“The gym!” she screamed, startling him. “Vincent, get someone in New York to the gym!”
He paled and pulled out his own satellite phone, making the call. She couldn’t bring herself to listen, wandering off to find the rest of the team. She was stuck in the damned Congo. She needed to do something or she would go mad with worry.
“Sawyer, I’m sure they’ll be okay,” Elijah said quickly as she got closer. “I’m positive. He had agents with him every second thanks to you.”
She nodded and wrapped her arms around his waist. He held her for a moment before pulling away. “Where’s Sombra? She need a healing? Do you?”
“Yeah, let’s find Zander.” She took a deep breath as Quinn appeared at her side. Sombra wandered around the group of them with the wolves trying to look her over. It was almost cute, but she couldn’t enjoy it, her heart filled with dread and worry over the gym. She just had to hope Vincent got on the phone with anyone to find out what happened.
“Hey, Jasper?” Elijah said on the comms. “You know where Zander is?”
No response.
“Jasper?” Sawyer asked this time.
“Fuck, yeah!” Jasper called, but not on the comms. “I need a medic!”
Sawyer’s heart dropped into her stomach. Zander was the medic. She took off running, finding Jasper near part of a destroyed building. His comms were in, but she wondered if they might have been malfunctioning. In front of him was a grinning Zander, holding his side, Jasper helping keep pressure on the wound.
“So, I got shot and hunkered down to try and heal it,” Zander mumbled, his speech slurred. “But pain and blood loss suck.”
“I’ve been here with him since shortly after it happened, trying to maintain pressure while he heals. But I think my comms set had a wire break or something. I’ve been trying to get someone since he went down.” Jasper’s voice was frantic but his hands were steady, trying to wipe blood from the wound for a moment for everyone to see. Unfortunately, more blood just gushed out, making Zander even more pale. Jasper went back to pressing the bandages down. Sawyer eyed the torn open medical bag, Zander’s.
“Shit!” Elijah snapped. “We need some help over here! Our medic is down!”
Sawyer ran a hand through her hair as she watched a soldier run to them. Glancing back down at Zander, she realized he was right. It was in his eyes. Here he was bleeding out, the team’s only healer, and they were lucky they had another healer with them. In this one case.
Vincent was next to her a moment later, hanging up the phone.
“Thompson is already all over it. There was a serious situation at the prison, which put everyone on high alert. They had already started moving people under protection to safer locations. One of Charlie’s protection detail on duty tonight is dead, but everyone else made it out of the gym.”
“I heard an explosion-”
“Gas, but no one was there anymore. They rushed Charlie and Liam to a safehouse. Thompson is sending out soldiers to check on all of your kids.”
“We got lucky,” she whispered. Vincent only nodded.
“We got lucky. He’s not there now, but he must have been standing there to make sure it went down. That the gym wouldn’t be there anymore.”
“So I would know he can get to anything I care about.”
“Exactly.” Vincent didn’t touch her, but she saw his hand reach out and saw the consideration of it. She grabbed his hand before he could get away.
“What else?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Thompson didn’t have much time to talk, and we’ve got a lot going on right here.”
“He knows about Missy,” she explained.
“I heard that. I heard all of it, Sawyer. Now, we need to tend to everyone.” Vincent kept hold of her hand as he turned to look down at the healer working on Zander. “Well?”
“He needs a hospital,” the healer replied. “The bullet. It’s in my way. I can’t get it to dislodge without him bleeding out faster than I can heal. He’s stable if I keep an eye on him, but he needs a team. Someone to remove the bullet and a few healers to repair the damage before he bleeds out. I’m just not strong enough.”
Sawyer felt like she couldn’t breathe as the night and everything that came from it caught up to her. Pulling her hand away from Vincent, she yanked her mask off, gasping for fresh air, even though it never inhibited her ability to breathe. She staggered away, shaken by talking to Axel and the gym being blown up. She hadn’t expected any of this. She knew Leonard would be a hard fight, but she hadn’t expected any of this.
