While You Were Dead (31 page)

Was he looking for someone? “Are you–”

“Quiet, Kat!” Still that whisper that really wasn’t. This time he glanced at her. Then he swore, quiet and soft, but with certain vehemence. His movements were rushed, his expression frustrated. Why was he naked?

It had to be the cold upsetting him. She was cold. So cold she was beginning to shake. “You should have the blanket. I’ll be okay, really I will.”

“I know you will.“ He tipped her chin up and scanned her eyes, apparently not liking what he saw, because he scowled. “Can you run, baby? Can you make it over the wall? Get to Lizzie?”

The words whipped past her ears, but got tangled on the way to her brain. Kat closed her eyes to try and sort them out.

“Son of a bitch!” His curse wasn’t loud, but it was certainly violent.

Kat jumped and opened her eyes. Max pulled her close, tucking her into the crook of his arm. Kat snuggled against his neck. That was better. Much better. She opened her mouth to tell him so.

“Katherine.”

That got her attention.

He nudged her head off his shoulder and met her eyes. “Listening?”

Silly question. Of course she was listening. She nodded dutifully.

“You’ve got to run, baby. Get to Lizzie.”

Yes, they had to get to Lizzie. She gave another obedient nod and put her head back on his shoulder. It was warmer here, next to him. The warmth didn’t help her shivering, or the exhaustion that pulled her eyelids shut, but just to stand next to him was heavenly.

“I’ve got to stay, Kat. I’ve got to take care of Crater. And Tron.”

A violent shudder chattered her teeth, even as she tried to nod. Max swore again and wrapped his arms around her tight. She felt his cheek on the top of her head for just an instant and smiled. “You feel so good,” she whispered.

“I love you, too.” He sighed. “New plan. We’ll go together.”

“Of course.” How else would they go?

“See the wall?”

“It goes all the way around.” If she could just sleep for awhile, everything would be much, much easier.

Max gave a single nod. “Exactly. You ready?”

“For what?” Max gave a groan and kissed her forehead again.

Then it appeared it didn’t matter if she was ready or not. With his hands still clutching the blanket, he hauled her out the door and raced across the yard, moving much faster than any human should. When she stumbled, he picked her up like a sack of potatoes and tossed her over his shoulder. Kat saw a blur of grass, weeds, a tree and then the sky as he literally dumped her over the wall. He landed beside her seconds later, still holding on to the blanket around her. He hadn’t let her fall, but the earth hadn’t yet stopped swaying. She tried to tell him, that she was queasy, and dizzy, but he didn’t stop, didn’t seem to want to listen. He shoved something into the back of her waistband, clipped something to her front pocket and hoisted her over his shoulder with a grunt. His ribs! He shouldn’t be carrying her.

“I can walk,” she murmured, but wondered if it were true. She could sleep, no denying the truth of that.

Max hadn’t heard. Below her, the ground moved by in a giant sliding blur, disrupted by his shoulder jarring her ribs. A blur. A soft thud. Kat stared, fascinated by the view, irritated at Max because he wasn’t listening. Annoyed at herself too, because of the haze surrounding her brain. There were things she had to tell him–things he needed to know before they left that horrible little house. Dangerous things. Only she couldn’t remember what. Or why he was carrying her, running with her. His heels flashed, forward, back, forward, back. Such strong muscles. She opened one hand, wanting to feel the bunch and stretch displayed in front of her. Her fingers crept down his back, toward his waist, curled over –

So much blood! It ran in little streams, dissecting her arm, tunneling over her wrist, flowing down her fingers, to drip off her fingertips. For just a moment, she watched.

Then she remembered.

Kat balled both hands into fists, planted them in the middle of Max’s back and pushed up. Max swore and ducked behind a tree, but he did ease her to her feet. She could barely feel them, barely feel anything, not even the gentle hand he used to push her hair out of her eyes, or the fingers that lifted her face up to his.

