She turned her head, meeting his gaze. “You’ve got keys on you?”
Since it wasn’t his car, no, he didn’t. But that was just a minor point.
One, two... “Move!” He yanked open the car door. Cassidy jumped inside, staying low, just as he’d told her.
But the shooter saw their movements. He fired, and the glass exploded on the passenger’s side of the vehicle.
Cassidy yelled and ducked even lower.
Again—the yells weren’t the actions of a trained EOD agent. Civilians yelled. Screamed. Agents went to work.
Cale jumped into the vehicle. He shoved his hands under the dashboard, found the wires he needed—cars had always been a specialty of his—and he had the engine cranking to life instantly.
A good thing because more gunfire was exploding around them.
He shoved the car into Drive and slammed the gas pedal down to the floorboard. They raced from the scene with bullets chasing after them.
His right hand still held the gun, and his left kept a white-knuckled grip around the steering wheel.
“Are you okay?” Cale demanded as they rounded the next corner. The shooter could be pursuing them, so he barely slowed. He was pretty sure the sports car lifted onto two wheels.
She didn’t answer him.
“Cassidy!”
She was curled in on herself, crouching down on the floorboard. He could just see the top of her blond head.
“I’m okay.” Soft. “I just got cut from some of the glass. No big deal.”
He glanced in the rearview mirror. Saw only darkness behind them. But it wasn’t like their pursuers would come chasing with their bright lights on.
He wasn’t using his lights, either. Because if you wanted to blend in with the darkness, you didn’t flash a beacon.
“Are they following us?” Cassidy asked from her crouched position.
Maybe.
The car slid around another corner. He wasn’t getting on the main roads, the roads that would still be full of those celebrating Carnival. The party didn’t exactly stop just because it was after midnight. He needed to stay away from the party—and the cluster of people that would just slow him down.
He knew this area. This wasn’t his first time to visit Rio. The EOD agents had a house not far from their current location. A few miles, a few more backstreets.
Then they’d be safe.
Or as safe as they could be. He needed more intel to figure out what was happening. Why is she a target?
Cale didn’t like being the hunted. No, it was his job to be the hunter.
And for others to be his prey.
Chapter Three
A long sliver of broken glass protruded from Cassidy’s arm. Carefully, she curled her fingers around the glass and pulled it from her skin, hissing out a breath at the pain.
“What are you doing?” She didn’t look up at Cale’s growl. The guy often seemed to be growling. Not exactly Mr. Sunshine and Light, but then, in her experience, tough guys weren’t. They were dark and intense and the ones who were perfect when it came to pulling your butt from the fire.
Hello, fire. Her great escape attempt had almost blown up in her face. If Cale hadn’t been there...
It grated, but she needed the agent. She needed the backing of the EOD.
And Cale had sure gotten them out of the shooter’s range fast enough.
Hot-wiring the car had been a handy trick, a trick that she’d always wanted to learn. Maybe she could convince him to teach her how to do it. Once they were not being chased by gunmen.
But...for the more pressing matter at hand... “I’m trying to stop the blood flow. That’s what I’m doing.”
They were in some rundown house on the edge of town. The place had looked abandoned from the outside, and, yes, it pretty much looked that way on the inside, too. Only Cale had told her that it was a safe house.
She wasn’t exactly feeling safe. And with 0600 ticking closer and closer, she was running out of time in a hurry.
His fingers curled around her wrist, and he lifted her arm so that he could see the wound. When his face tensed, she realized things were worse than she’d realized. “You need stitches.”
Definitely worse. “The blood’s stopping.”
No, it wasn’t.
“There goes that hitch,” he said, sounding distracted as he bent to study her wound. “Every time you lie, it’s a dead giveaway.”
Damn. She would have to be a whole lot more careful. How had she not noticed that slip before? “I don’t need stitches.” Okay, maybe she did. But, more important, “I don’t have time to go to a hospital.”
“Forget the hospital. I’ll give them to you right here.”
Very bad idea. He was kidding, right? She studied his face, met his stare. Not kidding. Cassidy quickly shook her head. “Do you even know how many infections I could get from you doing that? No way, I—”
“The wound is deep, and you need stitches. I’ve got the supplies we need right here.”
Because EOD agents were like Boy Scouts.
“Look, if it makes you feel better, I stitched myself back up before I went to your place.”
“You...you were hurt?” She hadn’t even noticed that. He’d seemed fine as he’d carried her out of the party.
“A graze just deep enough to need a couple of stitches.” He shrugged it off.
She tried to keep her jaw from dropping. “You get shot a lot, don’t you?” How was that normal?
“I try not to.”
That wasn’t the best answer.
“Come on. We need to get you cleaned up.”
He meant stitched up, and though the thought made her queasy, Cassidy sucked in a deep breath and squared her shoulders. It had to be done. So she’d do it.
Then he was leading her into the bathroom. She cleaned away the blood and grime on her. And, yes, the guy did have supplies in that little room. Even latex gloves that he put on right before he got ready to sew her up.
Don’t look. Don’t look.
“It’s going to hurt,” he warned her. A second’s warning before he started.
She kept her head turned away and bit her lip when she felt the needle slide into her skin. Mercer never would have made a sound. Heck, once the guy had been shot—twice—in the chest. He’d dug the bullets out himself, then taken out the men who’d been after him. Like Cale, he’d stitched himself back up.
Her wound pricked, pulsed.
She could feel every poke of that needle. A little anesthesia would have been awesome.
Her eyes squeezed shut.