Cut and Run 4 - Divide and Conquer

Roux

    his truck. Zane stepped down into the dugout to stand next to Ty.
    “Well?”
    Ty looked up at him and licked his lips uneasily. “They think it‟s
    a pressure switch,” Ty repeated for the people around them. “Bouncing
    Betty type thing. Bomb squad‟s going to get one of those kamikaze
    robots out there to poke it,” he told Zane in a lower voice.
    Zane sat down next to him. “The games were here yesterday,
    right? So this had to have been done overnight?”

“Had to be. I was practically laying on the damn thing last night,”
    Ty muttered. “And it was crooked.”
    “Jesus, Grady,” someone from close by said. “I‟m never making
    fun of your superstitions again.”
    “Told you touching home plate before the first pitch was bad
    luck,” Ty responded under his breath, looking away from Zane as he
    spoke.
    Zane propped his elbows on his knees as he listened to the circus
    of bomb squad, firemen, news cameras, and cops circling the other
    ballfield. He didn‟t want to think about how close Ty had been to
    bodily harm. He could wish Ty had been in the outfield, but he
    wouldn‟t lay odds on someone else noticing the problem with the plate.
    He sighed and dropped his head, shaking it.
    Ty‟s shoulder brushed his, and Zane could feel him thrumming
    with nervous energy.
    “Are we safe here?” someone asked. “Should we get further
    away?”
    “We‟re good,” Ty assured them curtly. “If it does blow before
    they can disarm it, they say it‟s not packed, so there won‟t be any
    shrapnel. Unless it blows the arm off the robot or something.”
    “I‟ve seen that happen,” an unfamiliar voice said from further
    down the dugout.
    “Bullshit,” someone else responded with a laugh.
    “God‟s honest truth. Arm flew through the air and landed like a
    damn lawn dart.”
    Divide & Conquer | 73

    “Would it reach us if that happened?” a worried voice asked.
    “The robot is made to blow shit up,” Ty answered in an annoyed
    voice. “The articulating parts don‟t blow off,” he snapped. On the
    surface, his tone of voice said he was talking to a civilian who was
    getting on his nerves, but underneath that Zane recognized his partner
    was badly shaken. Zane straightened and leaned back, and when he
    scooted—not a big deal, since people were crammed onto the bench
    anyway—he slid enough so their legs touched from hip to knee.
    “Everybody down!” someone called from somewhere behind
    Zane.
    Ty‟s hands were immediately on Zane, tugging at him and pulling
    him down with everyone else onto the packed dirt. Zane hit the ground
    hard on his knees, shifting his weight back just in time to avoid falling
    straight forward onto his face. Ty pulled Shannon and her daughter
    closer and huddled them all together, wrapping his arm over Zane and
    pressing him down into the dirt. His chest protector dug into Zane‟s
    side as he tried to shield all three of them from the coming blast that
    supposedly wouldn‟t reach them.
    Sirens blared across the parking lot, and someone shouted into a
    bullhorn to make certain the area was clear. The scene had to be easier
    to handle than most, considering everyone there was involved with the
    city and knew emergency procedures in some fashion. Hell, half of
    them probably would have been working the scene if they‟d been on
    duty.
    It was a long, drawn-out ten seconds of what seemed like pure
    silence before the explosion sounded. Obviously disarming it hadn‟t
    gone well.
    Zane winced. It was really, really loud for a bomb little enough to
    fit under home plate.
    A whoosh of dirt and small pieces of trash filtered through the
    chain-link to flutter over them, and Ty curled above him protectively as
    the air wafted past. He waited a long moment, his fingers digging into
    Zane‟s shoulder as he held him, his breaths harsh in Zane‟s ear. Zane
    closed his eyes, thankful that Ty was here next to him rather than
    across the field. He slowly started to sit up.
    74 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

    Ty pushed himself up when he felt Zane moving, and he raised
    his head and looked around to survey the damage. People around them
    were coughing and scrabbling around on the ground of the dugout,
    everyone trying to gain their feet at the same time. Ty pulled himself up
    unsteadily and looked through the fence as he offered his hand to help
    Zane or Shannon up.
    “Oh God,” he said suddenly, his hand going limp at his side as he
    pulled his face closer to the