Chapter 7
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“Come on, Partyman.Open your eyes.”
Who was slapping him?
“Cuz? Can you hear me?”
That sounded like Blade. Sam waited for his scrambled brain to rearrange itself back to normal. He blinked.
A bright light blasted fire into his eyes.
He swatted at the evil glow. “Get that out of my face.”
Blade’s wide body blocked out the world. He sighed heavily. “He’ll live, Nitro.”
Nitro. Blade. Angel. The FALCA team. Brain coming back online. Sam tried to sit up. “Is everybody okay?”
Blade topped Sam by another two inches and a load of muscle. The team medic held him down with big hands used with precision to heal or kill, depending on the situation. “We’regood. All but you, Cuz.”
That’s when Sam realized he was soaking wet, laying on grassy ground and surrounded by trees.
Was this their meet point in the woods? How had he gotten here?
Blade’s watch face glowed as he checked Sam’s pulse, but not enough light to see anything clearly beyond Blade’s face.
Sam felt his head. No night-vision gear. When had he lost that?
Back of his head hurt like hell. He coughed. Raw throat as if he’d been throwing up. His undershirt was soaked. “Why am I wet?”
The resident daredevil’s grinning face came into view above him. “You land in the pool when the house blew up. Wish I had seen that stunt,Primo.” Angel often reverted to Cuz in his native language. “You must haveángel de la guarda.”
Guardian angel? Sam’s memory sharpened.
Gray eyes came to mind.
That woman had been no angel. He couldn’t decide if she’d been a godsend that had saved his team with her warning or if she was the very reason their op had been exposed. Was she part of W’s world? If so, what the hell had she been doing in that basement being tortured?
She seemed to know a lot about W and the mansion.
She hadn’t exited by any obvious escape route.
Maybe she’d crossed her boss, and he’d left the one-eyed goon to teach her a lesson before W wiped out her and the torturer.
But how had anyone known Sam’s team was coming in?
“Let me sit up, Blade,” Sam grumbled. He had to prove he was still able to continue with this mission. He accepted the hand his buddy offered and sat up, waiting for his head to stop imitating an out-of-control amusement park ride. Clamping his teeth together prevented heaving. For now. His vision cleared more. He could make out Nitro and Angel getting ready to leave.
Blade dropped down and used an antiseptic wipe to clean cuts and a few burns on Sam’s arms and shoulders. If he hit the pool that fast, the burns were from flying pieces of debris.
