Cut & Run (Cut & Run 1)

Left alone with Zane, Ty was silent, waiting for either the blowup or—what he feared worse—complete silence. And that was what he got as Zane dropped his chin and stared at the floor. He raised his hand to rub his eyes. He looked like he was ready to fall over. Ty swallowed heavily and put a hand to Zane’s forehead. “Why don’t you lay back?” he said softly, his tone resigned.

Zane reached up to take Ty’s wrist in a firm grip and pull his hand away, but he didn’t let go. Ty was still, holding his breath as he waited.

Slowly, Zane looked up at him. His dark eyes watered with pain and emotion.

“We can still cut and run,” he whispered.

Ty’s chest tightened, and his insides seemed to lurch with the words.

He nodded as he let his fingers curl over, trying to touch the hand that still gripped his wrist. “We will. But I need revenge first,” he said softly.

Zane’s brow furrowed as he loosened his fingers. “What for?” he asked quietly.

“You,” Ty answered simply.

Zane exhaled painfully, and he tugged gently at Ty’s hand, trying to get him to lean over. Ty moved with the tug and licked his lips nervously.

Zane merely looked him in the eye as he got closer. “You come back, you understand?” he rasped intently. “If I have to come after you there will be absolute hell to pay.”

Ty closed his eyes and butted his head against Zane’s forehead.

“What could go wrong, hmm?” he asked softly, a small smile playing at his lips. “I’ve got the kid with me, we don’t know where we’re going, who we’re after, or what we’ll do when we find him.… It’s foolproof.”

Zane’s fingers gripped Ty’s chin, and he moved to kiss Ty desperately, palm sliding down to cup the nape of Ty’s neck as their lips moved against one another. Ty breathed out heavily into the kiss, almost losing his resolve not to do exactly what Zane had suggested: cut and run.

Leave this all behind and just get the two of them to safety. He slid his hand across Zane’s cheek and kissed him as if it were the last time.

All the pain and fear and upset and desire balled up in Zane’s gut, and his breath stopped as he gripped his lover’s shoulder. “Come back to me.”

“I will,” Ty assured him softly. From the outer room they heard the obvious crackle of a radio and Henninger’s muffled response. Ty pulled away and looked down into Zane’s eyes. He slipped him his backup sidearm.

“Anyone comes too close, you blast ’em,” he murmured. “Badge or not,” he added pointedly, his voice so low it was a whisper.

Letting out a shaky breath, Zane took the gun in his left hand, then slid it with a wince into his sling. “Yeah,” he agreed, eyes trained on Ty.

Ty stood up and slid a plastic prescription bottle out of his back pocket, setting it by Zane’s side. The other agent blinked at it. “What’s this?”

he asked suspiciously.

“Pills I took from the EMT,” Ty murmured. “Should get you through.” Zane looked at the bottle and then at Ty. He nodded slowly. Ty began backing away from the bed slowly. “See you soon,” he whispered before turning and exiting the room quickly.

Zane drew a breath to speak, but Ty was gone, and Zane didn’t have the strength or ability to chase after him. He slowly lay down on his good side, head resting on a thin pillow. The words he’d wanted to say were stuck in his throat, and he squeezed his eyes shut tight, tiny drops sparkling in his eyelashes.

IN the front room, Henninger turned as Ty reentered. “Got him settled?”

“Settled as he’s gonna be, anyway,” Ty mumbled as he rubbed a spot of tension at the back of his neck.

“I just got a call from a friend in the NYPD,” Henninger told him excitedly. “They located the cab that was used.”

Ty perked up and stared at him expectantly. The buzzer beside the door rang, and Henninger started toward the intercom to answer it. “Well?”

Ty demanded impatiently. “Where’d they find it?”

“Not two blocks from here,” Henninger answered with a grin as he pushed the button that would let Sears and Ross in.

Adrenaline began to pump through Ty’s body as the prospect of catching the man became more plausible. If they had the cab, then they could follow the trail. And Ty could track anything and anyone, whether it was in backwoods, desert, or the streets of New York City, he was confident of that fact. They had him.

It was only a minute or so before Sears and Ross stepped through the door, but waiting for them to arrive was torturous. As they waited, Ty and Henninger stood at the large windows that lined the far side of the apartment, and Henninger explained to him what was around the neighborhood as they formed a plan of action.

“Grady, I can’t say it’s good to see you again,” Special Agent Sears greeted, brushing her blonde hair over her shoulder. “How is he?” she asked with real concern.

“He’s hurt bad,” Ty answered grimly.

Ross stood at her side, looking annoyed. “We tried calling you,” he said to Henninger.

“This building’s got shitty reception,” Henninger muttered uncomfortably as he looked at his phone that had never rung.

Ty nodded at them both, suddenly very aware of the splatters of blood from the crash that spotted his rumpled clothing and the fact that he looked like he’d been tumbled on high spin for an hour. It seemed to him that it spoke of his failures so far, that he hadn’t even been able to protect his partner, much less catch the killer he’d been set on.

“Thank you for coming,” he said to them both quietly, not a trace of apology or embarrassment in his tone. There was impatience, however, and he was practically vibrating in his shoes.

Sears looked over him, but didn’t comment. “We can stay a couple hours before they start asking us where the hell we’ve disappeared to,” she said apologetically. “So you better get going unless we make this official.”

“I left our notes on the case in there with Garrett,” Ty told her gruffly.

The unspoken reason—in case neither of them lived long enough to share what they’d found—wasn’t lost on anyone. “And there’s a stack of personnel files here that has the name of our killer in it somewhere,” he added as he pointed to the files Henninger had put on the coffee table.

Henninger nodded and glanced between them uncomfortably. “You want to change your shirt, Grady?” he asked finally, eyes drifting over the small amount of blood.