Cut and Run 7 - Touch and Geaux

in.
    “Lads, I hate to be insensitive,” Liam said, peering over his shoulder at the nurse’s station. “But we have about five seconds to clear our arses out of here.”
    “Fuck you, I’m not leaving him,” Digger growled.
    “I know—”
    “I said I’m not fucking leaving him!” Digger grabbed Liam by his leather jacket, shaking him. “Where the fuck were you when we needed you?”
    “Take your hands off the coat,” Liam said, voice calm. His eyes sparked, though, and even Zane recognized that he’d reached a dangerous point. He was no longer amused.
    Digger sneered but released him with a final shove.
    “I understand your desire to stay, I really do,” Liam continued, his voice low and soothing. “But you’ve done all you can for the doc, you have to look now to the other team member we lost out there.”
    Owen stood and shook his head. “He’s not any teammate of yours.”
    “Then why am I the only one wondering how long he’ll survive without help?”
    Zane swiped a hand over his face. “He got away from them.”
    “And you know that how?” Liam asked.
    “Because I know Ty. You can’t trap a cockroach.”
    Liam snorted. “But you can kill one if you stomp it hard enough.”
    “He got away. He’ll go to ground,” Zane insisted. “He won’t let himself hang in the wind too long.”
    “Regardless of what Ty is doing or how capable he might be of slipping through the cracks, Liam’s right,” Nick said. “We need to clear out of here before we’re found. All that blood . . . they’ll know one of us was hit, they’ll be here looking soon enough.”
    “What about Kelly? We can’t leave him behind. Unprotected?” Owen asked.
    “He’s safer here than he was out there.”
    Nick stood, and Owen and Digger closed ranks behind him, facing Liam and Zane. Zane couldn’t help but admire the way Sidewinder seemed to come together when they needed to. He had never worked as part of a team before Ty, preferring to go at things solo even when he’d been a child. Even Becky had been more of a confidante, a support system, something to fight for instead of with. She’d been a way to forget life’s troubles rather than an ally to take them on, and Zane had been happy with that arrangement. She had been exactly what he’d needed at that point in his life. But he had changed. Life had changed. And he had never had someone to face the world beside him, not until Ty.
    Zane’s stomach lurched at the thought. Ty wasn’t the happy escape Becky had been for him. He might never offer Zane the warmth and light Becky once had, but Zane knew Ty would be there in the dark. In the last twenty-four hours, Zane had lost sight of that, blinded by the anger.
    “Where would he go?” Liam asked as he led them through the hallways, looking for a back exit.
    “You’re asking us to think like Ty?” Owen snorted. “I don’t think that’s possible; my brain isn’t powered by squirrels on treadmills.”
    Nick shook his head, unbuttoning his bloody shirt as he walked. He shrugged out of it and dumped it into a hamper in the hallway. The others followed suit, discarding as much of their bloody clothes as they could in various nooks and crannies they passed on their way out.
    “He’d go where they’d least expect,” Nick said.
    “Somewhere public?” Digger asked.
    “The hotel, maybe. The rooms are still under your name, they can’t be traced to Ty or Garrett,” Owen said to Nick.
    “That’s how they found him to start with,” Nick growled. “He’s familiar with this city, there’s no telling what kind of places he knows.”
    Zane inhaled sharply. “Ava.”
    Nick looked over his shoulder at Zane, eyebrows raised. “Maybe so. If he didn’t go back there for help, maybe she’ll know where he would go.”
    “He doesn’t know Ava’s the one who called her father.”
    Nick stopped short, and Zane almost barreled into him. “Wait, she what?”
    Zane huffed. “She’s the one who called her father. She hoped Ty would go up against him and take him out.”
    “That chick’s all wrong, man,” Digger whispered.
    The change that came over Nick O’Flaherty was almost frightening. His face hardened, his eyes going a deep, striking green when he lowered his head. He glanced at Owen and Digger, and both men nodded at some unspoken communication.
    Nick headed off toward the exit, Owen and Digger on his heels.
    “Oh dear,” Liam said with a sigh.
    “What the hell just happened?” Zane