“Did you want me to shoot him?” Knight asked.
Before I knew what I was doing, I pulled my gun and shot Knight. We’d see how he liked the new equipment. “You tell me how it feels in the gear,” I snarled.
“Since I’m not wearing any fucking gear, it fucking hurts,” Knight bit out.
“Oh.” I bit my lip and tried to come up with a good response, but there wasn’t really one. “Uh, sorry about that. Guess I’m a little trigger happy right now. Do you want me to….” I pointed at his side where he was seeping blood already.
He glared at me for a moment. “I can’t believe you fucking shot me.”
“You shot me first.”
“I didn’t shoot you,” he muttered. “Burg shot you.”
“Because you had us play this ridiculous game where we all treat each other like live targets,” Burg snapped. “You could have at least dressed us in different colors so we knew who we were shooting at.”
“It was a minor oversight. Besides, the only one that’s actually hurt here is me.”
“Can we stop arguing long enough for me to see how bad it is?”
He took in deep breaths and then I walked over, checking out his side. “Hey, I hit you right where you were hit that first time you worked with us. Pretty fucking lucky, huh?” I grinned.
“Yeah, how fucking lucky is that to get shot three times in the same fucking spot?”
“It could have been worse. I could have gone for the head shot.”
“Hudson Knight,” Kate yelled as she ran across the room. “Why are you bleeding?”
“Because I shot him,” I said bluntly.
“He wasn’t part of the drill. Why did you shoot him?”
“Because he didn’t tell us about these special suits. Funny, I didn’t think I was going to be shot in the fucking chest just a year after I had been shot in the neck.”
“You didn’t tell them?” Kate asked incredulously. “I thought they knew!”
“Why would I tell them? It was supposed to be a field test. I wanted to see how it would work.”
“I can’t believe you would do that!”
“I can,” I muttered under my breath, earning me a glare from Knight. “Oh, come on. It’s not like this isn’t something you would do.”
“Not to be dramatic here,” Knight said, “but would someone mind patching me up before I bleed out on the floor?”
“You can do it,” Kate said to me. “I think I’d let him bleed out right now.”
“Kate!” he shouted.
She spun around and glared at him. “What?”
“Don’t fucking walk away from me.”
“Or what? You’ll stalk me? You’ll stick a tracker in my ankle? You’ll kidnap me?”
His jaw clenched angrily, but he didn’t say anything in front of us. He wouldn’t.
“Don’t bother coming home tonight.”
She walked away and the four of us tried to pretend that we hadn’t just witnessed Knight getting his ass handed to him by his woman.
“Alright, let’s get you and the bloodless wonder into the medic center to be checked out,” Gabe said.
“I’m fine,” I insisted, feeling the pain in my chest receding already.
“Yeah, well, after finding out what was in those suits, I think we should play it safe. God only knows what else Knight had done to them.”
We made our way over to the medic center and Kate looked me over while Rocco tended to Knight. I was fine, like I said, and Knight was officially off work for the next few weeks to recover from his wound.
I got off the bed and helped Knight out of his bed. He refused to stay here when he had his own bed to sleep in. I drove him home and parked in the driveway, but Kate met us outside the door, shutting it firmly behind her.
“Take him somewhere else. I don’t want him here.”
“Kate, this is my home. I was shot tonight, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to sleep in my own bed tonight.”
“Well that’s just too bad,” Kate snapped. “You’re all over the map lately-”
“Lately?” I snorted.
“One minute you’re so overprotective of me that you’re shooting trackers into my ankle and the kids’ ankles, and the next minute, you’re getting shot. But I’m the unreasonable one.”
“Babe, someone else shot me. It’s not like I chose to do this to myself.”
“No, but you put yourself in that position, Garrick.”
I hissed in a breath. It was always a bad thing when Kate brought out his old name.
“Everything is always about you, isn’t it? You wanted to see how the equipment worked, so you didn’t bother to tell your teammates that it was all simulated. Therefore, one of them got pissed and shot you.”
“Thank you,” I said, glad that someone else understood where I was coming from.
“I’m not on your side, Hunter. You don’t go around shooting people, especially your best friend, just because he’s a dumbass.”
“Seemed like a good reason to me,” I muttered.
“Kate, enough of this shit. This is my goddamn house and I want to go to sleep.”
“Guess what? It’s not your house. It’s my house. We never added your name to the mortgage. And I’m pretty sure that if I called Sean down here, he would have no problem hauling your ass to jail.”
“You wouldn’t,” Knight growled.
“Why don’t we just head to my place for the night and let her cool off? It’s not worth the risk.”
“Fine,” he muttered, turning to walk away. “But just remember that I’m always watching.”
“Like I could forget,” she said, right before she slammed the door in his face.
We headed back for the truck when something struck me. “You set up the security at your house. You used to break in all the time. Why don’t you just wait an hour and then sneak in?”
“Because I modified it so she has complete control when she’s home alone. I made it so tight that even I can’t break in easily. I’d probably get my balls electrocuted or something.”
“Kind of ironic, huh? Locked out of the house you made impenetrable to the enemy.”
“Shut the fuck up, Pappy.”
Phoenix Rising Page 26
