And he couldn’t do anything about it.
He woke with a silent scream, sitting up in bed and twisting around, looking for that smirk, that wrist tattoo, that man who’d played them all.
He was met with a pitch-black room, the moon high in the sky, painting the carpet and the bodies scattered all over the floor silver.
He panicked for a moment, until he turned to his left and realized there was another bed there and Teddy was sleeping in it. He was hooked up to machines that monitored his vitals and pale, but alive. Still there.
And the bodies.
His team.
Teddy’s team.
A sea of protection at their feet.
“Wren,” a small chirp came from the foot of his bed and Blu hopped up the length of his leg to nuzzle his cheek. “Man gone. GONE!”
“It’s okay, Blu.” Wren cradled him in his palm and lifted him toward his heart. “You did good.”
“Blu good.” Blu snuggled into Wren’s warmth.
“You’re awake,” Black said, his face illuminated by the light from his phone. Always awake. As usual.
His voice woke Hart, who sat up from his sprawl in an armchair, his cheek sporting a red spot where he had been leaning against his knuckles. He looked at Wren with concern in his eyes before standing up and coming to sit at the foot of his bed. “How are you feeling?”
“We need to call PUMA,” Wren said, his voice a reedy croak.
Hart frowned. “It’s four in the morning, Wren.”
“Oh, Cyrus is up.” Black wiggled his phone. “I was sending him pics from the scene. He said good job!”
“He did not say good job!” Ash whispered from somewhere under Wren’s makeshift bed where he had rolled in his sleep. He pulled himself out.
“That’s how I interpreted it,” Black said.
Ash reached out and snagged the phone from his hand.
“‘Go to bed, you fucking lunatic,’” Ash read, giving him a sardonic glance. “That was a very loose interpretation.”
“Can you just call him?” Wren snapped. They stopped their bickering, but not before Fix woke up.
“Wren, what happened?” Fix asked, nudging Midas along the way and signing to him to catch him up and keep him in the loop. Black got up from his pile of blankets and caused a ruckus that woke up Teddy’s team, and they all crowded around his bed, eyes bleary and half-open but alert.
“When we were leaving with Teddy,” Wren said to all of them, “a man walked by the car. He had a stack of files on him.”
Saint nodded. “Yeah, people were taking all the shit Kellan had in that lair of his.”
“He was wearing a PUMA jacket,” Wren said.
“Several officers were called in to help,” Trace said. “But I have a feeling that isn’t where this stops.”
“He walked right by the car and waved his phone at me. He had the eye tattoo.”
“Someone inside PUMA is in the eye cult?” Echo asked, reaching back into the darkness. Wren spotted Sable as he rushed to their side, pushing his head under Echo’s hand and letting them grab on to the short fur.
“Are we surprised?” Eerie asked, voice bored.
“Yes.” Heir sounded tired. “None of this makes sense anymore.”
