Cut & Run (53 page)

“What do you care, anyway?” Ty asked him in slightly desperate whisper.

“I care about catching the guy who’s going around cutting people into such small chunks you could make Hamburger Helper with them!” Henninger retorted. “I’d care about that more than I’d care about one man who I can barely stand to work with.”

Ty was still aware enough of his surroundings not to argue that point.

“Do you have your car?” he asked Henninger hoarsely without answering.

Henninger blinked at the sudden change in topic. “Yeah,” he answered warily.

“Can he ride?” Ty called out to the EMT inside the vehicle.

“If you can make him sign this release, he’s all yours,” the woman yelled back.

Ty cringed and looked back at Henninger. “Go get your car,” he told the kid softly. “We’re getting him the hell out of here,” he muttered as he headed for the ambulance.

Before Ty could get there, Zane stepped down out of the truck, holding tightly to the grab bar as the paramedic held the clipboard and the signed release form up behind him for Ty to see. Zane’s glazed eyes were blazing with anger, and he was trembling from the pain and the drugs. “You Cut & Run | 323

goddamn piece of shit,” he said thickly, obviously trying to throw off the effects of the sedative.

“I know,” Ty agreed unapologetically as he reached out to support Zane. How the man was walking, he didn’t know.

Zane was wobbly and weak, and he hated that he felt like he was moving through water and seeing through a haze. A red haze, but still a haze.

He had to lean heavily on Ty when the other man slipped under his good arm.

He thought about cussing some more, but all that came out was a hiss of pain, and his knees tried to give out on him. “Bitch gave me a shot, goddammit,” he muttered mostly to himself. “I am so fucked.”

“I know,” Ty repeated as he tried to support him without hurting him or himself. “You’re gonna be just fine,” he promised. “Henninger’s got cigarettes for you,” he said as if in consolation as he nodded at the kid.

Henninger watched them with wide, confused eyes before nodding quickly and fishing for his keys. “In the car,” he told Zane agreeably.

Zane grimaced. “Why does everything hurt when just one side got banged up? And why did it have to be my gun arm?” he half-whined as Ty got him walking, albeit unsteadily, to follow Henninger, who took off ahead to get his car and move it closer.

“I used all your ammo anyway,” Ty grumbled. “And then threw your gun at a car. Have fun filling out
that
paperwork.”

Zane managed to clear through the haze enough to look at Ty as they struggled through the crowd. “Are you hurt?” he asked.

“If I say yes, will it make you not mad at me?” Ty asked almost teasingly, his voice slightly strained under the bigger man’s weight.

“No,” Zane bit out. He went quiet as they walked several steps. “I asked you to get out of the car.”

“Must not have heard you,” Ty murmured in response.

“I begged you,” Zane said weakly, but his hand tightened on Ty’s arm. “Bastard.”

“I know,” Ty repeated softly, looking around at the various pods of people being tended to and interviewed as they made their way practically unnoticed through them, following Henninger toward the concrete barrier.

Henninger pulled up nearly in front of them as they broke free of the perimeter of the wreck site on the other side of the closed-off highway, and Ty groaned as he looked at the two-foot-high concrete median wall.

324 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

Henninger hopped out and stood on the other side indecisively, unsure of how to help.

Zane focused on the wall and sighed. “Shit. It’s never easy, is it?”

Taking a deep breath, he blinked hard and lifted his weight off Ty to stand up straight. By force of will he walked the two steps to the barrier and stepped over it. Both Ty and Henninger had their hands out around him, hovering protectively and looking like parents watching their firstborn take a step. Zane couldn’t help but chuckle at the two of them as he took the three more steps to the car and sagged against it. “Okay, I’m done,” he whispered as the pain from his whole right side echoed through him.

Ty hopped the barrier behind him as Henninger opened the back door for him. “Where to?” Henninger asked worriedly as Ty helped Zane into the back.

“I don’t care,” Ty answered in a low growl. “Somewhere safe.”

Zane sagged back against the seat and closed his eyes, holding his arm close against his chest protectively. His jacket sleeve hung loose over the sling, sliced in several long pieces.

Nodding, the young agent pulled into traffic and got them moving.

“You’re going to need help, Grady. Should I call Sears and Ross?”

“No,” Ty grunted in answer. “
You’re
gonna help me,” he said in a low, even voice.

