“About time,” Landon growled, bracing a blood-smeared palm on the frame. “You took the long way around.”
Adrenaline surged in a different direction, relief and joy.
“Landon.” Marshall grabbed him with his free hand, checking the other man quickly. Jacket torn, knuckles raw, sweat slicking his throat. No obvious bullet holes. “Took you long enough to get here. What happened to ten minutes?”
“Car died half a mile out.” Landon jerked his head back down the hall behind him. “Felt like the fuel line got kissed or the battery got ghosted. Lights on the dash went Christmas, then nothing.” His breath sawed in and out. “Ran the last mile. You’re welcome.”
Boots thundered behind them, closer now, a tide of sound pushing them forward.
“Loading dock?” Landon asked.
“Only shot,” Marshall said. “You know the route?”
“We’ll figure it out,” Landon said grimly. “Come on.”
Marshall shoved him forward. “She’s your shadow now. You do not lose her.”
For a heartbeat, Norah’s fingers tightened on his.
“No,” she said.
Both men looked at her.
“I stay with you,” she said, voice shaking but stubborn.
He met her eyes. Fear clocked in them. So did steel. He wanted to argue. To plant her behind Landon’s broad back and order the man to drag her out of here.
But there wasn’t time. And there were too many angles that ended in someone bleeding out alone in a concrete hallway.
“Fine,” he ground out. “Then we move as one. Landon, point. I’m tail gun.”
Landon nodded once, reading the calculations in Marshall’s eyes. “Copy.”
They moved.
Landon pushed off the doorframe and ran, lengthening his stride despite whatever pounding he’d given his own lungs. He took the lead with the easy, predatory gait that made him so useful in the field and so annoying in training.
Norah pressed close at Marshall’s side, their hands tangling and untangling with every twist in the corridor. At one point the hallway narrowed to a choke point between a bank of industrial dishwashers and a wall of folded tables. Landon slid through. Norah hesitated, satin catching on metal, a breath of perfume bruised into the air.
Marshall put his hands on her waist and lifted her clear, the heat of her body searing his palms. For half a second, time did something strange—fifteen years collapsing, memory overlaying the present. Her body had fit against his exactly the same way when they were kids and the stakes had been things like curfews and calculus exams.
Then a bullet snapped against the metal behind them and reality slammed back into place.
They burst into a wider corridor, overhead doors lining one side.
“Dock’s ahead,” Landon panted. “Two bays. Alley beyond that to the street.”
“And my SUV’s down the block,” Marshall said.
“Assuming it hasn’t grown legs,” Landon muttered between heavy breaths.
The hum of the building changed here. The air was cooler, threaded with the oily tang of diesel and asphalt. Somewhere, a refrigerated unit kicked on with a low, steady roar. Over it, faint but growing, came the low wail of sirens. Multiple, overlapping. Not right outside, but close enough to be a problem soon.
Police. Ambulance. Fire. Or all three.
They were running toward law enforcement and away from it at the same time.
Landon’s hand came up, palm facing him, a silent halt.
