Page 81 of Crosscurrent

Her stomach dropped before her mind caught up. They'd pulled their own people back. They only did that when eyes stopped mattering, when the next thing was already moving.

"Owen. Keep walking." Light, easy, nothing in her face for the street to read — and under it, into the channel: "Our watchers are gone. All of them. Close it up."

"On you," Gabe said, already drifting in.

The hotel was two buildings down now, nothing but open white between her and it, and the bright sun came up off the snow so hard it lit the underside of everything and left nowhere — not a doorway, not a shadow — for a person to stand unseen. Which was how she caught them the instant they stepped out.

Two from the left, between her and the dark little church. One off the right-hand corner, where the gray parka should have been.

Not running. Walking, fast and certain, angling to fold Owen into the middle of them. And no weapons up. Nobody had drawn on Owen. They wanted his hands working, not stopped. Whatever they carried was for the people who'd stand between them and him.

"Owen. Down." She had him by the coat before the word landed, hauling him off his line.

Skye got there first.

She stepped into the gap between Owen and the nearest man the way you'd cross a room to greet someone. Her hand moved, and he dropped to a knee in the snow with both palms at his throat. The second one came at her in a flat sprint. They went down together.

“I’m hot.” The announcement came over her comlink just before a dark shape raced past. Wade.

He piled into Skye’s attacker from the side and tore him off her, and then it was bodies and breath and the squeak of boots packing snow.

Cara quit watching. She ran Owen backward toward the door with both fists in his coat. "Move. Move. Mo⁠—"

Gabe went past her shoulder the other way, fast and silent, and put himself between Owen and all of it. Her back hit the door frame. She'd dragged Owen that far without feeling herself move.

In front of her it was four seconds of something ugly and close. Gabe and one of the men traded blows, their heads snapping back with sickening force, except Gabe kept ending up on his feet. Off to the side, Wade and the first man came apart in the snow and rose together.

And then it was ending as fast as it began. The men broke off. Professionals didn't die for a grab gone loud, and they couldn't afford to put a round through the one thing they'd come to carry off. Three shapes pulled back across the open ground and turned into people again — walking, unhurried, gone around a corner the light couldn't follow them past.

Owen was talking, fast and high. Cara wasn't listening. She was looking at Skye.

The slender woman rose to her feet with none of her usual grace, one arm clamped low across her middle. At her feet, blood pooled, an awful, bright red against the boot-scuffed snow.

"Inside," Cara said. "Now."

Gabe and Wade got Skye up between them, an arm over each shoulder, both their faces already going dark where fists had landed. Cara took Owen — a flat hand between his shoulder blades to move him, because he'd quit walking on his own and started staring at the red going into the snow.

"Talk to me." Reagan, sharp in her ear. "Who's hit?"

"Skye. Low, in the side. Conscious. Open your kit."

"They boogied." Tom, reading screens fast. "All three, straight out the airfield road and not slowing. You're clear behind you."

Then David, low, from somewhere full of soft music and glassware: "The knitter just left. Cartwright. Picked up her bag mid-sentence and went out the side door."

"Feld right behind her," Sophie said. "Neither one of them said goodbye to a soul."

The watchers outside had pulled because the watchers inside already knew how it ended.

They got the door shut and the curtains dragged across. Seven of them in a room built for four. Then Reagan had Skye down on the table and her coat open before anyone thought to ask her to.

"Owen. My bag, blue zipper, by the bunks. Now." Reagan didn't raise her voice, yet Owen moved like he'd been shoved. She eyed their IT guru. "Tom, I need light here."

Tom whipped out his phone, shining the flashlight beam on Skye’s abdomen. "Through and through?"

"No." Skye, through her teeth. "Still in there. It's low. It's fine."

Still working, Reagan grimaced. "It is not fine."