No, that wasn’t possible. The man was smart, and he was strong. He may not be a member of law enforcement, but he’d traveled the world and studied at several different dojos, specifically so that he wouldn’t be helpless in this kind of situation.
He had to be okay.
I wasn’t waiting any longer. If something happened to Kitt, then I needed to know. Someone must know something, so I would keep demanding answers until I finally found someone who could help me.
Just as I started to approach a group of nearby cops, someone suddenly called out my name.
“Jordy!”
Spinning toward the sound of the familiar voice, I found Clay running toward me.
“Clay? What?” In a rare display, I grabbed onto him in a tight hug as soon as he was within arm’s length without even hesitating over the physical touch. “What are you doing here? How did you even get here?”
Clay hugged me back just as tightly.
“It took us forever to shake the bell ringers off our tail. Once we did, one of Gabe’s contacts, Miss Kim, gave us the information about Grace Calderon. She said you were alreadyhere, so we came after you as quickly as we could. I’m glad we got here in time.”
With one arm around my shoulder, he led me away from the cops and toward a side door I would have overlooked on my own. A sign above the door, so small I couldn’t read it until I was right under the frame, readMedical Wing.
I snorted when Clay opened the door. Calling the area a “wing” was optimistically generous. Despite the size of the airport, the medical area only consisted of a few rooms that shared space with a storage closet.
“You got here in time?” I asked as I followed Clay through the medical area. “Does that mean Kitt is okay?”
I got my answer almost immediately. Before Clay could say a word, he was interrupted by the sound of someone else crying out in pain. I’d never heard Kitt shout like that, but I still recognized his voice and instinctively ran toward him, leaving Clay behind.
“Fucking hell,” Kitt spat out between clenched teeth, gripping his shoulder while a medic stood over him holding onto his arm. “It didn’t hurt that much when it was dislocated. Popping the joint back in should be easier, shouldn’t it?”
“A dislocated shoulder is no joke,” the medic scolded him. “You need to take it easy while the joint heals. And yes, it’s going to hurt.”
As I watched the medic wrapping his clearly injured arm into a sling, I couldn’t help blurting out, “What did you do?”
Kitt looked up, and the furrow of his brow instantly smoothed out at the sight of me.
“Oh, you know. Just took a rebar pipe to the shoulder. Honestly, I’m lucky we’re in an airport. If we’d been anywhere else, it would’ve been a bullet.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I said, shaking my head in dismay, but I was already moving to his side andletting him wrap his good arm around my waist. “You shouldn’t be injured at all.”
He pinched the sliver of exposed skin between the bottom hem of my shirt and the top of my pants, making me jump and effectively silencing me.
“We both knew we weren’t going to get out of this unscathed. I’m just glad you weren’t hurt, and from the sounds of it, you were able to get the kid to the proper authorities. If a dislocated shoulder is the worst I have to pay, then I’ll gladly accept it.”
I still continued to pout. “Just because it’s better than a bullet doesn’t make it a good thing.”
Heaving a sigh and shaking his head, Kitt leaned in and kissed the pout right off my face.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said after he pulled away. “I’m alive, and I’ll heal. We have more important things to focus on now.”
I just nodded with a dazed, “Uh huh.”
What kind of superpower did this man have?
It had only been a brief kiss. Such a short touch of his lips should not turn my thoughts into mush and leave my whole body tingling from my scalp all the way to my toes. It wasn’t fair.
How was I ever supposed to win an argument with him if he could turn my brain off with a simple kiss?
The sound of a gasp shocked me back into full awareness and I looked over to find Clay staring at me wide-eyed. He gestured between Kitt and I, his mouth gaping like a drowning fish. “You two?”
It felt like he was trying to demand space between us, but just the thought of that sent anxiety singing through my nerves and I instinctively pressed closer to Kitt instead.
