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Current morons was what they were.
“You’re all dead men.” She sneered. “That sniper could have taken you out before you ever made it to Declan and Harley. And he could have taken this dumbass with you.” She flicked her fingers at Duke. “Now get the hell out of my way. You caused me to bust my damned stitches when all you had to do was give me a damned minute.” She had no idea what she’d done to her shoulder. She felt like stomping in fury. “I hate men! I hate all of you! Son of a bitch, I need an intelligent woman to fight with, not a bunch of damned testosterone.”
She pushed through the wall of surprised, offended males and rushed for the door to the suite.
“Send Ethan to me when he’s done. If his ass is still alive, that is,” she ordered as she pushed into the suite and slammed the door behind her. “Assholes.”
• • •
Silence filled the kitchen as all eyes turned from Angel’s retreating back and the men filling the room gazed at each other in shock.
“You know,” Natches drawled into the silence, “I’m pretty sure I want to be Angel when I grow up.”
Duke could only shake his head. “You’d have to be alive first.”
“Hey, Chaya and I didn’t fuck up,” he all but crowed. “We dumped the body in the garage, Seth and Saul are collecting the one Angel took out, and no one was shooting at us. So I get to grow up”—he chuckled—“when I get around to it.”
Everyone looked at him with various expressions of doubt. Natches grow up? That wasn’t going to happen anytime soon and all of them were aware of it.
“Son of a bitch, she made my drill sergeant look like the tooth fairy,” Graham grunted, his expression hardening. “But she’s right. Every one of us could have died out there if she hadn’t known what she was doing. We ignored her. I won’t make that mistake again.”
“Yeah.” Bliss looked a little too smug. “For an older sister, she’s cool as hell, huh?”
The teenager turned and strolled from the room, puffed up with pride as she left the adults in shock.
• • •
Angel could feel the outrage and anger burning through her, but beneath it, crawling insidiously through her mind, was pure terror.
Duke could have died.
Because he hadn’t waited for her.
He hadn’t trusted her.
Easing the drab green T-shirt over her head, she barely held back a moan at the pain that shot through her arm. Blood and pus were seeping beneath the bandage on her thigh, the wound there busted open, the stitches ripped past flesh. She’d felt the break the second she’d begun firing.
Her arm had slammed into something as she rolled to the dubious cover of those logs, then knocked into the sharp point of one log sticking out from beneath. And what the fuck was wrong with her leg?
It was screaming.
She wanted to scream.
Quickly removing her pants she stared at the heavy dark stain on the pad and the blood oozing from beneath the adhesive. And that blood looked odd, just as the stain on the pad did.
Grabbing the long shirt she’d taken from Duke, she pulled it on over the thin black tank top and boy shorts she wore, buttoned a few buttons, and sat on the cushioned hope chest at the bottom of the bed.
How had her leg become infected again? And so quickly. Ethan was certain the problem had cleared up, but as she stared at the gauze beneath the adhesive she knew it was infection. She could see the faint redness now where it hadn’t been the night before. The advanced tenderness, the throb just beneath the flesh.
And it was possibly worse than it had been the first time.
That was why she felt so crappy, she thought dismally. She’d awakened with a faint headache, that off-kilter feeling. She should have known she was running a fever. She knew the signs, but everything was so crazy emotionally that she hadn’t stopped to think.
“There you are!” Ethan rushed into the bedroom, the case he carried gripped in his hand as Duke moved behind him carrying another smaller case.
“Declan and Harley?” She frowned as he tossed the case on the bed, the sound of the metal locks being released behind her.
“They can wait,” he announced. “I was already on my way here when the sirens raced by. I had Doc Marlin send off a swab of the discharge from that leg for testing the other day. He just called about an hour or so ago. I would’ve been here sooner, but I had to stop by the hospital.”