“I’m bleeding.” She had no trouble keeping her voice a whisper now. She swayed and caught his arm so she wouldn’t fall. “It isn’t going to stop. They–he–a needle.” Focus! She had to tell him. He had to get to Lizzie.

Max took one look at her pale face and caught her close before she fell. She’d stopped him just seconds before he would have had to stop anyway. He was breathing much too hard, and his ribs screamed, weakening already strained muscles.

He groaned, and sidestepped the despair trying to wrap him up tight. He couldn’t carry her to the car. She couldn’t walk on her own. The radio at her belt was still silent, but Crater and the youngster wouldn’t stand outside that little house waiting for orders forever. Not when Viper had already told them to prepare for transport.

Kat mumbled something about her pocket as he sat with her, pulling her into his arms, keeping her head elevated on his shoulder. She was right. The bleeding hadn’t slowed, not even from the cut on her lip where Crater had smacked her. “Kat, baby, keep your eyes open. Look at me.”

Her eyes opened obediently, but he knew it was an effort. “My pocket,” she whispered and her right hand twitched and then was still.

Max extricated a small vial from her side seam pocket. “Heparin.”

Kat grew even paler. “Go to Lizzie, Max. They’re still looking.”

She was right, of course. He should go to Lizzie, make sure she was safe and call for help. Only Kat might not make it that long. He looked away from that awful awareness in her eyes and shook his head. “No.”

“You have to go, Max.”

“I’m not leaving you, dammit!” He clamped his hand firmly around the back of her head, trying to ignore how red the blanket at her neck was. Pressure. Direct pressure and elevation.

“Where is she?”

“She’s safe.” He wanted to tell her to be quiet, to save her strength, but it wouldn’t do any good. She’d always said whatever the hell she felt like saying, whenever she felt like saying it. Now wouldn’t be any different. “What will stop it?”

“Clotting factor infusion. Vitamin K would help, too. Have any handy?” She smiled up at him and it took everything he had not to yank her close, hold her tight and force her to stop. . .dying.

Instead, using his teeth, he stripped away the velcro strips of his splint and applied it to her arm, snugging it tight over the deepest cuts Viper’d inflicted. “How long does Heparin last?”

Her head moved in a slight shake, her message clear. Too long. “Go, Max. She needs you.”

“I’m not leaving you, Kat.” He laid his hand over her shoulder, covering four of the small puncture wounds.

She wrapped her fingers around his wrist. “Go.”

“We’ll go together.” The fingers at his wrist tightened. He forced his gaze to meet hers. Her eyes were clouded, but the love reflected there stole his breath and had hot tears stinging his. “Don’t go, baby. I don’t want to live without you.”

She let out a soft sobbing sound and her eyes filled too. “Ask me,” she whispered.

He ignored the request. The agony in his heart turned cold and his hands tightened around her. “I’m not going to live without you, Kat. He’s not going to win.”

She smiled through her tears. “I got him, didn’t I?”

“Yeah.” Only Viper still had her.

“Max, ask me, please? I promise I’ll say yes, this time.”

“No.” He met the pleading in her eyes straight on. “Not now. Not like this. Let’s go.”

The radio at her waist squawked. “Ice. What the hell went on here?”

Ghost. Finally. But whose side would he be on? He lifted his hand from her chest, trying not to notice how the cuts continued to trickle. “He set me up.”

“Yeah, well, looks like you got even.”

Max glanced at Kat. She smiled. Then her eyes flickered shut. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“Maybe not, but you gotta come in for debrief, Ice. I’ll tell you right now it ain’t gonna be pretty.”

He didn’t have time for Ghost to gather evidence to support his claim. If he was going to save Kat he had to do it now. “Deal?”

“I love to deal, Ice.”

“Is the med kit there?”

“Somewhere, yeah.” In the background, Max heard, “Tron, med kit?”

“I need an antidote.”