“Me?” Henninger bleated, looking into the mirror again. “I don’t have field experience. Sears and Ross would be a lot more help since Garrett can’t—” Ty was glaring at him in the rearview mirror, and he trailed off and cleared his throat. “All I’m saying is we need backup,” he continued quietly.

“You don’t think your presence in New York is going to be all over the Bureau now that this shit has gone down?”

Ty rubbed his eyes and looked out the window, then back at Zane once more. He had laid his head against Ty’s shoulder and wasn’t moving at all, and Ty thought he might have passed out. “Call ’em,” he grunted softly.

Henninger nodded. “What are you going to do with Garrett?”

“I don’t fucking know!” Ty answered in frustration as he fought with the decisions. “Any suggestions?”

Henninger looked at him hesitantly. “Could take him to my place,” he offered. Ty frowned at him, nodding. Zane trusted Henninger, and for the most part, so did Ty. They could leave Zane at his place with a guard detail Cut & Run | 325

and then they would go after the fucker. There was a hot trail to follow, and part of Ty resented the fact that he was in this car with his injured partner rather than on that trail right now.

“It’s secure,” Henninger assured him. “Key card to get in, that kind of thing.”

“Take us there,” Ty ordered as he pulled his mind off the man who had gone slack against him and back on the man who had once again almost killed them both.

A thirty-minute drive through thick traffic later, Henninger parked the car in the garage under his building and turned to look at them. “How are we getting him upstairs?”

“How far is it?” Ty inquired as he took stock of his own injuries. He had failed to mention the possible cracked rib or sprained wrist to the EMT, and his chest was killing him where the seat belt had cut into him. But he could carry Zane if he had to.

“About forty feet to the elevator, then another fifty to the apartment,”

Henninger said, looking unsure. “Could be more.”

Ty groaned and shook his head. He wouldn’t make it that far, and there was no way he’d risk dropping Zane and causing further injury.

“Garrett,” he murmured in Zane’s ear. “Wake up, man. We need you to walk.”

Zane stirred. “I’m awake,” he mumbled. “We there?”

“Yes,” Ty answered with a flood of relief. He hadn’t relished the idea of dragging Zane’s heavy frame through the building. “Come on,” he murmured with a pat to Zane’s head, fighting back the urge to make a gesture more intimate in front of Henninger.

The bigger man groaned and sat up. “I feel like I got hit by a truck, and it’s all your fault,” he accused weakly.

“I know, it’s all my fault,” Ty murmured agreeably as he slid out the back of the car and pulled Zane carefully with him. “Technically, you should be feeling really good,” he corrected.

“Too much pain negates the effects of happy juice,” Zane croaked as Ty got him out of the car. “Too much abuse negates the body’s reaction,” he added, all too familiar with the medical reasoning. He leaned on the door.

“Where to?” he asked tiredly. His face was gray, and his shoulders hunched as he cradled his arm and babied his ribs.

326 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

“Elevator,” Henninger said. “Come on. When we get upstairs, I’ll call Ross and Sears, fill them in.”

“What for?” Zane asked, voice sharpening in surprise.

“Backup,” Ty answered in almost a whisper as he slid under Zane’s good arm and urged him to walk before he fell over.

“What for?” Zane repeated as they made their way to the elevator. He wasn’t leaning on Ty as much, but he was still dizzy and wobbly.

“They’re going to babysit you,” Henninger offered.

Zane stopped dead in his tracks. “What!?” he barked.

Ty winced and tightened his hold. “Thank you, Henninger,” he snapped in annoyance. “Garrett, come on before you fall over.”

“This conversation is
not
over,” Zane growled as he got to walking again.

Henninger got to the elevator first and hit the up button. “Come on, Garrett, be realistic. You can’t go out in the field in this condition. You’re dead weight now,” he observed clinically.

Ty winced again at the delivery of the logic, but he knew it was true.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to Zane. “It’s this or the hospital, either way with a guard detail. You ain’t going back in the field,” he declared with finality.

Zane didn’t answer as they got into the elevator, and he didn’t say anything the rest of the way to the apartment. His face was strained and white as they went inside.

Henninger pointed them toward the bedroom. “This is a restored building from the turn of the century, so the doorways are wide; that ought to help,” he said. “I love the architecture.”

