Screw that. If there was something going on out there, she wasn’t going to sit in there and wait to be attacked by a random assailant. Getting out of the tub as quickly and as quietly as she could, Rora grabbed her nightdress and pulled it on although her body wasn’t completely dry.

Leaving the bathroom, she could still hear some kind of kerfuffle, but there had been no gunshots and it didn’t sound like physical fighting. Someone was on the bed, a man. She could only see his legs because Strike and Junker were at the bottom of the other bed arguing and shoving each other.

“And I say we kick him out,” Strike said.

“He’s bleeding,” Junker said. “This man needs help.”

Pushing between the two men, Rora cared less about their argument and more about whoever was strewn out.

“Oh my God,” she said, climbing onto the bed to crawl up beside Torres who was laid there, and just like Junker said, he was bleeding. “What happened?”

His face was red, his eye swelling, there were cuts and bruises all over like he’d been in a fight.

“Burke went rogue,” Torres said, wincing when she started to help him take his arm from his jacket. “Killed four of our guys and then called it in accusing me.”

Getting his jacket off, she dropped it onto the floor and then started to unbutton his shirt to find out why Torres was cradling the rather nasty patch of blood across his opposite shoulder and arm.

“Burke?” she said. “Why would he want to—”

“He’s going after the Black Jewel. He’s got her scent, he’s tracking her.”

“That makes no sense, why give us the tech if he was going to go after it himself?”

“She has the answer to the question,” he croaked, sagging onto the bed when she took his arm from his shirt sleeve. “The tech meant nothing until we found out it was important to the question.”

It was easy for her to almost forget that there were still people out there seeking the Point. Rora was so caught up in what it had done to her and Strike that she forgot about the world at large.

Glancing over her shoulder at Strike, all she got from him was a shrug, which she couldn’t interpret as good or bad.

“Doesn’t matter, we’re bailing out,” Strike said. “We don’t trust this asshole.”

Peeking at the wounds on Torres’ arm and shoulder, she figured they did look like gunshots. The one on his arm was a flesh wound and it looked like it had stopped bleeding. The other wasn’t so benign.

Balling his shirt, she pressed it to his shoulder and put Torres’ hand over it. “Press hard,” she ordered and turned around to climb off the bed. “You two come with me.”

There was blood on her hands, so she couldn’t grab hold of anyone, but she marched to the bathroom, hoping Strike and Junker would follow. She went to the sink to wash her hands, as soon as she saw Strike over her shoulder, she raised her brows.

He put his hands up in surrender. “I didn’t tell her,” he said. “I’m thinking Burke’s making assumptions because, uh…”

Knowing that tone, she spun around, grabbing a towel from the rail. Junker came in and closed the door. “What’s happening?” Junker asked.

Strike turned a scowl on him. “You don’t need to be here. This is where the grown-ups make decisions that save lives.”

Grabbing his arm, Rora turned Strike back to her. “Because, uh, what?”

“I put word out that she knew,” he said.

Her mouth fell open and it took her a minute to return to reality. She smacked his shoulder. “Oh. My. God,” she said, hitting him with each word. “I can’t… I don’t even know where to start.”

“Look, it’s no problem. The more people looking for her, the easier it will be for me to track her. She had you for over a week, people believe she got the truth out of you.”

“That’s not the point, S—” Sealing her lips, she breathed out through her nose.

“What are you talking about?” Junker asked. “What does this Burke think that the Jewel knows?”

Rora took a deep breath, prepared not to lie to him anymore. “The project of Benjamin’s that you thought Exile had,” she said and winced when she made eye contact with Junker. “It’s called the Point and Exile thought he had it too. But he didn’t… because I lied to him… no one knows where it is… except me.”

Junker blinked once, but he stood completely still for at least half a minute, looking at her like he didn’t recognize her. “You’ve… you’ve known this the whole time?” She nodded. “And he knew this?” She nodded again when Junker pointed at Strike. He ran his hands through his hair. “This is why you thought he wanted to kill you?” Junker looked at Strike. “If you hurt her—”

“If I hurt her, what, Square? Rora is my woman, and our shit, is our shit, and there’s no one on this earth less capable of hurting her than me. You on the other hand—”

“Ok,” she said, laying a hand on Strike’s chest to stop him advancing on Junker. “Let’s save this for later… What do we do with him out there?”

“Put him out of his misery?” Strike said.

Junker scoffed. But she chewed on her lip, keeping her eyes on Strike’s. His brows rose slowly, and he tilted his head in a sort of shrug.

Junker looked between them. “Aurora, you cannot be thinking—”

“Ok,” Strike said, spinning to face him. “Let’s get one thing clear now, if you use her name again, I’ll cut out your tongue. Call her Kero or you’ll call her nothing.”

“Kero?” Junker asked.

“That’s right,” Strike said and then glanced at her. “Should I just cut out his tongue?”

“No!” she said. “You know Torres will put all of this together, he must know who I am.”

“You don’t exist anymore,” Strike said. “And Benjamin Gallagher’s assistant is not famous. Even if he suspected it, he doesn’t know it and we don’t tempt fate around here. Besides, that goes away if you let me put him out of his misery.”

Strike was capable, she knew it, and if she agreed, he’d end Torres’ life now. Rora wasn’t sure she liked having this kind of power. “You can’t kill a man in his… profession,” she said, because offing an NSA agent, whether he was rogue or not, would have serious repercussions.

Her ex stayed loose. “We can make it look like suicide… You and I have some experience with that,” he said, which she didn’t appreciate.

Putting her hands to her face, she covered her glare. “No, we’re not talking about this. Either we help him, or we abandon him.”

“He’s here for intel,” Strike said. “He thinks if he hangs around long enough that you’ll start to feel sorry for him or he’ll learn something useful that he can use to put us away.”

