Cut & Run (Cut & Run #1)(23)
Author: Abigail Roux

Zane was less fortunate. He only had time to turn his back and take half a step away, cursing a blue streak as glass, plastic, and heated air whooshed toward him to slam into his back, debris cutting through his jacket, shirt, and skin.

The heat made him stumble forward, and he fell roughly to his knees into the glass and metal shards that littered the floor as pain seared through him.

The computer—or what was left of it—sizzled angrily in the alcove.

There were no sprinklers in the stacks to put out the small fire the explosion caused. In the hallway there was shouting and running feet; agents coming to investigate and give aid.

Zane groaned and reached up to touch the back of his neck. It felt like it had been cut to pieces, and that feeling was pretty much confirmed as his hand came away bloody. “Goddammit,” he hissed. At least he still had on his thick canvas jacket. It had probably saved him from being seriously sliced up.

The crunch of heavy feet on glass warned Zane that someone was walking up behind him, slowly and calmly through the chaos.

“You touch my back and I will beat the f**king hell out of you,” Zane growled to whoever it was. He could feel the glass moving with his jacket, some of it through the canvas and into him. Ouch. Ouch.

“Don’t move,” Ty murmured in his ear as a gentle hand came to rest on the back of Zane’s head.

Zane hissed at even that light touch. The exposed skin was inlaid with glass fragments and starting to well with blood that trailed in rivulets down into his collar.

“What the hell happened?” Ty asked as more footsteps pounded on the concrete floor. “Call an ambulance!” he barked at the first men who came in. They scrambled to do so.

“Computer blew the f**k up. Where’s Henninger? He was sitting here….” Zane tried to push off his hands to sit back on his heels.

“I said don’t f**king move,” Ty hissed angrily as he held Zane down and looked around. “Kid’s moving; he’s all right.”

Trying to stay in one spot, Zane set his hand back down on the floor littered with debris. “Monitor was dark when we came in,” he said. “The others had screensavers.” He flinched as he felt the blood run from the back of his neck over and around to drip down the curve of his throat.

Ty frowned as he listened, reaching down and plucking bits of glass out of Zane’s jacket. “No way whoever set it could have known when it’d be used,” he answered, picking bits of glass out of the jacket like a chimp grooming its mate. “We need to move.”

Zane winced as Ty freed a particularly jagged chunk of glass. “You think someone did this on purpose?”

“No, I think everyone likes to randomly blow shit up,” Ty answered sarcastically. “Where else are you hurt? Anything internal?”

“Where else? You don’t see enough?” Zane asked sharply. He took a slow, deep breath despite the prickling pain. “Nothing inside. My neck. Feels like I’ve been hit with needles all over my back and down my legs, too. I’m bleeding under the jacket.” He could feel the warm ooze spreading and wending down to his waistline.

“Oh, yeah?” Ty asked as he lifted the jacket gently and peered under it. The jacket itself was ruined, but it looked like a lot of the smaller pieces had been stuck in it. It was just the large, mean pieces that had made it into skin. “You’ll live,” he declared in a careless voice.

Zane’s language degenerated as he muttered to himself. “Damn it, I want a cigarette.”

“Shit’ll kill you,” Ty chastised, trying to keep the concern out of his voice as he bent to help Zane to his feet.

Zane grimaced as his muscles flexed instinctively and pain shot through him. He hissed as an agent scooted past, jostling him and making him arch his back to keep his balance.

“Come on,” Ty muttered as he reached under Zane’s arms to lift him.

He had assured himself that no arteries had been nicked, and now he wanted to get the hell out of there.

Zane climbed awkwardly to his feet, trying not to shift too quickly.

Once he stood, a good amount of the glass and plastic dropped to the floor, leaving only the pieces that were embedded too deeply to fall out. He kept his head bowed. Straightening his neck felt like it pushed the tiny glass bits in deeper.

“There,” Ty said with a pleased smile as he plucked one last larger glass fragment out of the back of Zane’s neck. “Walk it off, man,” he suggested with a smirk as he began leading him by the elbow out of the chaos of the stacks and toward the hallway.

“Bastard,” Zane hissed. He admitted, silently, that this was practically nothing compared to the last time he’d been caught by an explosion. It was just the shock of it happening that had thrown him. And it hurt like a bitch.

“You’d probably say that if I lost a leg.”

“Nah,” Ty scoffed as they got out into the hall. He looked left and right, then moved Zane to the far wall, out of the way of the people scurrying by, and stepped behind him, running his fingers gently through the back of his partner’s hair and removing loose glass pieces. “I’d probably say hop it off,”

he corrected with a barely restrained snicker.

Zane didn’t even try to hold back the snort, his eyes fluttering shut as he felt Ty’s fingers brush his scalp gently. “That’s a good one,” he admitted wryly, moving his arm and dripping blood onto the carpet.

“Quit it,” Ty chastised with another brush through Zane’s hair and another glass shard removed. “You wanna wait for the EMT crew to get here?” he asked. “Or do you want me back at the hotel with a pair of tweezers and some peroxide so we can avoid the possibility of being yanked off this case?”

“Throw in a shower with the last bit and you’ve got a deal. I hate EMTs. ‘Breathe evenly, Special Agent Garrett.’ ‘Don’t move, Special Agent Garrett.’ ‘Don’t worry, Special Agent Garrett, it only feels like we’re removing your arm with a dull hacksaw.’”

“Shake a leg then, Special Agent Garrett, before they see you covered in blood and detain you,” Ty said as he took Zane’s elbow and began pulling him down the hallway toward the elevator. The sentiment gave Zane enough motivation to move, despite the painful prickling and sharp jabs, and they made it before any medical personnel made an appearance on the scene. As the elevator doors closed, Zane set his hand against the wall to lean against it and hissed instead, jerking back his hand to pick at a piece of twisted plastic embedded in his palm.