Quinn grabbed her, holding her as she tried to collect herself.
And Zander was hurt while they were out in the Congo.
She could hear Vincent back on the phone with people, making the plans they needed to get Zander help. None of them included getting back to New York. She heard other cities mentioned, but none of them were her gym and the rest of her family.
“We’re going to get him,” Quinn promised in a hushed snarl. “We’re going to make him pay for every hurt, Sawyer.”
“Yes,” she growled back, anger flooding her next to the fear for her loved ones. “Yes, we are.”
It was only ten minutes later when a portal appeared and two Magi ran through it with a stretcher. They spoke in fast French, saying something about taking the wounded to Paris. She didn’t say anything. Sombra whined, but her injury wasn’t severe. She just didn’t like that it stung.
Vincent followed Zander and the two unknown Magi first, with Jasper close behind him. Sawyer looked at the IMAS guys and remembered this time they were going to be the ones staying behind and cleaning up the mess. She went after Elijah into the portal with all the animals behind her. Quinn went last, holding Kaar for the bird’s safety.
Now she was in a hospital and kept following the closest person, grabbing the back of Elijah’s shirt to make sure she didn’t lose him in the madhouse. Not that it was likely. He stood out thanks to how tall he was, and she wasn’t short herself. But it was comforting to have a hand on someone.
And thinking of how tall he was made her think of Zander, trying to make light of the fact he was slowly bleeding to death. Because of course the jackass couldn’t take anything seriously.
“In here,” Vincent ordered, holding a door open.
“I’m beginning to hate hospitals,” she mumbled. When she went inside, she frowned. “Where’s Jasper?”
“They need a transfusion to help pick Zander up faster, just in case. Did you know those two were a match?”
“No, but it makes sense.”
“Yeah, I never knew. Good to know, by the way, you know, in case of something like this.” Vincent pulled off his comms, the wires and ear piece, the tiny mic, tossing them down onto the floor and stepping on them. “We did everything right.”
“We did,” she agreed. And yet they still somehow had the feeling they lost. Zander had been shot and Axel had been in fucking New York, blowing up her gym, probably with the intention of killing Charlie.
“When Zander is stable, we’re getting back to it.”
“Good,” she hissed. “We’re doing the third raid, damn it.”
“I’m there,” Quinn growled in rage. “Let me know what to do and I’m there.”
“Wait a fucking minute!” Elijah snapped, jumping between the three of them. “Zander is in the fucking hospital. Even with healing, he’s going to need a few days!”
“We don’t have a few days to wait for him to get out of bed,” she reminded him, her fury ramping up at the idea they wait. Axel was out there, taking them on, hitting her safest place, and innocent people.
Waiting wasn’t an option.
“So we go to the next raid without a healer at all? One of our guys with telepathy?”
“Not like he ever uses the damned ability anyway!” Vincent screamed. “Or someone would have known he was shot and it wouldn’t have been so long before he got help!”
“We’re not-”
“No, Elijah, this time you’re outvoted. Three to one.”
“We’re down two members and you three are mad!” Elijah roared, pulling off his own ear piece and setting it on fire as he threw it away from him. “MAD!”
Sawyer glared at him. “I’m not letting Axel get away with this.”
“Fine, but rushing this more than we’ve already done is going to get someone killed.” He pointed a finger at her. “And you might be okay with it being you, but I’m not. And in the end, it probably won’t be you. It’ll be one of us. Hell, this time it was nearly Zander.” Elijah stomped out of the room as Sawyer reeled back, hitting a wall, her eyes wide.
She slid down the wall and hit the floor, sitting on her ass, feeling like she had nowhere else to be.
“He didn’t mean that,” Quinn said, rushing out of the room.
She leaned over, wrapping her arms around her head. She needed to get Axel. She had to. She wanted to wrap her hands around his goddamned throat like he’d once done to her and strangle him until the life fled his eyes.
She needed it.