A smile whispered over Kat’s lips, but she shook her head. “Clotting factor infusion,” she whispered, eyes still closed. “What are you going to deal?”

“Clotting factor infusion,” Max grated out. “He gave her heparin. She’s bleeding.”

“Checking.”

The silence went on forever. Max levered Kat’s head a little higher and kissed her forehead. “Stay with me, sweetheart.”

“What’s the deal?” she whispered again.

“Clotting factor.” Ghost’s positive response made Max want to shout. “Looks like somebody wanted someone weak but not dead.”

“That’s your deal. Come and get me.” He pressed Kat’s face into his chest, muffling her outraged cry.

Kat didn’t know how very weak she was until Max was able to hold her still with only slight pressure. Too late, she realized the ramifications of his deal–of any deal at all with these men who supposedly served the government but actually followed a mad man–but especially the deal Max had made. Trading her life for his made no sense at all. He needed to go, leave her here, get his daughter and hide where these men could never find them.

Max eased her head up against a tree and knelt in front of her. “I know, baby, I know. But I’m not letting you go. To make sure, I’m gonna disappear for a little bit. If it goes right, you’ll hear me.” Kat saw more than felt as he lifted her hand to his lips and dropped a kiss. “If it doesn’t, then it doesn’t. But Ghost is one of the good guys, okay?”

She’d never been more angry. More frustrated. Weak, depleted, there was nothing she could do but let him go. He kissed her, long and sweet. Kat fought back sobs she couldn’t help, sobs that sucked up even more of her strength. She kept her eyes focused on Max until he literally disappeared. One minute he was backing away from her, into the trees, the next he was just. . .gone.

Seconds later, she heard careful footsteps behind her. She looked up to find a man about Max’s age, with eyes that looked much, much older. Tall, muscular, with hard angles in his face etched by some horrible pain. He telescoped to his knees beside her before he opened the small kit he carried. Kat wanted more than anything to run, flee after Max, wherever it was he’d gone. Was this Ghost? The man Max trusted with their daughter’s life? Had he come alone?

The stranger spared not much more than a quick glance around. “Where’d he go?”

Kat’s lips clamped into an angry line. He expected her to give Max up? “Go to hell,” she muttered.

“All right, all right, take it easy. Last thing you need right now’s an increase in your pulse rate.” He bent over her arm. “You’re a mess, lady. Ice do this?”

Ice. Ice was Max. “No!”

Her outburst brought a quick smile to the man’s lips. It faded just as fast. “Good, you can talk. Tell me what happened.”

A needle pierced her arm. Kat was amazed she still had enough sensation to know. “Vic–Viper. He kidnapped my, no, our daughter. Max—” Did he know Max? Or only Ice? Better to be clear. “Ice has to go and get her, make sure she’s safe.” That from the famous court witness? Disgusted with her inability to communicate clearly–especially now, Kat tried to gather her thoughts. Max believed in this man. But Max had believed in Viper. Could she trust this former ally? How much should she tell him?

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who did this to you?”

“Viper,” she spat. “And I killed him, not Max. Ice,” she clarified. These code names were ridiculous! “Who are you?”

“Gregory. Or Ghost.” He glanced up from her arm and she saw a glimmer of a smile in his dark eyes, almost as if he’d read her mind. “Whichever you prefer. Course now that I’ve told you, I’ll have to kill you.”

She felt his fingers, cool at her wrist, seeking her pulse. He wasn’t the only one who could read people. She hoped she wasn’t wrong. There might not be time to find out. “You’re not like the others, like Crater, are you?” Her voice shook just the slightest bit.

“Appearances can be deceiving.”

She eyed the now-familiar strap over his shoulder. “Are you a sniper, too?”

“When I need to be. I prefer to gather intelligence. Tell me about Tron and Crater. Were they present at the house while all this was going on?”

“Not inside the house. Not while he was doing this. But they did what he said. Whatever he said.” She didn’t even try to stop the bitterness in her voice.