seconds even. She's got quite a temper though. All that red hair."

"Maia is all that," Derek said knowingly.

"I dunno what to say, Brett, except ... What. The. Fuck?" Jack growled furiously.

"Hey, not everyone can be like you. I panicked. Gunfire and explosions everywhere ... couldn't see a damn thing. At all. The clearest path was to the kitchen, so I took it."

Jack counted to ten. The desire to drop his brother off in the middle of the Amazon so he would learn a few survival skills was proving a powerful temptation. And to have a woman, who was probably half his weight, repeatedly saving his ass was an affront to the McCord pride.

"I'm surprised none of the Guardians went down, outnumbered as they are. Not to mention facing a hellfire of RPGs," Jack told Derek. "AGS sure knows their shit."

"The emergency response team arrived before it got really dire," Brett added. "When Maia took that second shot to the chest, I thought it was game over, but she threw a knife at the shooter and took him down."

"How did she get shot at the leg?" Derek asked

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