Page 75 of Lockout

“Oh my God!” Keely burst out of the smoke like an avenging angel.

Fuck was I glad to see her. She tossed an object, which Jecht happily snagged out of the air and started chewing on. It was his reward for finding me.

Keely collapsed next to me, throwing her arms around my neck. “Lock,” she sobbed.

I couldn’t move very easily, but I shifted a little and wrapped her up in my arms. “It’s alright, Keely.” But I let her cry it out because, honestly? It almost hadn’t been okay.

As soon as the tears started to ebb a little, I pulled back and grinned at her tear streaked face. “Glad to see me?”

Her laugh was half sob, half chuckle. “Don’t ever do that again.”

“Trust me, if I never have to, I won’t. We need to get out of here before the cops find us. I don’t feel like answering a bunch of questions.”

“Here, let me help.” She was eyeing the rebar sticking out of my thigh, but she managed to help get me to my feet. “Lean on me.”

We started hobbling our way out of the wreckage, following Jecht’s tail as he weaved in and out of the debris and through the smoke. I was so damn proud of my woman. Despite the breakdown when she found me—which was totally expected considering the circumstances—she was holding it together. Her face was streaked with tears and soot, and we were both coughing thanks to the damn smoke, but she helped steady me as I shuffled my way out of this damn place.

Jecht let out two barks in succession. “He’s found the others,” Keely said. “Good boy,” she said as we stepped out of the smoke and behind some vehicles.

My brother’s expressions ranged the entirety of the scale of relief as they saw us. They rushed forward and took over for Keely, all but dragging me and dumping me on the tailgate of our cage ride.

“Careful,” I barked, sitting on the gate and grabbing my leg. “Fuck. This shit hurts.”

Everyone was crowding around. “Knew you weren’t dead,” Toxic joked, but I could see the worry still etched into his face.

“What the fuck, Toxic!” I bit out, as he reached out and grabbed my balls.

“Just checking. Making sure we don’t have to go back and look for junk.”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. Leave it to Toxic to make light of the situation and get us all laughing. Once the chuckles died down there was silence for a brief moment. Then they were all talking at once, except my brother, who was just sitting next to me. I was sandwiched between him and Keely. We didn’t need to say anything. I could imagine how inconsolable I’d be if this shit had happened to him. If I thought he was dead. We’d talk about it later, I was sure of that, but for now, he just sat near me.

“I should go find Seek,” Keely said, though it was easy to see she didn’t want to leave.

“Don’t worry about her,” Hush said. “The cops will look out for her.”

“There was another guy,” I said, remembering. “An LoS, in the building before it blew.”

“Fuck,” Hush muttered. “Glad to have you back, brother,” he said, then he and Jecht disappeared to go find Seek. He wasn’t about to leave her to continue searching if that asshole was possibly still alive.

That was the last thing I wanted either. Hopefully the piece of shit was dead, but if not, she needed backup. I scowled at Butcher as he got too close to the rebar. “Don’t touch it,” I snapped.

“I’m not touching it,” he shot back. “Just looking.”

“Well, don’t look at it,” I replied.

“We should take it out,” Demo said.

“Naw, don’t you ever listen to Pyre when he’s rattling on about field medicine? You’re supposed to keep it in,” Warrant told him.

“No, I don’t listen to him. It’s his job to patch us up. It’s my job to blow shit up.” He winced and glanced at me. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” I told him. “Leave it in.”

“We’ll take him to Crash Cart once Hush and Seek are back,” Rip said.

“Probably needs a hospital,” Priest suggested. “That might be more than Crash can deal with.”

“Is there an upper limit to what Crash can do?” Hellfire asked.