She was so angry. Everything was that man’s fault. All of it. Her men, broken and bleeding. James, dead and gone from their lives. Charlie’s gym. Henry and Midnight.
Her peace of mind, something she felt like was never going to come back to her.
If they didn’t get him, he was going to get them. Didn’t Elijah see that? She wasn’t trying to get any of the guys hurt. She had never wanted that.
At some point, Vincent sat next to her. Their shoulders touched. She dared to look at him, only to see he looked like she felt. Haunted and upset. Enraged? Absolutely.
“We’ll send another team,” she whispered, hating herself for every word. She wanted to be the person going out there and hunting him down. “It’s the only way.”
Something flickered in Vincent’s eyes, a bit of life that hadn’t been there before. “Of course,” he agreed softly. “Elijah is right. We can’t go with Zander healing.”
“He’ll be back on his feet soon, though. We can go-”
“We’ll play it by ear.”
“We fucked up,” she murmured.
“No, but we were about to.” Vincent looked away from her. “We can’t just leave Zander here alone. We need him on the team. We can’t run off without him. We can't push.”
“He tried to hurt Charlie,” she reminded him.
“He’s hurt a lot of people, Sawyer, but we both know pushing on without thinking is exactly what he wants.”
She closed her eyes. She had been fine with the game until this moment. She had known it would get here. She hadn’t thought her own feelings would overcome her better logic, but she needed to kill him. She needed Axel gone from this world. “Then when Zander is up, we get back to it. We make the plan now-”
“We’ll see.”
She sighed as he shut down her idea to get back the moment Zander was awake.
And guilt began to settle in her. She needed to check on the redheaded nightmare.
Standing up, she didn’t tell Vincent where she was going. Knowing him, he would probably guess. She left the room and ignored the distant argument that had nurses and doctors avoiding one end of the hall. She knew the voices, but she had never heard them raised to each other like this. Elijah and Quinn were normally on the same page, all the time, no matter what.
As she went to find anyone who knew what was going on with Zander, she considered what she was trying to do. She had made herself so many promises at the beginning of this case. All of them to make sure it didn’t lead to people being hurt. She refused to lose anyone before the end of this. She had to be careful. That’s why she had set up Charlie and the gym with protection.
She had to not let Axel rattle her. That’s what he was doing. He was trying to shake her up with the best thing he could, going after those she loved and cared about.
In the end, he knew it was always the easiest way to get her to fall in line. Emotional blackmail.
She found the floor’s main station, several nurses wandering around it. She needed to refocus on what was important. She couldn’t let Axel break her and lead to stupidity. Silently, she thanked Elijah. She would need to apologize to him later.
“I’m looking for information on the IMPO Special Agent Zander Wade.”
“He’s in surgery, and a young man is lined up to give him blood as well. We won’t have any information for you for probably another hour. Maybe more.” The nurse smiled kindly at her. Sawyer enjoyed the French accent. It was different from what she normally heard, hard New Yorkers or Southerners. The French was soothing. “Is he a friend?”
“More than that,” she answered, stepping back. “He’s family.” She turned away, finding it hard to ignore the argument at the end of the hall. She walked to a point where she could actually see Quinn and Elijah, frustrated and angry with each other. Somewhere else, Zander was under and Jasper was by his side to help, like Zander had helped all of them at some point.
This is what the mission had done to the team. This is what she and Vincent had done to them. This was their plan, thanks to Missy, and this was a mess they had to clean up. This wasn’t Axel’s fault. Axel got out, and he played the game, but all of this was on her and Vincent. Axel went after Charlie because he needed something to distract her, since they had pushed so hard against him so quickly.
“Ma’am, why don’t you go have a seat?” a nurse asked her softly.
“I will, thank you,” she replied, nodding. She went back into the room where they would wheel Zander after surgery. Another hospital room. She was so tired of them. She could get why Zander wanted out of the IMPO. They were always in fucking hospital rooms.
“No news?” Vincent asked softly.
