because his hands left me, and when I straightened from spitting, immediately I felt what seemed like a wet wipe on my face.
I instinctively rubbed against it, trying to get it toward my eyes.
“Stay still, Evie. Gotta dab, not rub. Let those eyes do their work. Let me get that smoke off your skin.”
I nodded but then jolted, bracing to run when I heard a vehicle pull up beside us.
Mag caught me and cooed, “It’s Axl, baby. It’s just Axl. It’s okay. He’s bringing water.”
I heard a door slam and then Axl saying, “Water,” and a bottle was put to my lips.
“Don’t drink. Swoosh and spit,” Mag instructed.
I did that.
He gave me more.
I did it again.
“Be still again, honey,” he ordered. “I’m gonna run this down your face and pat it dry. Yeah?”
I nodded.
He did that.
He did it again.
My shirt was soaked, it was cold outside, but I began shivering violently and not because of either of those.
“Blanket,” Mag grunted.
I heard retreating footsteps, but more importantly, Mag was coming into view.
Instinctively, I reached up and grabbed either side of his face, and in doing so, I knocked off the headset with microphone he was wearing, and it fell down his back.
“I thought—” I started.
“I saw him through the window, read his intent, saw he had a gun. He saw me, raised his weapon and I got off a shot. He returned fire, clipped my shoulder. When I fell back, cracked my head against the wall. I was out less than a minute but long enough for him to take you.”
My eyes moved to where his words were referring, and I saw the stain, I saw the hole, and I saw the white of the bandage through the hole in his navy thermal.
Good God.
“Your shoulder.”
“It’s fine.”
I jolted again when a blanket landed on my shoulders and Mag moved instantly to pull it closed at the front as I looked behind me to see Axl.
“It was through and through. It’s battle dressed but he needs a doctor,” Axl shared unhappily.
My eyes shot to Mag. “Then let’s go do that. Now.”
He didn’t answer, seeing as all our attention was taken by movement coming from the warehouse.
It was Boone, dragging Snag out of the door by a leg, Auggie strolling casually after them.
Snag was recovering, I could tell, and struggling to get control of his body, something it was apparently hard to do when someone was dragging you across asphalt by your ankle.
I was so immersed in this, I didn’t feel it at first.
It took Axl’s low warning, “Mag,” for me to feel it.
And then I felt it.
Which was right before I saw it.
Mag’s temper.
Unleashed.
He sprinted toward Boone and Snag, and Boone instantly dropped Snag’s foot and stepped aside.
“Stop him!” Axl thundered, jogging that way.
“I’m not gonna fuckin’ stop him,” Auggie called.
“I’m not either,” Boone said.
“Stop him” meaning stop him from tearing Snag apart. Mag was bent over the man, he had Snag’s shirt fisted in one hand and his other was just fisted and landing in Snag’s face.
Repeatedly.
Oh God.
“He can further harm himself,” Axl clipped.
Oh God!
“Danny!” I shouted, rushing toward him.
Mag did not stop, going so far as to violently shrug off Axl, who was trying to catch his arm.
That couldn’t be good for his shoulder.
“Danny!” I screamed.
Boone caught me before I made it to them, and held me, but I struggled against him, because, up close, Snag’s face was quickly turning to mush, but more, I could see a dark stain that now looked wet growing at the shoulder of Mag’s thermal.
“Danny!” I cried.
“Brother,” Auggie murmured. “Hawk.”
My gaze darted to Auggie and then my head jerked right at the same time Boone shifted us so he could look too.
At what I saw, I stood suspended.
Two men were getting out of a Camaro, with Mo coming out of his truck behind it.
But I scarcely saw Mo or the man coming out of the passenger side of the Camaro.
This was because I fancied a gigantic swirl of dust like out of a Robert Rodriguez movie curled behind the man folding out of the driver’s side of that Camaro.
He took his time ambling across the asphalt in such a way it seemed life had gone slow motion.
He was the epitome of a lean, mean commando machine.
He was probably around Auggie’s height, Auggie being the shortest of the bunch, if six one could be considered short.
He had dark hair not liberally sprinkled with silver.
But in the sea of hotness I found myself floating in after I