Cats Got Your Tongue (Shifter Squad Six) (21 page)

“Dutch, come on. Talk straight with me. Are they okay? Was that Tex who did that? Was it planned?” Kelis asked, rattling off questions as she felt the slick heat of tears on her cheeks.

She bit down on her lower lip, feeling a quiver running through her as she finally passed over the last black armored vehicles, out of the range of anything that could harm the chopper now. In the back of her mind, she realized that she’d been half-expecting to get shot down at any moment, while “enjoying” the flaming inferno swelling behind her.

Kelis could feel the heat of the explosion and the resulting fire all the way into the helicopter, her ears humming with the deafening noise and her heart thrumming so hard that she could barely tell the sounds of the engine apart from everything else.

“It was planned,” Dutch said, though he didn’t say much more on the matter. “I don’t know how or if they made it out of there. Trust me, it doesn’t matter. It needed to be done. You need to go, Kelis. For your boys and for Thatch’s. There’s no way to tell whether Grant, Grim, Connor, and Tex are fine, but we can do something for Dylan and Dante and Thatch.”

“Okay,” Kelis whispered after a small pause, steeling herself against the voice screaming in her to turn back, to go search for her men.

She knew she had to do what her boys needed. The rest of the ride was mostly in silence, with occasional mutters and growls from Dutch, cursing Thatch for trying very hard to die on him. Kelis knew she couldn’t do much for him if she didn’t get to San Francisco right now, so pushing the helicopter to the very limit of its tolerance was all she could do.

When the chopper touched down on the roof of the San Francisco headquarters of The Firm, Kelis had reached a level of calm that always descended upon her when things became so frantic that she could only hold on and do logical things one after another without thinking about anything else. She radioed in ahead, and the moment the chopper touched down, Reynolds and his team were running up to it, rolling a gurney between them.

The door was ripped open and Dutch launched into an explanation of what he’d been doing and what state Thatch had been in as countless hands reached for the gravely injured body of his friend. His voice was tense and shaking a bit, driven by the fact that Thatch had arrested twice during the flight.

“Okay, Dutch. We have him now,” Reynolds’ calming voice said, soothing him in a way.

“Dutch,” Kelis said, twisting herself around in the seat, looking back before Dutch could hop out of the vehicle. “The canisters.”

Dutch’s eyes were sunken, haunted, and Kelis imagined hers had to look much the same. He seemed to be in a daze, but the haze cleared and he nodded, grabbing two canisters, one of each. Shoving them under his arm, he hopped out of the helicopter, keeping his head low as he ran after the frantically working medical team, their hands moving to help Thatch while the gurney rolled forward.

From her seat, her eyes burning with tears and blinded by the early morning sun breaking over the horizon, she could see how bloody Dutch was. The dark blood seeped through his black clothes, making the fabric stick to his skin. She had to wonder how much of it was his and how much of it was Thatch’s.

But aside from the medical team, someone else ran through the doors leading to the roof, heavy boots thumping deafeningly.

Firm guards,
Kelis realized, seeing the guns and the determined looks on their faces.

It wasn’t hard to figure out why they were there. She was sure that Spade must have called ahead and told them to stop her before she could leave.

Grant and Grim must have been right,
she thought with mounting horror, pulling the helicopter up as soon as Dutch cleared the blades.

Her stomach was in knots, the suspense growing as she saw the men raise their weapons, taking aim. For a maddening moment, she was expecting them to fire on her, bringing the helicopter down in a hailstorm of broken metal and flames. But instead of pulling the triggers, they lowered their guns a second later, their expressions tense and unhappy.

She didn’t let out the breath she was holding until she was fully out of the range of their weapons, zooming out over the slowly awakening city of San Francisco. It was only when she set her course to bypass a major airport in the hopes of making anyone who might have been tracking the helicopter on radar lose her trail, that a painful stab ran through her heart, the cold and honest pain jolting through her.

Oh God please, make sure my babies are fine… and the men I love…

She’d been so close to Dylan and Dante and it had nearly killed her to put distance between herself and them. Kelis hoped that if something had gotten drastically worse, Reynolds would have told her.

Or would he? Wouldn’t he wait until I was out of the large mechanical deathtrap?

Doubts and fear nagged at her, gnawing at her thoughts as she made her way back to Troy’s hidden hangars. She set the chopper down and shut off the systems one by one, staring at them numbly. When she was tearing off her helmet and unclipping the belt, the door was pulled open. Troy’s smiling face stared back at her.

His expression fell immediately when he saw the look she was giving him, almost looking through him as if he wasn’t standing there at all.

“What happened?” he asked, his voice dropping low, a flash in his eyes telling her that like any good soldier, he was ready to roll out and do whatever it took to make things right for someone he cared about.

“I… I don’t know yet. But I need you to do something for me. I need you to hide something and not let anyone know where it is.”

“Anything, Kelis. Come on, tell me what you need,” Troy said, taking her by the hand and helping her out.

His hand on hers grounded her, bringing her back into the present, driving back the darkness that wanted to suffocate her otherwise. She’d let Troy in on the details he needed to know, but not tell him too much to keep him safe, and then she’d get back to The Firm’s headquarters.

Maybe then I’ll finally find out what’s going on.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Grim

It was a full day before Grim could see his kids, his brother, or Kelis again.

He was seething with rage, his wrists cuffed behind him as men he’d worked and served with led him down the long hallways toward the wing Reynolds commanded in The Firm’s headquarters. He kept glancing around, expecting to see Grant coming down the other way, but no such luck.

