“Okay, everyone fan out and look!” Joy shouts.
“Yea, we’ll find them!” Felix nods enthusiastically.
“They’re most likely in the woods…” Kemper reaches for Dash, who’s now on his knees in the dirt, staring at his hands.
“I’ll go get ‘em.” Hancock jumps up while Dr. Love is trying to change out his bandage. “Hurry up, man.” He snaps his fingers at him.
“No,we’llgo,” I say, nodding at Felix. “We were already going. We can look for the meds while we’re out there.”
“You’ll never find them.” Kemper shakes his head despondently. “They could beliterallyanywhere between the mansion and here…”
“No one will find anything with that attitude.” Ren gives him a pointed look.
“Yea, I mean, we can at least try—”
Boom!
My words are cut off by another grenade. Farther away this time, but still close enough to rattle the walls and blow out our damn eardrums.
Joy runs to the door, rifle up. I can hear Velle screaming from outside. “Fall back!”
My ears are ringing, dust in the air prompting a coughing fit. Still, my main focus right now is Dash.
He’s up and looking around, no longer visibly freaking out. But he doesn’t seem… quite right.
Grabbing Felix by the arm, I croak. “Let’s go.”
He nods, but Kemper rushes us.
“I can’t let you guys do this,” he gasps. “You’ll get yourselves killed, and he’ll never forgive himself. And I’ll never forgivemyselffor him never forgiving himself.”
“We can handle it,” Felix assures.
But then Joy stomps over. “He’s right. It’s too dangerous out there. These assholes just aren’t letting up.”
“Time for Plan B,” Velle growls, storming over to Angel, grabbing the kid by the wrist.
“Whoa whoa! What the fuck?!” Trevel barks, jumping between them.
It’s anarchy in an instant. People are yelling and screaming, Velle is yanking Angel toward the door while Trevel and Felix attempt to pry him free. Poor Angel’s like a Stretch Armstrong in the middle while the rest of us shout at them all tolet go, orcalm down, or something to the effect ofstop it.
Suddenly, Dash stalks over, without a word. Almost in slow motion.
He gets right up to Velle, cocking his head. Velle actually pauses, distracted.
And then Dash knees him, right in the balls.
“Argh!” Velle roars, dropping to the ground with his hands cupping the goods.
“Oh, shit!” My gasp turns to a chuckle I’m trying like hell to hide, though it’s pretty damn funny.
“Reznikov! What the shit is wrong with you?!” Velle groans.
“Dascha, what the hell did you do??” Kemper snorts, shaking his head.
Rook and Joy are by Velle’s side, attempting to comfort him and not laugh openly. In fact, all of the shouting from just seconds ago has turned to laughter. Mildly sympathetic, but mostly like…Yea, he still deserves it.
He may be a different guy now, but that doesn’t negate all the shit he pulled before he fell in love. I’d say a dozen or two more of those might barely scratch the surface.
