Under My Skin

Under My Skin - Part 68

Cetz caught his breath, holding the headset to his ear. His body went slack. A cold, sickening fog came over him. A split second later the cold turned into fire. The churning of helicopter blades blanked out and he unzipped the long black case in his lap, taking out a pair of specialized goggles.

"Faster," he said to the pilot.

***

Zachs approached the fallen agent. Will, his hands hugged tightly to his middle, was curled around a slowly growing pool of red that seemed glaringly bright in the fluorescent light. If Zachs was right it would take almost fifteen minutes for the agent to bleed out. A painful death, but it could have been worse.

"A pity," whispered Zachs. "I was really starting to like you, Agent William, if that makes you feel any better. You had integrity."

Hovering over Will's body, Zachs froze.

Why wasn't there blood on the back of the agent's shirt?

Will turned and kicked the gun out of Zachs' hand, following with a knife in his hand that grazed the suited man's leg. Zachs roared and hopped back. But not fast enough. Will kicked the legs out from under him. Even as Zachs fell with a crack on his back, Will was panting to get to his knees, his left arm pressed to his middle where he burned with slick pain. The most he could do was crawl.

The gun. He had to get to the gun.

Halfway to it the heel of Zachs' shoe crushed the hand that held the knife. Another shoe was better aimed, kicking straight into Will's burning gut, making gasp and whimper. White flashed behind his eyes, he couldn't move the pain was so bad.

Then Zachs was over him with the second gun, Will's own gun, pointed at his face. There was something animalistic in the suited man's eyes, as if all the lines of control and perfection were shattered in an instant.

In that same instant, the window beside them shattered and Zachs stumbled to the side. Sticking out of Zachs' neck was a red tipped tranquilizer dart. Within seconds, he fell, limp as a doll. Though the broken window, Will could hear the cutting thumps of helicopter blades. Then he lay back down on the linoleum, not wanting to move.

***

The parking lot of the Luvor was in chaos. Despite the appearance of both the police and the fire department, no one with the party was comforted. Many fingers were pointed to the Luvor's security guards and others raised their voices until they looked ready to hiss smoke. Evnetually, the promised backup from Watch One arrived, but not before Rachel parked the issued ambulance and dashed inside with a team and stretchers.

"Beni, can you confirm backup?" asked Grant through the com.

Beni nodded, slipping one of her shoes back on. "Yep, we've got lots of backup. And I've just turned Agent Ian over to Watch hands."

"Good work; I'll relay that to Cetz."

She stared at her other shoe with the broken heel. She hadn't expected Ian's head to be so hard when she hit him with it.

Now she had to find out if Reese had been released into Watch custody after being charged with "drunk and disorderly conduct".

***

The door to the twentieth floor was electronically locked and to get the key Rachel would have to talk to the concierge of the Luvor, or get Reese. She didn't have that much time for either of them so she had the fire fighters that followed her break it down with their battering ram. As the door fell in a creaking heap, Will twitched. She ran past Zachs, kept herself from kicking the man in the crotch, leaving him for her nurses to take care of. She put her kit down beside Will. He seemed awake and winced as she touched his shoulder. Then he glanced down at his bloody vest and shirt.

"Oh God... oh God..."

"Will, look at me," coaxed Rachel as she opened her kit and grabbed a package of gauze to press to the wound. "You'll be fine. Talk to me."

"God... ruined..." His hand seemed to dig into his wound. And then he pulled out part of a broken plastic bag. "My tux is ruined."

"What the..."

"Don't get that on you," warned Will, still gasping. "A mix of ketchup, red wine, and maple syrup from room service leftovers. Stains like hell."

Rachel put her fingers through the hole in Will's outfit and felt a hard surface under a canvas panel. Her jaw dropped. "You're wearing a bulletproof vest?"

"Homemade. Almost didn't fit under the tux. Gypsum cement and ceramic bathroom tiles. Bullet-resistant," hissed Will as she pulled his vest and shirt open, exposing the hole in the canvas. "But it sure doesn't feel like it."

Rachel shook her head, struggling between hugging Will in relief or punching him for making her worry. She shooed the nurses around her away. "What hurts?"

"Remember when you said it would take a punch to the gut to make my injuries worse?"

"Your pyloric sphincter," said Rachel with a nod. The force of a bullet hitting even a Kevlar vest would be enough to cause internal damage. Rachel found the Velcro straps on Will's side that kept the vest on and ripped them off. There was a vibrant red bruise on Will's stomach that would get darker with time. Her voice lowered to a harsh whisper as she bent closer. "And I bet they felt that. Have you felt anything from Louis or Massaru since being shot?"

"Huh?" Will frowned. "No, I—"

Rachel shook her head as she reached for her stethoscope. "I can't believe you pulled this kind of stunt with two other people inside you."

"Rachel—"

"It's one thing to risk your own life, but what about them?"

"I didn't—"

"Didn't think? Of course not." Rachel put the cold disc of the stethoscope to Will's stomach, making him hiss.

"Rachel." Will stilled her hand and flicked a mischievous half grin. "I never said they were with me."

***

A nurse found Will's SkySprecht and returned it to him, but Will couldn't hear anything through it. He consented to be carried down the stairs on a stretcher, but leaned on Rachel the rest of the way down to the parking log. They found Beni standing next to her partner. Reese sat dejectedly in the ambulance, one arm crossed tight over his middle while another held his stethoscope to it, and looking like he had swallowed turpentine. His face turned pleading when they approached him.

"For the love of God. Get. Them. Out!"