Miguel comes back with antiseptic and gauze. "Hold still." He cuts my sleeve open without asking. "What happened?"
"Hallway. Someone with a rifle and bad aim."
"Or good aim and you got lucky." He cleans the wound. The antiseptic bites, sharp and chemical. "Through and through, caught the meat. Two inches in any direction and we're having a different conversation."
"I know."
He wraps the gauze tight, tapes it. My fingers are tingling from the constriction, and that's fine. Better than leaking.
"Nitro's stabilized," he says, packing his kit. "Two cracked ribs, bruised left lung. Conscious and talking, which means he's fine enough to be annoying. He told Xander to stop hovering. Xander told him to stop breathing so hard."
"And Vega?"
"Thigh's deep but clean. Getting stitched in the van. Park lost some mobility in his right forearm, needs imaging when we're back." He pauses, snapping his bag shut. "Everyone's walking out of here, Blade. That's a good night."
It is. But I won't believe it fully until I see Jax on his feet with his own weight under him.
In my ear, Kade: "Medical status?"
"Patched. Arm graze. I'm good."
A pause. "You hesitated before answering."
"I was getting taped up, Ghost. Hard to key comms when a man's wrapping your arm."
"Mm." Which is Kade forI'll decide if you're fine when I see you.
I take the stairs down and step outside. Night air hits my lungs like cold water after the holding room. I breathe it in, diesel and wet asphalt and distance from what's upstairs, andmy body starts filing its complaints now that the room isn't demanding I ignore them. Left arm throbbing under Miguel's tape. Vest heavy across my shoulders, thirty pounds of plate carrier I stopped noticing three hours ago and am noticing now. Knees stiff from kneeling on concrete. The chemical-sweet smell of that room still caught in my sinuses like it's planning to stay.
"You're not going to believe this."
Xander's voice from the parking area, caught between laughing and disbelief.
Walsh.
He didn't get free from the zip ties. He got free with thechair. The chair was on wheels. He somehow rolled himself through the second-floor hallway, into the freight elevator, and out to the parking lot, still zip-tied to the armrests, expensive Italian shoes scuffing against concrete as he tried to push himself along.
Made it maybe fifty feet before a wheel caught a pothole.
Facedown on asphalt with the chair on its side, arms still bound, suit torn at both shoulders.
Xander standing over him with his arms crossed, looking at me as I approach. "Fifty feet. I'm almost impressed. You think he practiced?"
"With what? His Peloton?"
"See, that's what I'm saying. Upper body strength like that, he's been training. This was premeditated chair escape." Xander nudges the toppled chair with his boot. "Do you think the FBI will charge him with fleeing the scene? Because technically..."
"I know people." Walsh's voice, muffled by concrete. "Do you understand me? I know people. This is a misunderstanding, I have connections at the highest..."
The girls in that room couldn't make it to the door. He made it fifty feet.
I walk over. Crouch beside his head. He's still talking, something about lawyers, something about diplomatic contacts, and I drive my knee into his kidney.
Walsh crumples. The sound that comes out of him is high-pitched and wet, all the self-importance knocked loose in one compressed exhale.
That's for the chains.
"Hey." Xander, quiet now, not joking. "You good?"