“I already told him I wouldn’t flip.”

“Yeah, and how did that work out the first time?”

“You mean the time you set me up?”

“Ok,” Junker said, stepping between them, taking a turn at being peacemaker. “We’re not going to leave a bleeding man to die. The longer we stand in here talking, the more blood he’s losing.”

“And he figured out my evil plan,” Strike said. “Maybe he’s not so dumb after all.” Rora smacked his chest, Strike’s hand rose to the spot she’d struck. “You’re hitting me a lot these days, Cupcake, even for you. Sexual frustration?”

She smiled, but not in happiness. Rora was smug. “I like doing it because I know you won’t hit me back. It frustrates you to be out of control.”

“Oh, I’m in control, baby. And it turns me on whenever you use those hands on me.” Moseying closer, he pinned her to the vanity. “You remember the first time you saw my scars?” 

She shivered and tried her best to swallow away the awareness tingling inside of her throat. “Yes.”

“I told you it wasn’t happening back then,” he said, grabbing her shoulders to spin her around. Tugging her hair, he yanked her head aside and dropped his lips to her carotid before lifting them to her ear. “Now I say it is.”

“Uh, excuse me,” Junker said and grabbed Strike’s arm to try pulling him away. 

Instead, Strike growled at him and grabbed him by the throat, thrusting him back against the wall by the door. “Touch me again, Square, and I’ll break every one of your fingers and then your face.”

“Flame,” Rora soothed, drawing his arm down from Junker’s neck. “You need to calm down. And Junk, Exile really doesn’t like to be touched.”

“We have a man out there, dying!”

Junker was right. She and Strike were distracted by each other, and it would be kind of unholy if Torres died just because she liked it when Strike kissed her neck and touched her body.

“Good luck with that,” Strike said, turning his back to the vanity behind her to lean against it, folding his arms. 

Rora turned to make eye contact, beseeching him without words for half a minute. “Baby, you have to help him.”

“Me?” Strike asked and pointed past her to Junker. “What about him? This is his great plan.”

“He’s right, I can handle this,” Junk said. “We have a med kit. I can sew up a wound, it’s not that hard… right?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never done it,” she said. “I guess we can figure it out.” Strike mumbled something, making her turn. “Something to say?”

“Goddamnit,” he said, marching past both of them to leave the bathroom and return to Torres. “If you sew up the wound with the bullet still in there—” he bent to grab the comforter and pulled it hard to drag Torres to the side of the bed closest to him “—he’ll die of infection. Get me towels, water, and whatever med supplies you have.” 

Rora ran off to get everything and when she came back, he had a small black case on the nightstand and a syringe in his hand. “What is that?” she asked, climbing onto the bed on Torres’ other side. 

“Morphine,” he said, taking a bottle from the small zipped case. 

“You carry morphine around with you?” Junker asked. “Talk about never meeting your heroes, he’s an addict!”

“He is not an addict,” she said and watched Strike put the needle in the bottle to drag out some of the liquid. “Have you ever tried it?”

“Try not to ask me questions in front of the narc, huh, honey?” he said and put the needle in front of Torres’ face, though the guy was half out of it. “I stick you with this, the pain goes away, and I patch you up. Your alternative is that I don’t, and we leave you here to bleed out.”

Torres sucked in a breath. “Lidocaine.”

Strike hissed. “Sorry, fresh out of the sissy drugs and I’m not raiding a pharmacy for you. If it’s not bad enough for this, then we leave you here to bleed out.”

“What about doing it without?” she asked, looking around. “I’m sure we still have liquor.”

“Fine, then you take responsibility for my murder charge,” Strike said. “If I dig that bullet out, it’ll hurt, and he’ll lash out. What happens when men lash out at me? What’s my patience level like, babe?”

She considered it for a blink and then looked to Torres. “Take the morphine.”

Torres looked at them both and clenched his teeth to breathe through a bite of pain. He nodded. Strike stuck him and less than a minute later, Torres’ body relaxed. 

Strike went to work, and she bounced off the bed to grab jeans and a sweater that she pulled on over her nightdress. When she was dressed, Rora returned to the bed, kneeling on the mattress next to Torres.

“I’d have raided a pharmacy for you,” Strike said, holding up the bullet he’d just dug out of Torres’ shoulder to show her it. 

“That’s disgusting,” she said of the bullet and then made eye contact with him. “And I’d have let you stick me with the morphine, I don’t need any sissy drugs.”

Turning his smirk back to the wounds, Strike got back to work. “You remember what I did when Jewel drugged you in Wonderland.” She did and didn’t have to say it because he carried on. “Next time, I’m doing the opposite.”

Instead of protecting her virtue, he’d take advantage of her incapacity? He’d warned her about that during a conversation before they found her former workplace in flames.

“Then I better make sure not to get myself hurt,” she said and slapped a hand to Torres’ uninjured arm before climbing off the bed. “Come on, Junk. Let’s get some food and some ice for his face.”

“Can we leave him alone with Exile?”

Going to Strike’s jacket first, she pulled some money from his pocket. “Exile isn’t subtle,” she said, pulling on her own jacket and grabbing a scarf, aware that Strike could hear them. “If he was going to kill the patient, he’d have done it already.”

“Kero,” Strike called when she opened the door. “Show me your blade.” She took it from her pocket to prove she had it. “Defend yourself or die… and you know what happens if it’s the latter.”

Spinning around, she left with Junker on her heels. “What happens?” Junker asked. 

“Never mind,” she said, stopping to give him some money. “Go and get a couple of pizzas.”

“Where are you going?” he asked as she walked away.

“To raid a pharmacy,” she said, striding away from him.