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Laila fumbled along the wall, tiptoeing and listening for noises. The sounds of the battle upstairs grew fainter and fainter as she made her way past other doors, none of which were the morgue, she supposed, because she didn’t hear Matt or Montilla’s lackey.
Finally, she reached the end of that wall and found herself in the intersection of two corridors. The pounding of something against metal—a fist?—resounded down the empty space almost directly ahead.
Then she heard a voice she’d know anywhere. “Get me the fuck out of here!”
Trees! He was still alive. Still fighting.
“Shut up, freak,” an accented voice spit at him with contempt, sounding even closer.
“You shut up. He’s not a freak,” Matt defended.
“I would love to fight you, tear you limb from limb, vaquero. If el jefe gives me the go-ahead…”
“You’re all talk.” Matt sounded annoyed.
Laila crept closer, still shaking and fighting the urge to curl up into a fetal-position ball, rock back and forth, and beg someone to turn the light on. But she would brazen her way through this and rescue Trees, even if it took all her will.
“I can hear your fucking voices. Let me the hell out!”
Trees was alone, probably in the dark, too. Was he afraid of what would happen if EM Security lost the battle? Did he even know it was going on? In this floor, in a separate wing, she could hear none of the commotion above.
“One more word, and I will come in there and kill you myself.”
“You fucking try,” Trees sneered. “You don’t have the brains or the balls.”
“Pinche pendejo,” Montilla’s man spit. “I will fuck you up.”
Suddenly, a little light flickered on at the end of the hall. Laila glimpsed the hazy outline of a dark-haired man facing the door, gun in hand. She heard the scrape of metal, then the thug yanked on the door.
Matt, weapon in hand, clamped down on his shoulder. “You’re not touching him.”
“No, I am going to kill him. Back off.”
Matt surged into the small circle of light and shoved the man. The light dropped between their feet as the sounds of curses and flying fists filled the hallway.
They were distracted. This chance would not come again.
Laila swallowed back more fear and rooted along the wall toward the morgue.
As Matt and the drug thug tangled toward a corner, they kicked the light. Beams spun crazily on the sagging ceiling as Laila crept closer, now mere feet from the door.
Before she reached it, it wrenched open. Trees busted out. Scattered beams lit his face in stark relief. He breathed hard and growled, looking like a blunt-force instrument of vengeance.
Then he turned to Matt and Montilla’s goon. They were both armed. Trees wasn’t.
He needed her help.
Before she could give him her gun, Matt scuffled back into the circle of light and hit the criminal over the head with the butt of his gun. Montilla’s lackey wilted, seeming to melt toward the concrete floor.
They were safe—for the moment.
“Trees!” she called out.
His head snapped up. His stare fastened on her. “Laila, what are you—”
“No time. We must go.” She fumbled with the gun in her waistband, then handed it to him before bending to grab the firearm off the body near Matt’s feet. “There is a shoot-out upstairs. I sneaked my sister and my nephew outside, but everyone else—”
“Why didn’t I hear it?” Matt demanded, picking up the flashlight and shining it down the hall, almost in her face.
“Too far away. But I am worried. If they lose…”
“We’re all dead. Let’s go.” Trees took her hand, alert and battle ready as they charged toward the stairs. “You stayed behind to fight?”
At the chiding note in his voice, she shook her head. “I stayed behind to find you.”
“In the dark?” he asked softly as they reached the end of a long corridor, past what had once been an industrial elevator, and headed up. “You must have been terrified.”
“I was more afraid of not finding you.” She squeezed his hand, meeting his stare in shadow.
Trees squeezed her hand in return, then looked over her head to Matt. “You have to help me with this shoulder.”
“Your arm isn’t broken?”
“No.”
Matt still hesitated. “I shouldn’t do this, and putting it back in place is going to hurt like hell.”
“I’ll only be half as effective in getting us out alive if you don’t.”
“Roger that.” Matt nodded, then handed her the flashlight. “Get on the floor.”
Trees didn’t hesitate to get supine.
Matt took hold of Trees’s wrist and winced. “Laila, kiss him. Don’t let him pull away.”
“Now?”
“I’m going to scream, honey. He’s trying to muffle the sound. Come here.” Trees held his good arm open to her.
