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"Well, don't you look lovely in red," Renz drawls causing Leo to chuckle. I grin but it feels more manic than joyful right now. "Find anything?" he asks even as his eyes take in the scene around me. His brows lift almost imperceptibly in the dim light, but he gives no other reaction before looking back at me.
Shaking my head, I sigh as I step over one of the bodies to join Renz and Leo. "Nope. You?" I state simply, having nothing else to offer.
Renz just chuckles, knowing exactly why I gleamed no information despite how many men I took down. I figured as much from him. He's not the one I have to worry about flaying my ass over this. He may be our leader, but Zac is far more suited to the dictator role. Walking through the shipping containers, we wordlessly seek out the missing member of our pack. I have no doubt that Isaac is unharmed, but my gut tightens regardless. I won't feel better until I see him standing in one piece.
No one says anything more, each of us knows we'll discuss the situation once we're all together. Rounding the corner of one of the metal boxes, I damn near collide with Leo's back when he stops short, causing Renz and me to stumble. "Fucking hell, Leo," I grunt, steadying myself as I reach for my gun.
"It's just me," Isaac mumbles. I step around Leo and shove Renz out of my way ignoring his irritated huff as I go. I also come to an abrupt halt when I take in the scene before me.
"What happened?" I hiss, dropping to my knees in front of Zac who is propped up and leaning on the container, a very dead body laying at his feet. My eyes widen as I glance between the two men and all of the previous haziness I was feeling is immediately replaced with rage and fear in equal measures.
Zac is covered in more blood than the dead guy and with the practically non-existent lighting, I can't tell where it's all coming from. Leaning forward, I grasp his jaw, turning his face side to side as I check for injuries. He tries to bat my hand away, but I ignore him, squeezing harder, my grip firm. Finding nothing more than a split lip and a bruised cheek, I begin to pat down his body in search of the source of the bleeding.
Calmly, Isaac grabs both of my hands and squeezes roughly, gaining my attention and pausing my frantic movements.
"Eli, enough. I am fine. The blood is not mine, it's his." He juts his chin out a second man about ten feet away that I had missed when we first arrived. Fuck. Good thing the guy is dead considering I was so distracted by Isaac's appearance; I hadn't even thought to do a perimeter check.
Looking over my shoulder, I find Leo and Renz searching the two fallen men, and my self-loathing halts. Though I should be more aware, more on guard, I know that my family has my back. I assume that their space and silence is in an effort to give Zac and I a moment alone just as much as it is to actually figure out who these men are.
"What happened?" I repeat, turning back to Zac. Offering him a hand, I pull myself to my feet, hauling him up with me. He brushes the dirt and filth from his arms and legs the best he can before responding.
“Motherfucker,” he growls staring down at his blood-soaked feet. Tossing out random curse words, he attempts to wipe them off, clearly irritated for whatever caused him to ruin his pretty shoes. I snicker and smack his shoulder, holding in the need to check him over and verify with my own two eyes that he's actually fine and uninjured.
“I shot this one,” he gestures to the man that was by his feet, “in the shoulder and knocked him out to take back with us. I was getting ready to come find you all when that one leapt on me from the top of one of the containers like some sort of possessed beast. He knocked me down and we fought. Unfortunately, the only way to take him down was to stab him, and well, you see how that ended.”
Zac shrugs but I can tell he's angry with himself. Wait till he finds out that I killed six without even attempting to keep anyone alive for questioning. He's going to flip his shit. I see many hours of pain and punishment in my future. I grin.
“And this one?” Renz asks from his knelt position in front of the man who Zac said he had originally saved to take with us. “He bled, but didn't lose enough to bleed out, yet he's dead.” Leo joins Renz, offering him light from his phone as they investigate the cause of the man's death.
I take advantage of their preoccupation by focusing on Isaac for the moment. He's frustrated and I can tell just by looking at him that he's feeling as though he's failed. Zac has a tendency to want to be the best, offer the most, and have all of the answers. He thinks that if he's not providing in some way for our makeshift family, he's unworthy of his position as second in command. I think it goes deeper than that but it's not a topic of conversation he's ever willing to entertain.
“Are you really okay?” I murmur. His eyes meet mine and soften slightly. His jaw ticks as he maintains eye contact, saying all of the things he doesn't feel comfortable saying out loud. He nods and reaches his hand out, as if to grab mine but stops before making full contact. His fingers trail across mine a move so small, that no one would catch it.
I do though.
It angers me as much as it lights me up. After all of this time, he's still uncomfortable showing affection. Publicly or otherwise. But the feeling of his skin on mine, no matter how minute the touch, causes my body to tingle. Thoughts fill my head at a rapid speed of all of the things he can do with his hands, his body, his mouth.
Just as quickly as he gave into the pull between us, the connection, he breaks it. Turing, he walks away without another word and heads back to the rest of our group who are discussing something. Gritting my teeth, I shake off the hurt that always comes every time Zac brushes me off. Despite the fact that I know I can’t truly be angry with him, this is just the nature of our relationship, it still stings. Yet, I force it down, along with everything else that my brain wants to process and analyze until I'm nothing more than a broken shell.
Rejoining them, I hone in on their heated conversation. Renz is repeatedly running his fingers through his brown hair, fucking up the once polished style and leaving it to droop across his forehead.
“I don't understand. You said you just knocked him out and he was fine, and now he's covered in I don't even know. What is that? Foam? Did he have a seizure from the head injury?”
At Renz's confused and distressed rant, I drop down and take in the man, inspecting the situation for myself. Leo, who has been acting as a silent sentinel, notices what I'm doing and offers me his light. I smile and thank him before turning back to the dead guy. I take in the bloody wound on his left shoulder that has already dried up and stopped bleeding. Though there is a small puddle beneath him, he definitely didn't bleed out.
I take in the foamy, liquid substance slowly leaking from the man's mouth and while I am no expert nor can I fully rule out a seizure, I doubt that's what actually occurred. However, I have a theory. Pained at my lack of gloves and proper CSI-level equipment, I lean forward and pry the dude's jaw open. It's tight and rigid, almost like he has lockjaw from tetanus. When I finally have enough space to see properly, I find the cause of both his current state and his untimely death.
Fighting a gag, I reach in with deft fingers and pull out the small, oval-shaped capsule. “Cyanide,” I announce to no one in particular. “He must have had it tucked in his mouth for safe keeping in case he was captured. A fail-safe. They likely all have them.”
Silence and then, “Fuck!” Renz takes off, Zac right behind him. I meet Leo's gaze, his brows lifted in confusion that probably matches my own.
He gets to the answer before I do, clearly having more information than me. “I was able to capture and restrain one that had attacked me. He’s unconscious and bound in the trunk.”
Ah, fuck indeed.
CHAPTER NINE
Theguyintheback of the SUV was dead by the time Renz and Zac made it there to check on him. Javier showed up shortly after with a cleanup crew but we were able to leave long before they were done, knowing without a doubt that things would be taken care of.
