Nina had sent them to help. She hadn’t come with them.
He didn’t have time for the sting of disappointment. His team was still handing out weapons when Maya whistled and held up one arm in silent communication.
Enemy incoming.
“Hey, Knox.” Dani had already taken cover behind one of the crates, and she threw two more grenades at him—one smoke and one unidentifiable gas. “Dealer’s choice.”
The first bullet whistled over his head as he ducked behind the steel door Rafe had wedged across a corner for cover. Knox pulled the pin on the smoke grenade, ticked off two seconds in his head, and chucked it over the barrier.
It exploded midair, spewing smoke that quickly obscured their position. Knox caught the rifle Maya tossed him and checked the magazine to find it had been loaded with incendiary rounds.
It was a good thing these women were in a forgiving mood, because they didn’t fuck around.
“Spray and pray,” Rafe muttered.
Knox rose above the cover of the door and began firing. Screams mingled with the sounds of bullets pinging off of brick as the smoke seemed to thicken. Rounds whizzed past Knox’s head, some so close he could feel them splitting the air, but he focused on firing. Again and again and again—
When it finally penetrated that no one was shooting back, Knox braced his back against the wall and watched the smoke from the grenade and the guns dissipate on the afternoon breeze.
Seven Hellcats lay sprawled in the mouth of the alley, blood pooling beneath them, their unseeing eyes open to the bright blue sky.
Their names started to materialize on his tongue. Another list of ID numbers, another list of facts that would never matter again. Knox pushed it all down and turned to his men.
Conall had a superficial wound on his cheek. Rafe was nursing a graze to his shoulder. Gray looked as untouched and unruffled as always. And Maya—
“No. Shit, no.”
Maya tore at Dani’s sleeve, her fingers covered with blood. She’d barely pulled the fabric away from the wound when Rafe was suddenly there, trembling with the effort it must have taken him not to elbow Maya out of his way.
Dani tried to break away from them both. “It’s just a scratch. Jesus.”
“You always think it’s just a scratch,” Maya growled, using the torn fabric to wipe away blood.
From where Knox was standing, it didn’t look like a critical injury. The bullet had entered and exited the muscle, bypassing the bone, and it wasn’t bleeding enough to have involved the larger vessels. But Rafe was all but vibrating with tension as he tore his shirt over his head and ripped it into shreds. “Stay still,” he snarled.
Dani sighed and let him lift her arm above her heart and apply pressure to the wound. “Relax, Morales. I’m not dying.” She grinned wickedly. “It doesn’t even hurt.”
Knox had watched Nina and Maya take turns checking Dani after a fight, but the reason had never fully registered. Now, he realized with a start that she wasn’t joking or playing tough.
She really couldn’t feel the pain.
Christ. The TechCorps couldn’t have been happy to have her slip through their fingers. If she got caught up in the next attack on the Devils, there was every chance they’d cart her back to a lab where they could take her apart at their leisure.
Too high. That was the cost of Knox’s freedom. Too fucking high.
“There,” Rafe muttered, cinching the bandage tight. “You’d better put med-gel on that the second you get home.”
“Hey.” Maya’s voice was almost sympathetic as she shoved the tattered remains of Rafe’s shirt back at him. “We take care of her. You don’t need to worry.”
But Rafe would—even more if he had to watch Dani walk away, not knowing whether she’d made it back to safety. “Gray,” Knox said quietly. “Can you three get them home?”
Gray eyed him sharply. “What about you?”
“I’ll meet you back at the warehouse. I have plans to consider.”
“Knox…”
Knox squeezed Gray’s shoulder. “I’m not going to be stupid.”
“I don’t think I believe you.” But he turned away anyway, following Maya as she guided Dani toward the mouth of the alley. Rafe followed close on their heels, practically hovering over Dani, but Conall hesitated.
“You did what you had to do.” He jerked his head toward the tangled sprawl of bodies. “All these men knew the Protectorate. They made their choice.”
“I know,” Knox lied.
Conall stared at him for a few seconds, but didn’t call him on it. “Don’t stick around here, brooding,”