up from him, squinting into the oncoming light. They took off running and Chris tried to figure out what was happening when a motorcycle came to a sliding stop beside him.
Colton jumped off his motorcycle, ripping off his helmet as he ran to Chris’s side.
Chris lay there panting, thanking God that once again he’d cheated death.
“Chris, are you okay? Fuck, what the hell happened?” Chris could see the blurry outline of Colton’s worried face, but his eyes weren’t able to focus well enough to tell more than that.
He groaned. “I think I ticked someone off,” came out with a cough as his battered ribs objected to the harsh treatment they’d just received.
Colton ran his hands up and down Chris’s arms and torso. “Does it feel like anything’s broken?”
Chris took a breath and tried to focus on the individual pains rather than on the whole, ‘oh fuck, everything hurts.’
He levered himself up so he was sitting with Colton’s assistance. He wiped the blood dripping into his right eye. “Damn, I’m really glad to see you,” he rasped out.
“You’re lucky I came back.” Colton glanced warily around the now empty parking lot. “Let’s get you inside and call the cops. Do you think you can move?”
“I think so, but they took a pretty good kick at the knee so let’s see how good all those bionic parts really are.”
As Colton pulled Chris up, he couldn’t stifle the groan. Damn, this was going to hurt tomorrow. Fuck, it actually really hurt right now. With Colton’s aid, he managed to hobble to the door of the hangar. The offices were along the side of the building, but it was too far of a walk for him right now. He sank to the floor with a wave to Colton. “I’ll just wait here for you, if that’s okay?”
Colton ran a jerky hand through his hair while he dialed on his cell phone. Chris closed his eyes. Who had he ticked off enough lately that they’d order a hit on him? He took a shallow breath and felt along his ribs to make sure none were cracked. One thing about his days of torture, he could self-diagnose with the best of them. It seemed like his stitches had held, too.
The sound of metal on the concrete floor startled him out of his internal wound exploration. He cracked his eyes open to see that Colton had set a chair down in front of him.
“It will feel better than the cold, hard floor.”
Chris was sure that was true, but wasn’t quite sure that his legs would cooperate with getting him there yet.
He really didn’t want to move his battered body, but he probably didn’t want Colton to know how much pain he was in or else he’d be insisting on a trip to the ER tonight. Chris wasn’t going to agree to that. He needed to get home to Julie and he couldn’t watch over her from the hospital.
Accepting Colton’s assistance, he managed to get seated into the chair without too much additional pain. Now if the black spots would stop flashing in his vision, things would be great. He closed his eyes, hoping that would help, but all that did was give him a good case of vertigo. As he tilted to the side, Colton steadied him.
“Chris, what happened?”
“Um, I was jumped.”
“Yeah,” Colton said dryly. “I saw that much. Who were they and why did they jump you?”
“Who? I have no idea. Why? Someone hired them.”
“You specifically?”
“Yep, that’s what they said.”
“But they didn’t say why?”
“Nope.” Chris rubbed at his temples, trying to straighten out his vision. He probably should come clean with the other two events. Colton wasn’t going to be happy he hadn’t mentioned it before now.
“Okay, well, Brian’s on his way. Maybe he can figure it out.”
“We can hope. Hey, what are you doing back here? Not that I’m complaining, but I honestly thought I was a dead man.”
Colton shrugged, but wouldn’t meet Chris’s eyes. “Penelope went right to bed and I figured I would come by and check to make sure that everything was okay on the flight logs.”
Chris squinted at him. “Honestly? You were coming by to check up on my work?”
“Yeah, sorry, but you were really tired. I just wanted to make sure everything was filed correctly before morning.”
Chris shook his head. He should be angry with Colton except that his controlling issues had probably saved Chris’s life tonight. “S’okay. I’m just really glad you came back when you did.”