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Barely conscious, she sucked in air and pain. Through her mental fog she saw Panda. He hurled one of them into the dirt. The other charged him. Panda threw a punch that made him stagger, but the guy was a goon, and he came right back. Panda landed a vic
ious jab to his middle that knocked him into a tree.
This was no gentlemen’s fight. Panda was an assassin, and he knew exactly what he was doing. The man on the ground tried to get up. Panda slammed a foot down on his elbow joint. The biker howled in agony.
The other one was still on his feet, and Panda had his back turned. She tried to get up, call out to warn him, but Panda was already spinning, his leg shooting out like a piston, catching the biker in the groin, crumpling him. Panda leaned down, caught him by the neck, and banged his head against the tree.
The one with the broken elbow came up on his knees. Panda grasped him by his bad arm, dragged him to the long slope that led down to the water, and rolled him over. She heard a distant splash.
Panda’s breath was coming harder now. He went back for the other one and started hauling him toward the water. She finally found her voice, a scratchy thready affair. “They’ll drown.”
“Their problem.” He hoisted the second one over the edge. Another heavy splash.
He came toward her, his chest heaving, trickling blood from the corner of his mouth. He knelt beside her, and the hands that had been so brutal moved gently along her body from her neck to her limbs to the gouge on her heel. “You’re going to hurt,” he said softly, “but I don’t think anything is broken. I’m carrying you to the car.”
“I can walk.” She hated how weak she sounded.
He didn’t argue. He simply picked her up and cradled her against his chest. The images wouldn’t fit together—the lover she knew and the brutally efficient assassin who’d crushed two men.
He must have had a spare car key because he didn’t ask for the one she’d tucked in her pocket. A couple came out of the bar and stared at them. He opened the passenger door and carefully lowered her into the seat. He took his time fastening her seat belt, still protecting her.
He asked no questions as they drove home, didn’t tell her what an idiot she was to come here alone or reproach her for being so rotten to him. She didn’t know why he’d returned to the bar, couldn’t think about what would have happened if he hadn’t. She huddled against the door, nauseated, shaken, still terrified.
“I had a half brother,” he said into the quiet gloom. “His name was Curtis.”
Startled, she turned her head to look at him.
“He was seven years younger than me.” His hands shifted on the wheel. “A dreamy, gentle kid with a big imagination.” He spoke softly as they sped along the dark road. “Our mother was either drugged out or on the prowl, so I ended up taking care of him.”
This was her story, except it was coming from him. She rested the back of her head against the door and listened, her heart rate beginning to slow.
“Eventually we ended up in foster homes. I did everything I could to keep us together, but things happened, and as I got older, I started getting into trouble. Picking fights, shoplifting. When I was seventeen, I was caught trying to sell half a gram of marijuana. It was like I wanted to get thrown into jail.”
She understood and said softly, “A good way to escape the responsibility.”
He glanced over at her. “You had the same kind of responsibility.”
“A pair of guardian angels showed up in my life. You didn’t have that, did you?”
“No. No guardian angels.” They passed Dogs ’N’ Malts, closed up for the night. She was no longer shaking quite so badly, and she unclasped her hands. He flipped on his high beams. “Curtis was murdered while I was in juvie,” he said.
She’d suspected this was coming, but it didn’t make it easier to hear.
Panda went on. “It was a drive-by shooting. Without me around to protect him, he started ignoring curfews. They let me out to go to his funeral. He was ten years old.”
If it hadn’t been for Nealy and Mat, this might have been her story and Tracy’s story. She licked her dry lips. “And you’re still trying to live with what happened. Even though you were only a kid at the time, you still blame yourself. I understand that.”
“I figured you would.” They were alone on the dark road.
“I’m glad you told me,” she said.
“You haven’t heard all of it.”
For months she’d tried to get him to spill his secrets, but she was no longer sure she wanted to hear them.
He slowed for the road’s sharpest curve. “When Curtis’s sperm donor found out my mother was pregnant, he gave her five hundred dollars and split. She loved the jerk and wouldn’t go to a lawyer. Curtis was nearly two before she realized her big love wasn’t coming back. That was when she started using.”
Lucy did the math. Panda had been nine when he’d become his brother’s caretaker. A protector, even then.
