8 sentinels were on the floor, bound, gagged, and what looked like sedated. With the cameras down, Mareeka had posted guards on the open docks. They must have encountered Bridgebane first and maybe known he was somehow connected to the orphanage, so they hadn’t put up a fight. Shade hadn’t been questioned, and the Overseer would have shot to kill.
“Big Guy? Can you check on those guards over there? Free them and make sure they’re all right?” I asked, pointing to the sentinels.
Big Guy nodded and jogged off.
“That’ll fit inside the Endeavor,” I said of Shade’s small ship. It was the two-person craft he’d used to fly me to the beach.
Shade looked up, something in his eyes melting right into me. “Is that an invite?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I guess so.”
Where else could he go? The Dark Watch would soon be stalking his place in Albion City, if not torching it to the ground. According to Bridgebane, Shade now had a huge price on his head. And I… I kind of wanted to keep him around.
“Just don’t hit anything when you’re flying it into the central cargo bay,” I said, souring my voice on purpose.
Humor briefly touched his lips. “Wouldn’t dream of it, sugar.”
I snorted softly. “One more sugar, and I’ll punch you in the thigh.”
“Noted,” Shade said.
I almost smiled. The impulse died when I realized the bullet had gone in but hadn’t come out. “I’m going to have to dig for it,” I told Shade as I inspected his leg. I didn’t dare try to take care of Fiona. She needed Surral and trained nurses. This, though, I could probably handle myself.
“Do you know how to do that?” Shade asked.
I glanced back up. “Does having done it before count?”
He looked dubious. “Got any numbshot?”
I shook my head, wishing I could inject him with something to dull the pain, but there was nothing on the Endeavor that would help. “We’re too poor and not well enough connected for that. We grit our teeth through this kind of thing…cupcake.”
Shade smiled, despite the pain he must have been in.
“Or you could wait for Surral,” I said. “She’ll probably bring some with her, although she rations it out carefully.”
“She your doctor here?”
I nodded. “But she needs to see Fiona first.”
“How ’bout you take care of me, Tess.” He didn’t ask, exactly. He just said it. And he used my name, which threw me—and filled me with warmth.
I sprayed his leg clean with a large dose of saline. The wound had almost stopped bleeding, but it started again as soon as I began digging around with a pair of long, sterile tweezers, my fingers gently pulling the hole in his thigh apart.
Shade bit down hard, his molars grinding. After a moment, he tipped his head back so he wouldn’t look. I wouldn’t have wanted to watch this, either. I didn’t want to. Big Guy returned and then backed up a step, and my stomach turned over at the pull of flesh and the squish of muscle and blood. I saw a flash of bone and grimaced.
Shade grimaced, too. Often. He was pretty damn stoic otherwise. I finally got the bullet out, and blood gushed from the wound again. I quickly pressed a sterile pad to it, trying to stanch the flow.
“You all right?” I asked, looking up. My eyes crashed into Shade’s, and my heart gave an unruly thump. Despite the agony hardening his expression, there was something incredibly soft in his gaze.
He opened his mouth to say something just as Surral raced onto the dock. Mareeka burst out of a different elevator a second later and caught up to her with only a few running steps.
“What happened?” they frantically asked together.
“First Bridgebane,” I answered. “And then the Overseer himself.”
Their eyes widened in shock.
“But…I don’t understand.” Mareeka looked around in confusion. “Where are the guards?”
I turned to Big Guy, who answered, “Over there. Sedated, but fine.”
Both women glanced quickly toward the sentinels, now propped up in a line against the wall.
“The cameras are going back online now,” Mareeka said. “But we have three hours that are totally dark.” She sounded as though she’d never regretted a decision more in her life.
“Tell us the situation, Tess,” Surral said with urgency.
I didn’t want to explain, or to make already horrifying things even more real by saying them out loud, but they couldn’t work efficiently without facts. Neither could the nurses and administrative assistants who’d just followed them onto the platform with rubber gloves and biohazard bags.