“None.” She sat down next to him and they waited together. By the look on his face, she figured he was in the same place she was.
This was their fault.
Then Vincent’s phone started to ring. She knew it was going to be more bad news. She just knew it.
21
Zander
Zander woke up to the beeping of the equipment he knew he was strapped to. Daylight came through the window, and he felt perfectly normal. He moved to sit up, realizing he wasn’t perfectly normal, but there wasn’t any pain either. Sluggish. He normally woke up easier than this, used to it after years of a regimented schedule and early mornings.
He looked around the room, seeing everyone sleeping, waiting on him. Except one.
“Hey,” Sawyer whispered, jumping up from her spot and moving to his side. “How are you?”
“Good. What’s the official word?”
“They got everything. Like Vincent’s injury a few weeks ago, you’ll be up and moving as soon as you want to be, with some bruising. They said you healed a lot of it on your own, and they didn’t have to do much to pull the bullet out and finish the job.” She smiled at him and he felt like it was just another good day. Hell, even a great day.
“Jasper?” he asked.
“Still asleep. He gave you blood last night.”
“Of course he did,” Zander said, chuckling. He carefully began to pull IVs from his elbow and wrist. Thankfully, most Magi were never down long enough to need anything more invasive, like a catheter. “What’s the plan?”
“You have a lot of questions. We don’t have one right now. We don’t know how you ended up hurt, so we’re going to address that first. Also, Axel was in New York while we were in the Congo and blew up the gym. No one was hurt, thankfully, but it…”
“It rattled you. What did you do, Sawyer?” He could see the pain and guilt there. The way her shoulders seemed to be weighed down.
“Elijah had to stop us from going to the third raid tomorrow night. Another team is taking our place.”
“You were considering…” He thought about that. “You were going to keep going without me, or maybe even Jasper?”
“Yeah, but it’s okay. We’re not going to. It’ll be fine. Another te
am is going to go in and do it and report back to us.”
“And Axel blew the gym up?” Zander felt like he couldn’t breathe for a moment. He liked the gym. He had so much fun there. He’d even considered asking Charlie for a job when he was out of the IMPO. That’s how much he had loved it. The kids were crazy and too good, thanks to her, but he had loved it. “But Charlie and everyone…they’re okay.”
“They’re fine. One of Charlie’s protection detail didn’t make it, but there’s evidence that he was taken out by Axel so Axel wouldn’t be stopped. And that’s not everything that happened last night.”
“Could the night get any worse?” He wasn’t really sure how there could be more.
“There was a riot and several hits carried out in the prison. Missy is dead. So is Talyn. Anyone who might have had a connection to the Ghosts before all of this, gone. Luckily, we’ve been keeping the ones we’ve captured recently under lock and key in different locations.” Sawyer groaned, rubbing her face. “Alfie and the rest of them are still secure. For how long, I don’t know, but it’s a shit show, Zander.”
“Sounds like it. I mean, he was going to strike back. We knew that, right?”
“I didn’t think he would hit us like this…not this fast, anyway.” She looked away from him and sighed. “It’s fine. This is just how the game is played. So yeah, Elijah stopped me and Vincent from doing anything stupid like leaving for the raid without you. He even argued with Quinn all night over it.”
He reached out for her, taking her hand and squeezing. “We all have moments where someone else needs to knock us around to pull our heads out of our asses.” He knew from experience.
And it got the reaction he wanted. She began to laugh, soft and weak, but a laugh nonetheless. She looked at him again, snorted and began to laugh harder. “Yeah. So, how did you get shot? You can shield, you dumbass.”
“Well, I was shielded, but it was a madhouse. Quinn knocked out the power and everything went dark. I had no idea my shield was cracking from a couple of hits. Debris, mostly. He really tore that place up. Someone got a couple of lucky shots. I took the guy down, but one got in. I threw out a call for help to the first person I could think of before going down.”
A Night of Redemption (The Redemption Saga Book 5) Page 21