“Yeah, I am,” I muttered. I wasn’t.
“I’ll get it out,” she volunteered.
“You’re not a surgeon,” I reminded her. “Or a doctor.”
“I’ve dug bullets out of dead bodies a lot,” she explained. “It can’t be too different.”
“I fucking think it will be,” I told her. “No way.”
“It’s her or the hospital, Pyre,” Cypher said, cutting into our argument. “Owen’s going to hear about it if they’re digging a slug out of your thigh at the hospital.”
“I’ll just say it happened when we stopped to help Shane and the others.” Then I thought about it. I trusted the doctors at that damn hospital way less than I did my woman. “Dammit. Fine.” I looked down at Rae. “You can do it.”
She patted my chest. “I’ll be gentle.”
That had the others laughing at my expense. Then fucking Jury spoke up. It was like he was about to bust at the seams, like he’d been holding what he wanted to say in until my leg was figured out. “I like her nickname.” Everyone looked over at him. “Reaper.”
“Yeah,” Rotor cut in. “It rolls off the tongue way better than death chick.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I replied. “I told you to stop calling her that.”
“And now we will,” Jury said with a shrug. “It’ll just be Reaper.”
“Or you can stick with Rae,” I told him with a scowl.
“Yeah, whatever pops out will work. Hell, it might even still be death chick. I’ve thought of her like that for so long, it could be hard to change.” Rotor scratched the top of his head, then scrubbed his hand through his reverse Mohawk, making it stand even more wildly on end than before.
“You need a fucking haircut,” Jury told him. “You look like an idiot.”
“How come you never give Pyre shit about his hair?” he complained.
“Because he looks like fucking Fabio, or some shit,” Jury replied. “You look like an animal that stuck its nose in a light socket.”
They started arguing back and forth. I was glad to be out of the spotlight. Mostly. Feeling someone watching me, I glanced over and met Cypher’s gaze.
“Get it taken care of, Pyre.”
“Yeah, I will,” I told him.
His eyes narrowed. “Before infection sets in.”
“I will… After.”
“We’ll debrief later.” He didn’t bother asking what would be coming first. He knew. Shaking his head, he crossed his arms over his chest, but didn’t say anything else.
Rae let out a yelp as I took her into my arms. “Pyre! Your leg!”
The men around me stopped arguing and I didn’t need to look to know they were all grinning as they watched me take Rae downstairs. Most of the apartments were upstairs. The only exceptions were mine and Glitch’s. Mine was right next door to the med bay and Glitch’s was next to the armory. He said being underground was a cooler space for all his computer shit.
“Put me down! You’re going to hurt yourself!”
I scoffed at that. “It doesn’t hurt.” It did.
“I can walk, Pyre.”
“You can,” I agreed, but I kept my arm banded across her little ass. This was way more fun for me. Not to mention it was soothing my nerves. She was here, in my arms, safe. There’d been so many unknowns once I’d heard she was in danger. I wasn’t going to let her out of my sight for weeks.
She was still complaining that I was carting her around like a sack of flour as I opened my apartment door. The second I had it shut behind us, I had her down off my shoulder and standing in front of me. She blinked hard a couple times as she tried to catch her balance from going from hanging upside down to standing so quickly.
