And I lay on my side, tied to that chair in that cold warehouse that didn’t have any fucking windows, seeing as they’d all been broken out, so it definitely didn’t have heat, and I didn’t know what to focus on.

The pain radiating out of my cheekbone, or the same thudding in my head where it’d cracked against the cement floor when I tipped over.

Or, through all this, the agony of seeing Mag’s feet that way on my floor.

In my reality, I saw Snag’s shoes fill my vision before he crouched over me.

“I gotta know where that fuckin’ bag is, bitch,” he snarled.

“Someone stole it from my car,” I told him, again, for the millionth time. “I have no idea where it is.”

“Your dad’s a dealer.”

I closed my eyes tight.

I opened them and said, “Not anymore.”

“Stupid cunt,” he bit out. “Like father, like fuckin’ son. It’s a joke, those two, both of ’em losers, both of ’em tryin’ to outdo each other on the street.”

Oh my God, Dad.

Oh my God, Mick.

Oh my God, why was this my goddamn life?

“You look in that bag?” Snag asked.

I opened my mouth but caught myself from saying “we,” just in case (and I couldn’t think about it another way or I’d unravel) Mag was okay, and that spray of blood was a figment of my imagination.

And then I said, “I looked into it. I saw the drugs.”

“And you didn’t get any bright ideas to give it to your dad to move it?” he pushed.

“No.” I shook my head, my cheek scraping against the floor. “No. Mick told me to do what you said, and I did that. I kept it safe and waited for instructions.”

“Not safe enough, if, like you said, it got stolen from your car.”

“I just had to run in and change clothes. I didn’t want my neighbors wondering why I was toting around a Trader Joe’s bag everywhere I went.”

“You dig through that bag?”

I shook my head again. “No. No. Just looked into it and saw what was in it and that’s all I needed to see. I didn’t want anything to do with it. I texted you that night to tell you I didn’t want responsibility for that bag. The texts wouldn’t deliver.”

“I had occasion to put my phone outta commission.”

I could guess.

“I need that bag, Gardiner.”

Suffice it to say, tied to a chair in a warehouse after being kidnapped and…and…whatever happened to Mag, I absolutely could guess that too.

“I don’t have it,” I whispered, “I swear, I don’t—”

I didn’t finish because I heard a weird thunk.

Then I heard Snag mutter, “What the—?” as he rose away from me.

After that, I heard running feet before a muted explosion that preceded a hissing noise.

Another thunk, and through smoke forming from something on the floor, I saw a figure moving through the warehouse, all the way at the other end.

Then I scrunched my face tight when a gunshot blast assaulted my ears.

“I can see you, motherfucker!” Snag shouted.

Another muted explosion, a hiss, more smoke, and I opened my eyes and started coughing, noting visibility was decreasing rapidly.

I still saw two shadowy figures moving through the space.

Another thunk, explosion, hiss, gunshots and then someone leaped over me in my chair.

Blinking against the tears forming in my eyes, choking on the smoke, I saw through it what appeared to be Boone hitting Snag in the back with a savage shoulder tackle that sent Snag flat to the ground, landing on his front. Such was the fall, Snag’s gun flew out of his hand, and I heard it sliding across cement.

Boone hesitated not a second in landing a knee in the man’s back, to Snag’s grunt of pain.

He then took his head in both hands and slammed it against the cement floor.

Snag went still.

Whoa.

That was when I felt movement at my wrists, which were zip-tied at the back of the chair.

“Hang tight, baby, try not to breathe,” Mag was saying. “Get you out to fresh air and cleaned up soon’s I can.”

But I didn’t really hear his words, seeing as a sob tore jaggedly up my throat the minute I heard his voice.

My wrists were freed, then my ankles were freed from where they were tied to the legs of the chair, then I was up in his arms and he was jogging through the smoke.

But I heard his grunt of pain when he lifted me

He’d carried me before and he did not grunt.

Oh God.

What did that mean?

He set me on my feet outside, but his hands didn’t leave me.

He held me steady as he said, not to me, “Get me some goddamn water.”

I was crying, blinking, struggling to pull in breaths, at the same time desperately trying to focus on him through my blurry vision, and woefully failing.

“If you got saliva, spit out that smoke, honey, you with me? Spit it out. Let your body do what it does to take care of you.”

I bent to the side and spat. My nose was running, my eyes were killing me, but I could spit.

A lot.

Mag must have sensed I had myself steady on my feet 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.