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So gently I barely feel it. But it’s fucking insistent, fucking annoying, too, like a fly, and I finally surface to swat it away, mumbling a curse.
“Wakey, wakey,” a man’s voice says in my face, and I flinch back so hard I fall sideways on the seat, my heart hammering so hard against my ribs it threatens to break out.
“The fuck,” I breathe, close to panic, and claw at the leather.
The leather car seat. White leather, soft under my hand, and I’m in a car, and… Where the hell am I?
“Hawk. Get your ass out here,” the voice from before goes on, and it clicks, because I know it.
Rook. The third wheel of our little brotherhood.
Fuck.
“Roderick ‘Rook’ Carter,” I mutter, annoyed—mostly at myself and my little freak-out, that’s sure to get—
“Move back, Rook, goddammit. What do you think you’re doing? Didn’t I tell you to be careful with him?”
—Storm’s panties in a twist.
“I only patted his fucking shoulder,” Rook rumbles, unruffled. “Cool your jets.”
“You shouldn’t—”
“Nothing happened,” I croak, cutting them off and getting pissed because I’m so stiff I can barely move, and fuck, this is so uncool after all that’s gone down. “Lay off his back, Stormy boy.”
How can I ask for help without ruining my pride? Serious macho problems here, guys. While the boys continue their verbal sparring, I maneuver myself gingerly toward the open car door.
And freeze. “Layla? Where is she? Storm, where the fuck is Layla?”
Did I dream everything? Wasn’t she with me? Did something happen to her? Is she—?
“I’m right here,” she says, shouldering somehow my hulking friends aside and leaning into the car. “Give me your hand.”
Fuck, I was doing it again, about to go into full-blown panic. Jesus Christ.
I give her my hand, not sure what she wants to do with it and not caring—I’d give her anything she wants, I’m so relieved to see her.
She grips my hand in her tiny one and tugs. Trying to help me out. It makes me smile, and ow, my split lip opens again, and warm blood trickles down my chin and into my beard.
Bracing my other hand on the car door, I heave myself out by degrees, gritting my teeth against the pain of deeply bruised muscles gone cold and stiff.
The moment I’m out, Storm grabs my arm, slings it over his shoulders and marches me toward his chopper, Layla hanging on to my other side.
Oh good, I think vaguely as the world dips and darkens in my eyes, and my hurt leg folds under me, my knee giving out. I know where we’re going.
Good choice, Stormy boy.
***
We’re flying.
That’s my first thought as I resurface, recognizing the vibration and noise of the engine and helices. In Storm’s chopper.
Toward his newest and as yet secret acquisition.
Good choice.
Hey, I’ve had this same thought before. That was right before I—
