And Colin gave a piercing whistle and a short, harsh command.“Attack!”
As they both dropped their guns.
Crosby lowered his weapon—his training was spot on.
Joey kept his up, and he refocused on the dog as it charged Crosby, jaws open, and bit the soft inside of his thigh.
Crosby howled, both Gleeson twins went for their guns, and three shots rang out.
One from Crosby, hitting Colin Gleeson solidly in the body.
One from Gideon, hitting Kent Gleeson neatly in the forehead.
One from Joey, nailing the dog in the side of the head.
The targets dropped, and so did Crosby, gushing blood from an artery and trying not to cry out.
Gideon secured the dead criminals, and Joey holstered his weapon before rushing to prize the dead dog’s jaws off his friend’s leg.
“Fuck,” Crosby gasped, and Joey was too busy to curse.With a growl, he ran toward the trash pile and grabbed an iron bar he’d spotted, sticking out and ready to trip the unwary.As Gideon spoke into the comm link at his collar, Gail hurtled around the low-slung building.
“Goddammit, Crosby!”she cried.“What in the actual fuck!”
“I’m fine, Elsa,” he rasped, using a pet name for her that Joey didn’t understand.“Just….Jesus, fucking dog.”
“Yeah, fucking dog,” Gail muttered.“Only you, Olaf.”With an oath, she tore off her loose sweatshirt and wrapped it around her hand, grabbing the dog’s lower jaw around Crosby’s oozing flesh while Joey slid the prybar into the hinge.Joey used his iron lever, and Gail gave an assisting yank, both of them grunting in exertion.
With a terriblecrackthe bones gave way, and Crosby started gushing blood for real.
Joey tore off his own oversized sweatshirt and used it as a pad to put direct pressure on the wound, and Gideon—still giving situation details to Harding, Natalia, and Kylie—pulled off his own belt and secured it around the pad, the two of them working as a team like they did field dressing every day of their entire lives.
Far off in the distance, they heard an ambulance wail, and Gail knelt on the filthy, oily ground and pulled Crosby’s head onto her lap, while Joey worked to elevate his leg.
For a moment, the only sound was their labored breathing and Crosby’s surprised murmurs.“Seriously.The dog.I saw him, but… usually it’s the people….”
Joey held on to the acid retort about how only a moron wouldn’t know a predator when he saw one.
Crosby had done everything right.In fact, he’d played it smart, he hadn’t panicked, and he’d had Joey’s back.If Joey wasn’t mistaken, he’d shot and hit a live, moving target as the dog had been sinking its teeth into Crosby’s inner thigh, and goddammit, if that wasn’t good enough for Joey Carlyle’s standards, he was aiming too goddamned high.
Suddenly it didn’t matter if Gideon liked Crosby best.Joeyliked Crosby.Not best, but it didn’t matter.Crosby wasn’t just a coworker; Crosby was ateammate.And, Joey thought miserably as he watched the man’s face turn powder gray from shock and blood loss, he was a good friend.A good guy.
Joey had never had friends, really.Hell, he’d barely had teammates.He’d always been their lone wolf, their scout, the squad’s quiet cutting edge.He’d seen men die, and while he’d felt a dispassionate sense of loss, he’d never felt anything like grief.
As Crosby labored for breath and Gail berated him with legitimate anger and a voice broken with tears, Joey realized he would grieve his teammate if Crosby didn’t recover.He would grieve his friend.His team would be struck with an irrecoverable, unassailable sense of loss.
And Joey was part of that team.
The fear of that emotion wascrushing, and Joey stared helplessly at Gideon, knowing that Gideon was probably more lost than he was.
But Gideon was suddenly at his side, their arms touching in a simple animal way that Joey appreciated.
“He’s going to be fine,” he said, his voice tight with strain.“The ambulance is one minute out.”Gideon froze and swore, obviously responding to something on comms.“I need to go help Tal.Watch for animal control.She got in the back way and found our dog owner and his caged Chihuahua but would like some assistance.”He glanced from Joey to Gail unhappily, and then Crosby.“I’m the only one who’s not covered in blood,” he said apologetically, and then knelt by Crosby’s side.“Hang in there, kid.”
He tousled Crosby’s hair like a little brother’s and then strode over Colin Gleeson’s body and into the building, the shrill echoes of frenzied dog barks starting and stopping with the closing of the door.
THREE HOURSlater, Joey and Gail were seated shoulder to shoulder in the same bed, next to Crosby’s.Both of them had been cleaned, checked for bites, and debriefed by the head of the gambling commission (like that asshole had the balls to understand what had gone down), and they were waiting for Crosby to come out of the anesthetic from the emergency surgery to close off his artery so he could answer the same stupid questions.
And, Joey understood now, they were there to see how their friend was doing.
