The man is hurt. He’s confused. You’re an FBI agent. Help him. Comfort him. “Y-you mean when Judas attacked me. When the guy came for me in Atlanta.” That must be what Levi meant. “Cass told you about that?” Her gaze dropped back to his injuries. The blood that covered his chest flowed the heaviest and there was a hole in his shirt, near his heart. A big, torn, blood-soaked hole.
“I mean…in Texas.”
Ice covered her.
Motorcycles were growling. Snarling. Most seemed to have left, but one’s roaring engine grew louder and louder. She should look toward that loud growling. It seemed to be coming straight toward her. But she couldn’t look away from the man on the ground.
“Thought you’d die…with the boyfriend.”
Her heart stopped. Then she was lunging forward. Grabbing his right arm and yanking it up so that she could see if he had that damn two-headed cobra tattoo leading toward his wrist.
Not there.
She checked the other arm, moving blindly, even though she knew the tattoo of that long ago attacker had been on his right arm, not the left. Along his right inner wrist.
But when she shoved up the left arm…
A two-headed cobra. Fangs bared. Scaled body twisting. Not the same tattoo that she’d seen so long ago on the man who’d wrecked her world. This one was different. It circled Levi’s wrist, coiled, then came back with those fangs wide open.
The roaring of the motorcycle filled her ears, and it drowned out the scream of fury that burst from her lips.
“You’re one of them!” Agnes cried out. “You know what happened! You know?—”
He was still smiling, but his eyes had sagged closed.
No, this could not happen. “You’re not dying, you bastard! You don’t get away that easily!”
Hard arms curled around her and yanked Agnes away from the bloody man and to her feet.
“No!” She struggled blindly, wildly. Kicking back. Clawing at the hands and arms that held her. Elbowing the jerk who’d grabbed her. Her gun was still on the ground. “No!”
But he lifted her up like her struggles didn’t matter, and she damn well knew that they did. She wasn’t being gentle. She was fighting like a tiger, punching, twisting, going for maximum pain, and she was not going to stop.
“Agnes!”
Cass dropped her onto the seat of the motorcycle. Because he’d been the jerk to grab her from behind. Like she hadn’t recognized his touch.
She immediately tried to spring up.
“The hell no,” Cass blasted at her. “A shooter is out there! Dammit, why didn’t you stay in the house?”
Because Cass might have needed her. Because Cass might have been shot. But she didn’t say that. Instead, she lunged up again.
He slammed her right back down. Then he jumped in front of her on the motorcycle. “Hold on.”
Screw that. She had to get back to the man on the ground. “He knows!”
“He’s dead! Levi is dead!”
No, Levi wasn’t dead. He’d been talking to her, taunting her. He’d been there, the night her world had upended.
“Levi is dead!” Cass repeated. And, before she could jump off the bike again, something slapped around her wrist.
What in the world?
Cold. Metal.
A handcuff?
