She knew Sombra was already between them and their goal. Already in her spot. The two men with Leonard were non-Magi. Child’s play.
Sawyer kept moving and went up into the trees. She blinked from branch to branch.
“Fuck,” Leonard snapped as she watched the group slow down ahead of her. He turned slowly to her, but she knew he couldn’t see her, just like his men couldn’t see Sombra right in front of them. “Come out and fight me!” Leonard dared, looking towards her spot.
She blinked to another tree branch, one closer, but it left him scrambling to catch a read on her again, to find the source of her magic. She blinked again and kept it up, leaving him confused as her magical radiation was just left all around them in the dark, haunting him. She needed him confused and paranoid. She needed to be able to attack from any position without him expecting it. If she stayed still for too long, he would find her with that sixth sense Magi had for each other.
Sombra snarled as a soldier tried to move away from the group. Like her, the jaguar was circling dangerously around the group. They had cornered their prey, now they just needed to find the best way to attack.
Sawyer made the decision.
She blinked onto a branch above Leonard. She hadn’t wanted to blink directly in his space since he was expecting it.
She just dropped down on him, slamming him into the earth with her weight.
Sombra took that exact moment to jump out of the night onto the back of one of the soldiers, silencing a scream before it could truly form.
Sawyer pulled her cuffs out and slammed one on Leonard’s wrist while Sombra jumped off her first target and went for the second. The non-Magi fired and Sawyer snarled to cover the pain of Sombra being hit as she got her kill. Immediately, the bond was filled with assurance that Sombra was okay. Just a scratch. An image flew through Sawyer’s mind of two massive cats fighting. Sombra had worse injuries before. It would be okay. Just lick it clean later.
Well, Sawyer wasn’t going to lick it clean. She stared down at Leonard as Sombra stalked around, still moving fine with the graze on her side.
“Are you ready for what’s next?” she asked softly, leaning down into his face.
“Yeah.” Leonard sounded bitter and pissed off. She was fine with that. At least he wasn’t begging for her to come to his side like a coward trying to get out of it. He knew what he was, what he had done and what he deserved.
She moved off him and hauled him up, spinning him to finish handcuffing him. She pushed him back into the direction of the compound, where there was still fighting going on. She could hear it louder and louder with every step they took.
As the compound came into her view, she decided to use the comms. She was thankful her eyes adjusted well in the dark since she could see the IMAS soldiers coming towards her. She raised her hands in peace, shoving Leonard closer.
“Shut this down. I have Leonard. We’re done here.” She said it to both the soldiers and her team through the ear pieces.
“I’ve got Quinn on it, but a lot are still hiding in the main building.”
“Bring it down,” she ordered Vincent softly.
It took a split second. One moment, the building was there, standing tall in the night. The next it was a pile of rubble. It was that fast for Quinn’s magic to lash out and demolish the building. She wondered if it was even a challenge for him. Probably not.
She walked closer and frowned as she walked over the rubble towards the team. She could hear something strange. Someone talking. She looked back to Leonard, who was trying to reach something while a soldier held him. She stomped back to him and reached into his pocket, pulling out a cellphone.
“You’ve kept him on hold this entire time and then, let me guess, it hung up on him?” she asked softly. “Stupid. No one puts him on hold, and now…” Now he was calling back to find out how his investments were doing.
She didn’t finish, putting the phone up to her ear as she hit the button to answer the ringing.
“Good evening, Axel,” she said softly. Her comms were still on and she knew her entire team heard her say those words. She caught Vincent’s eyes across the compound and he was at her side faster than she expected. He used his sublimation to make time, of course.
“Ah. I figured if anyone could deal with you, it would be Leonard. I guess not.”
“If this is increased security, you need to tell your men they should work harder. They’re underestimating me. I’m not sure if that’s insulting to me, or…insulting to you, since you’re the one who made sure I was this good.”
“Always taunting,” he murmured. “Tell me, what do you get out of this?”
“A pardon,” she answered. “Freedom.”
“I heard rumors, but I couldn’t be certain. The WMC has been very close-lipped, even with their aides, and thanks to you, I lost my only paid Councilman.”
“You’re welcome. He wasn’t hard to deal with.” Even talking with him was like a verbal chess game.
“And what will you do with this freedom? Stay with Vinny? Oh yes, I have heard all about that. The entire IMPO is abuzz with the team that’s fucking their criminal. Really, Sawyer, I know everyone called you my whore, but I never expected you to spread your legs and actually be one.”
Her hand tightened on the phone to the point she was worried she would break it. “Says the man who can’t keep any of his whores in line.”
“Missy.” He got that message from her loud and clear. She had meant herself, but if he was guessing the doppelganger, she knew he already had figured it out. “Thanks to her, you’ve gotten your hands in all my businesses, and I don’t want you there. So you should thank her when I tell you that I’ve left a little something for you to be distracted by. You know what’s so interesting about you being outed?”
“I don’t, but I have feeling you’ll tell me.”
“Hmm. Yes, your friends came out of the woodworks too, and none of them are nearly as threatening as you are. I was coming to visit one tonight, to leave a little gift, actually. I figured you were still in California with Alfie, but the Congo is even better.”
She heard an explosion in the background.
“Cute, hiding in plain sight like this. I decided to try it myself, and funny enough, it works really well. Though I won’t be in New York by the time you get back. Until next time.”
He hung up on her and her world began to fall apart. Vincent took the phone from her and shouted orders as her mind raced to figure out exactly what had just happened.
Friends coming out of the woodworks. New York. Charlie.
“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 bee
n 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.
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