For the first time since they met and formed their team, back when they all signed up for the experimental drug program and were placed together, Blade ignored a direct order from his team leader.
No way in hell was he stopping.
Not when Whitney might have just been shot, could be dead this very second, or lying on the floor bleeding out, wondering why he wasn't there to protect her like he’d said he would be.
Failed. He’d failed the woman who had become incredibly important to him in a short space of time. He’d promised her he would be there for her, and he hadn't been. He’d let her do this when he knew it was too risky a move, and he should have locked her up at home where she could be angry with him, hate him if she had to, but be alive and safe.
All of a sudden, Thunder had bypassed him and was in front of him, blocking his path. That split second it took him to attempt to adjust his course, cut through the park to reach the row of shops and the produce store that Detective Hayes had said they were going into, was thwarted when Thunder and Steel boxed him in.
Keeping that much distance between them and Whitney had been a huge mistake. If they’d been closer, he would have heard whoever was waiting in that store to shoot Whitney when she walked in the door.
“You're not thinking,” Steel said in a patronizing tone that rubbed him the wrong way.
“Damn right I'm not thinking of anything other than getting to Whitney,” he growled, for the first time in his life actually considering killing one of the men he considered a brother.
“For a guy who has superhuman hearing skills, you aren't using them very well,” Voodoo said.
“What do you mean?” He’d heard the gunshot and would have heard it even without Whitney wearing the comms unit.
“Listen,” Dragon said quietly, his unusual violet eyes filled with an understanding that came from being in the same position before, terror for the woman you were falling for temporarily disrupting your connection to logic.
Forcing himself to shove the panic back a little, he focused.
And then he heard it.
“Y-you killed him,” Whitney said, her voice weak and wavery, reminding him of how she’d sounded when she first started talking to him when he had her hanging from the tree. Since he knew that her immediate reaction to trauma was paralysis, he assumed these were the first words she’d spoken since the shooting.
Not dead.
Whitney wasn't dead.
Which meant the shot had to have killed the cop.
Given the man had turned dirty, been willing to sell out Whitney for a bag of cash, Blade didn't have it in him to summon even an ounce of empathy. The crooked cop had gotten exactly what he deserved.
“She’s okay,” he murmured the words on an exhale, barely able to believe them. He’d been so certain that the bullet had struck his girl, taken her from him, that he hadn't been able to think of any other possibility. This one made much more sense, though.
“He’s not going to kill her,” Steel said with a whole lot more confidence than Blade was currently feeling. Then again, it waseasy for Steel to be confident when the woman he was in love with was safely tucked away at their home.
“Do we know who that is?” he asked, trying to cling to the control he was scrounging up. Facts would help him do that. Whitney liked facts, had shared dozens of them with him over the last few days.
“I sent a copy of his voice to Raven and Olivia. You know if anyone can identify him it’s them and their teams,” Lion assured him.
“You’ve almost caused more hassle than you're worth,” the voice in his ear spoke, and he caught Whitney’s whimper. Whoever this man was, she knew him, and she was terrified of him.
“I was just here to clear my name,” Whitney said in a small voice. Despite how scared she obviously was, she was doing everything they could have asked of her. She was working through her fear and maintaining her cover. The last thing they needed was for her to let on that she was playing them while they thought they were the ones playing her.
“What name?” the man mocked, and he could hear footsteps crossing a concrete floor, that combined with another whimper from Whitney, and Blade knew the man was moving closer to her. “Whitney Daley doesn’t exist. Gone, poof, like a puff of smoke.”
“They erased her again,” Thunder said, stating the obvious, and Blade threw his friend a quick glare.
“Why can't you just leave me alone?” Whitney asked, and there was a pleading quality to her voice he knew wasn't all acting. All she wanted was to be free to be her own person, make her own choices, live her own life.
“You know why,” the man replied.
“But he never listens to me anyway. He fiddles with every variation of the drug I create. The reason they keep dying isbecauseof Dr. Gardner. If he wants to do it himself, then let him,” Whitney begged.
“Don’t think you really want to be making that argument, baby genius,” the man taunted. “Because if he does it all himself and doesn’t need you anymore, then that makes you expendable, doesn’t it? And if you're expendable, I could just put a bullet through your head right now and be done with it.”