Ty nodded disinterestedly.

“The parking garage was the best perk,” Henninger rambled on. “Not many buildings like this have them. And they even kept the original tunnels below the building intact for storage units. Nobody uses them, though. They used to be—”

“Fascinating,” Ty grunted as he guided Zane toward the bedroom.

The bed was made neatly, with an almost military precision that even a Marine could appreciate. The room, like the rest of the apartment, was uncluttered, almost Spartan in its simplicity. Somehow, it didn’t fit the image he had of Henninger. “Garrett?” he breathed as he helped him to the bed.

Cut & Run | 327

Lowering himself to the edge of the bed, Zane looked up slowly, not at Ty, but at the other agent. Henninger took a step back. “Uh. I’ll go call the others and get them over here,” he said before disappearing.

Left alone with Zane, Ty was silent, waiting for either the blowup or—what he feared worse—complete silence. And that was what he got as Zane dropped his chin and stared at the floor. He raised his hand to rub his eyes. He looked like he was ready to fall over. Ty swallowed heavily and put a hand to Zane’s forehead. “Why don’t you lay back?” he said softly, his tone resigned.

Zane reached up to take Ty’s wrist in a firm grip and pull his hand away, but he didn’t let go. Ty was still, holding his breath as he waited.

Slowly, Zane looked up at him. His dark eyes watered with pain and emotion.

“We can still cut and run,” he whispered.

Ty’s chest tightened, and his insides seemed to lurch with the words.

He nodded as he let his fingers curl over, trying to touch the hand that still gripped his wrist. “We will. But I need revenge first,” he said softly.

Zane’s brow furrowed as he loosened his fingers. “What for?” he asked quietly.

“You,” Ty answered simply.

Zane exhaled painfully, and he tugged gently at Ty’s hand, trying to get him to lean over. Ty moved with the tug and licked his lips nervously.

Zane merely looked him in the eye as he got closer. “You come back, you understand?” he rasped intently. “If I have to come after you there will be absolute hell to pay.”

Ty closed his eyes and butted his head against Zane’s forehead.

“What could go wrong, hmm?” he asked softly, a small smile playing at his lips. “I’ve got the kid with me, we don’t know where we’re going, who we’re after, or what we’ll do when we find him.… It’s foolproof.”

Zane’s fingers gripped Ty’s chin, and he moved to kiss Ty desperately, palm sliding down to cup the nape of Ty’s neck as their lips moved against one another. Ty breathed out heavily into the kiss, almost losing his resolve not to do exactly what Zane had suggested: cut and run.

Leave this all behind and just get the two of them to safety. He slid his hand across Zane’s cheek and kissed him as if it were the last time.

All the pain and fear and upset and desire balled up in Zane’s gut, and his breath stopped as he gripped his lover’s shoulder. “Come back to me.”

“I will,” Ty assured him softly. From the outer room they heard the 328 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

obvious crackle of a radio and Henninger’s muffled response. Ty pulled away and looked down into Zane’s eyes. He slipped him his backup sidearm.

“Anyone comes too close, you blast ’em,” he murmured. “Badge or not,” he added pointedly, his voice so low it was a whisper.

Letting out a shaky breath, Zane took the gun in his left hand, then slid it with a wince into his sling. “Yeah,” he agreed, eyes trained on Ty.

Ty stood up and slid a plastic prescription bottle out of his back pocket, setting it by Zane’s side. The other agent blinked at it. “What’s this?”

he asked suspiciously.

“Pills I took from the EMT,” Ty murmured. “Should get you through.” Zane looked at the bottle and then at Ty. He nodded slowly. Ty began backing away from the bed slowly. “See you soon,” he whispered before turning and exiting the room quickly.

Zane drew a breath to speak, but Ty was gone, and Zane didn’t have the strength or ability to chase after him. He slowly lay down on his good side, head resting on a thin pillow. The words he’d wanted to say were stuck in his throat, and he squeezed his eyes shut tight, tiny drops sparkling in his eyelashes.

IN the front room, Henninger turned as Ty reentered. “Got him settled?”

“Settled as he’s gonna be, anyway,” Ty mumbled as he rubbed a spot of tension at the back of his neck.

“I just got a call from a friend in the NYPD,” Henninger told him excitedly. “They located the cab that was used.”