Cut and Run 4 - Divide and Conquer

Robinson,” Zane commented as he squeezed gel
    into one hand and started soaping up.
    4 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

    “Don‟t be like that,” Ty told him, his voice sounding hurt but
    carrying the undertone of mischief Zane was well used to.
    Zane snorted and shifted under the water as he washed off so he
    could look at Ty without craning his neck. “You had a thought,” he
    prompted with a small smile.
    “No, you‟ll have to work for it now,” Ty responded with another
    smirk as he turned back to his own stream of water.
    Zane rolled his eyes and chucked his wet washcloth over the
    divider, smiling as he heard the wet splat against Ty‟s skin. Ty‟s
    infectious laughter, mingling with the relaxing thrum of the water
    running through old pipes, rewarded his effort. Zane grinned, letting the
    little spark of warmth spread through him as he finished rinsing off.
    He was reaching to shut off the water when a shrieking alarm
    pierced the soothing peace of water falling.
    “Fire alarm. Time to go,” Ty announced calmly as he turned the
    water off and grabbed his towel from the far wall of the shower stall.
    He didn‟t even dry off. He just wrapped the towel around his hips and
    headed for the exit as if there were nothing unusual about it.
    Zane winced as he covered one ear. “Ty!” he called out as he
    snatched up his towel and hurried after his partner. He grabbed Ty‟s
    arm when he caught up. “You can‟t go outside soaking wet and
    practically naked in the middle of goddamn January!” He started
    tugging Ty back toward their lockers, where they could at least grab
    shorts and T-shirts and running shoes.
    “Cold is better than on fire,” Ty argued, though he let Zane drag
    him back.
    “There‟s no fire down here.”
    “You don‟t know that.”
    “And the exit is twenty yards away,” Zane said as he hurriedly
    pulled Ty along behind him. “Now get dressed. And shoes.”
    “Garrett, when an alarm starts going off, I head for an exit!” Ty
    shouted unhappily. He wasn‟t panicking, of course. Ty never panicked
    unless he was trapped in the dark or couldn‟t find his beloved Bronco
    in the parking lot. He shucked the towel, pulled on a pair of shorts, and
    Divide & Conquer | 5

    slid his feet into his worn athletic shoes. Then he grabbed Zane‟s arm
    and gave him a tug toward the exit, heedless of Zane trying to get into
    his shorts.
    “Okay, damn, give me one second!” Zane exclaimed, grabbing
    his T-shirt and towel after shoving his feet into his running shoes,
    resisting Ty‟s yanking as he leaned over to snatch up Ty‟s T-shirt
    before letting his partner pull him along.
    “Drag your feet later, Lone Star. Either the building‟s on fire or
    it‟s a drill and we‟ll be doing paperwork until our fingers bleed if we‟re
    not out in time,” Ty insisted as he pulled Zane along the corridor
    toward the emergency exit. Ty was notoriously flighty and could be
    easily distracted, but in an emergency, he honed in on one thing and
    one thing alone: survival. There was no fighting the iron grip he had on
    Zane‟s arm or his insistence that being half-naked and outside was
    better than any alternative right then.
    “I‟m thinking we‟ll get a little leeway since we were in the
    showers ,” Zane bit off as they thundered up the concrete steps out of
    the basement and through the emergency door that led outside into the
    bitter cold and wind.
    The morning sun blinded Zane as they pushed through the
    emergency exit and emerged onto the wet sidewalk in front of the
    building. The next thing he knew, Ty was ducking in front of him as if
    taking cover from a projectile, and Zane turned instinctively to check
    the threat. A shocking slap exploded across his face in a spray of ice
    water across shower-flushed skin.
    Another immediate snap, this one on his upper arm, another on
    his thigh as something else hit him, and more water splattered across
    him in the chilled air as he spluttered and wiped his eyes with one hand,
    striking out with the other at something dark flying toward his face. He
    felt the brief sensation of rubber on his fingers and then another painful
    snap like a rubber band, then more water. Zane swung toward
    movement at his left side. Five heartbeats had passed.
    By the time Zane realized he‟d just suffered through a barrage of
    colorful water balloons, Ty was standing again and looking at the
    rowdy crowd being pushed back behind the snow-dotted barriers on