When he was stopped at the door leading into the room where Dylan and Dante were, he craned his neck, looking through the small plastic viewport. He took a deep breath, feeling himself relax slightly as he saw Kelis sitting between Dylan’s and Dante’s beds and Grant standing behind her, a hand on her shoulder.

“Behave, Aldroch,” one of the guards told him, a ferret-faced man whose nose Grim remembered breaking once during training.

“Or what, you gonna run to your mama and cry about it?” Grim asked, a snarl on his lips.

“Maybe. If Spade’s my mama and by ‘cry’ you meant ‘get you thrown into the Crypts for a few weeks more,’” the man said with a grimace that could have been interpreted as a smile as he released Grim’s cuffs.

“Fuck off,” Grim spat, pushing through the door before he couldn’t stop himself from breaking the fucker’s nose again.

“Grim!” Kelis yelped, a smile beaming across her face. She hopped up and ran into his arms from across the room. “Grant told me you were alive and okay but I couldn’t really believe it until I saw you,” she said, nuzzling against his neck.

Grim let out a low grunt of pain as she threw her arms around his ribs, which were still bruised from the impact the explosion had made. But he crushed her against his body harder still, squeezing her shoulders as he kissed the top of her head, breathing in her sweet scent.

“Fuck, it’s good to see you, sugar,” he gruffed, lingering in the embrace for maybe a moment too long.

She loosened her grip on him slightly, tilting up her chin, and Grim couldn’t resist kissing her. But this time, it was sweet, soft, careful. Like she’d break if he kissed her too hard… or maybe that it was he himself who Grim was worried about breaking.

“How are the boys?” he asked as he pulled back, releasing her from his hold.

The shimmer in her eyes told him that it was good news. He looked up at Grant, finding his brother looking rather pleased with himself as well, nodding at him slightly.

“They’ll pull through,” Grant said. “We made it in time.”

There was a weight lifted from Grim’s shoulders, and for the first time in days he felt like he could keep on living. Like he was Atlas and he was holding up the world and now he wasn’t doing it alone anymore. For a while, it had seemed entirely impossible that his existence could continue in any kind of a reasonable, believable way. It was now that he realized that if he’d lost Dylan, Dante, Grant, or Kelis, he would have never been the same.

It was even more surprising that he knew now that with them, himself, and Grant having survived, he had also changed, but it was a positive change. Something that he could grow from, become better and stronger because of.

Funny how pain builds a man instead of breaking him down…

Grim took Kelis’s hand in his and walked over to Dylan’s and Dante’s beds, his steps slowing as he saw them. They were both still bandaged, but their arms and legs were now undone. The skin on their faces was pinking up, and though they were still breathing through tubes, their eyes weren’t scooting back and forth behind the lids anymore, signaling a more restful sleep.

Softly, Grim reached out his hand, touching Dylan’s fingers and he let out a little gasp as the boy caught onto them, his grip surprisingly strong. Well, not surprisingly, actually. He
was
an Aldroch after all.

“Fighters,” Kelis said, extending her hand to Grant and taking it in hers. “Just like their daddies. But do you two want to tell me what the hell’s been going on now or do I need to beat it out of you? Looking at you two, I think I could take you right now.”

Grim grinned darkly, glancing at Grant. Spade had allowed them to see their kids and Kelis looked like she hadn’t been in the Crypts with the rest of the squad, so things could definitely be worse. But there was no doubt that they could also be a lot better.

When Grim opened his mouth to reply to Kelis, a familiar-looking med tech stepped in, carrying a tray of medication and small, dosed shots that would go into Dylan’s and Dante’s IVs.

“Does anyone know where Thatch is? I’d like to see how he’s doing,” Grim said quietly, nodding to the tech as she scurried past them and began her process of dosing the medication.

“I know where he is. Mellie, will you be here?” Kelis asked, turning to the tech.

“Yes! I will wait with the boys, don’t you worry,” the tech said, looking a lot more cheerful than last time.

“Thank you,” Kelis said, her warm hand slipping into Grim’s as she tugged both of the Aldroch twins along with her. “Come on, I’ll take you to him.”

Grim gave one more look to the babies before taking the step to move along with Kelis. He didn’t miss the fact that Grant gave a hard look at the medication on the tray before he was willing to move at all. She led them out of the room and then down the hall. Grim’s and Grant’s guards peeled off their spots and followed them as grouchy shadows.

She moved down a few doors and peeked in through the viewport before letting go of Grim’s and Grant’s hands, opening the door for them and inclining her head for them to step in. Grim hated having her let go of him. An irrational voice inside his head was screaming at him to never let her go again. But he had to concede that
sometimes
they would have to be physically apart. As much as it entirely sucked.

Grim took a breath and walked in first, though he got maybe three steps in before he stopped, staring at the scene rolled out before him. Thatch was propped up on a couple of pillows, Tex sitting at his side, with Connor and Dutch standing. Dutch obviously looked the best out of them because he’d never gotten hit by the blast, and Thatch was the one who was roughed up the worst. No surprises there.

The rest of the squad looked a lot like Grim himself—bruised ribs, slight concussions, burns, cuts, and healing bullet wounds. But at that moment, every single one of them looked like they were seconds from shifting and throwing themselves with all they got at Spade, who was standing in the middle of the room like the fucking Angel of Death.