“God, I didn’t think about the cat.” His skin glistened now, a rivulet coursing down the side of his face and into the collar of his uniform. William shifted his feet, marking the floor with black rubber burns. “That would have made him come to me. He loves that cat. I should have killed the cat. But see, I kill you… well, make it look like Merris killed you, then he killed himself, and Doctor Morgan’s got no one else to turn to but me. Just me.”
“Wait, you did all this shit so Quinn would what? Be so broken up about things he’d turn to you for… what exactly?” Rafe felt his tongue go sideways, and he slurred, dribbling out of the corner of his mouth. Fighting to stay focused, he rounded in on William again. “Dude, Quinn wouldn’t give you the time of day. That why you had to go around killing people he knows? So he’d cry all over your shoulder?”
He caught William’s punch across his cheek, and Rafe gagged on another rush of blood. The blow might have hurt, but the motion took William forward, throwing him off, and he had to slam his hand against the wall to keep from falling on top of Rafe.
Close enough for Rafe to grab William’s gun.
He had it in his hand. Rafe felt the rough diamond pattern on the hilt, or whatever they called the spot someone held a gun by. It was hard, a bit cold but definitely heavy. Even as he tugged to get the gun free of William’s holster, it felt so damned heavy.
“What the…?” The guard careened over, twisting to get away from Rafe’s grasp.
They went over together, tangled in on each other in a macabre mockery of sex fueled by fear and violence.
It was a struggle. The gun wouldn’t shake loose, no matter how hard Rafe tugged and jerked. William pounded on his back, jarring his spine and getting in shots at Rafe’s kidneys. If he made it out of there alive, he’d be pissing blood for weeks, but Rafe was willing to take that chance.
Quinn was worth every single bit of blood he had in him.
William was big, nearly too big for Rafe to get around him. They rolled, slamming into the wall near the elevators, almost crushing Graham. The guard kicked, trying to get Rafe loose, but he held on, hooking his hand into William’s belt for leverage. Neither could get to their feet, not with their limbs entwined and Rafe’s hand clamped down over the gun. Twisting about, William tried to shake loose Rafe’s hold, tearing at his wrist and fingers to get his weapon free.
Rafe refused to let him. Hanging on to the gun was his only hope. His last hope. Especially since the hall seemed to be darkening again and his stomach threatened to scale up his throat to escape the jerky roller-coaster ride he’d put himself on.
The gun went off, blowing out Rafe’s eardrums. Then everything went still and black.
QUINN HEARD the gunshot, and his heart died. Fighting with the elevator and then yelling at someone from Dispatch to send over a car or five already sent him into a panic. Lightning rode his nerves, crackling terror under every inch of his skin, until Quinn was certain he’d burn up before he could get up the stairwell to reach Rafe.
The thundering echo of a gun shattering the stairwell’s silence brought him that much closer to dying inside.
Quinn grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall and went through the door—only to slide across the tile when he hit a pool of blood.
He saw Rafe lying on the floor, curled in on himself, and Sam the security guard tottering to his feet, an unsteady monolith in sweat-soaked cotton. His meaty hand clutched a blackjack, its metal tip peeking out from between a space in its leather wrap. The guard’s lip peeled back when he saw Quinn. Then his face changed, becoming docile and placid, his eyes sliding down to the weapon in his hand. They widened as if he was surprised to find himself holding the sap before drifting back up to Quinn’s face.
“It’s not what it… um, Doctor Morgan.” The sap swung out of his hand, caught on a loop around Sam’s wrist. “Professor Merris… he….”
Quinn edged closer to Rafe, keeping one eye on Sam. He couldn’t put the extinguisher down, not when he wasn’t sure who’d attacked whom. For all he knew, Graham’d been the one to beat Rafe’s face, but the wounds were bruised welts, meaty explosions under Rafe’s skin. They were growing too thick, too fast for someone of Graham’s build to have done, especially since Graham was lying motionless against one of the elevator doors.
The fire extinguisher was heavy, but Quinn didn’t want to let go of it. Somewhere there was a gun. He’d heard it go off, and Sam’s holster was empty. One of the marble tiles was blackened and cracked, a large hole punched through the stone. The air smelled of powder and metal. Reaching Rafe’s side, Quinn ran his hand over Rafe’s chest, his gaze pinned to Sam’s face. Rafe’s breathing was steady, but his sweats were bloody. A tear through the fabric gave Quinn some small reassurance. Outside on the meat of his thigh, the wound seemed deep enough to bleed but not too worrisome.
The contusions on Rafe’s face bothered him. As did Rafe’s unfocused, wandering gaze when Quinn whispered his name.