It shouldn’t hurt this bad, should it?

Axel staggered away from the truck and broke into a run. He tore around the remains of the house and to the rear of it, searching for any sign of Kennedy.

Smoke from the explosion and collapse of the house was still rolling out across the earth like a storm front, and he used it for cover so that he could eat up as much ground as possible without giving away his position.

He was in so much pain, but he didn’t have so much as a scratch on him.

Fox.

Axel grit his teeth as he ran. His footing was unsteady, but his balance more than made up for it.

Fox was gone, and with him all chance they ever had of exploring this thing they’d grown between them.

This love they had.

It wasn’t as sudden as he thought. Not really. Not when he pinned it down and looked at it closely.

This had all started in Syria when a beautiful young geek had walked into his tent.

He’d been a fucking idiot not to do anything about it back then. And maybe, if he dared admit it to himself, he’d remained a fucking idiot for the next eight years. God, what was he, too dumb to even pick up a phone? He knew Walker was a Company man, he could have gotten in touch somehow, especially once he’d joined the Bureau.

No. He was too busy hiding out in his closet. The one he was so far into that he didn’t even know it existed.

And now it was too late. Life had brought them back together then torn them apart, and now Axel had to live with the knowledge that he’d loved and lost.

What a shitty place to be.

He took a deep breath and shook his head to clear it. There would be time later to let his grief overwhelm him, but letting it happen right now could be downright deadly. He needed to be able to focus and find Kennedy. He couldn’t screw up the arrest and give the asshole some legal loophole for his lawyers to exploit further down the line. Axel had to nail the guy and do it right.

Or just shoot him.

That’d be justice, right? He could paint it as a life-or-death decision, write it down on the report as resisting arrest.

It wouldn’t bring Fox back.

He hadn’t held with the whole eye for an eye ethos when he was a soldier, and he couldn’t do it now. That was the line a good soldier or cop or agent didn’t cross, the invisible boundary between justice and vengeance.

No. He’d do this right. Sure, Kennedy might come out of it with some bruises, but he’d be alive, and he was going to rot in jail for the rest of his life for what he’d done.

The smoke started to dissipate, slowly becoming more translucent. Patches opened up, allowing glimpses that opened and closed.

Axel ducked down to minimize his profile. The remains of the house grew taller by his side, and a darkness loomed up out of the ground ahead.

He moved in silence as he drew nearer.

It was a storm shelter.

Axel could have kicked himself. This was tornado alley. Plenty of houses had storm shelters, either under the house or out in the yard. It made sense for Kennedy to be hiding down there.

The doors to the cellar were open.

If Axel went down there, he was a sitting duck. His legs could get shot out from under him before he had line of sight to Kennedy.

What he wouldn’t give for a grenade right about now.

If he had backup, and body armor, and a weapon, he’d readily sprint down those stairs. Alone, unarmed, without a helmet? It was suicide, pure and simple. He’d have to wait until his backup got here, which shouldn’t be too much longer.

It was unsatisfactory. But it was the only way.

He stepped back from the open shelter doors and caught a glimpse of a figure in the parting dust. His heart hammered. It couldn’t be Fox, could it? But the figure was slender, tall, and his outline screamed Fox.

It was a mistake that cost him dearly.

Kennedy stepped out of the fading clouds with a rifle aimed right at Axel’s chest. “Hey,” he said. “You’re still standing, huh?”

Axel raised his hands slowly. “Yeah,” he muttered. “So far.”

His hope was that Kennedy would make a mistake. Come close enough for Axel to grab his gun or trip on some rubble. That was all he had left now: pure, blind luck.

Kennedy stopped where he was. “This is problematic,” he said. “If I kill you, I leave all kinds of evidence laying around. But if I don’t, the chances are that I don’t get out of this.” He sucked his teeth, then his thumb went to the rifle’s safety. “I’ve got a preferred outcome. Guess what it is.”

A shape moved behind Kennedy, swift and sudden. Axel didn’t dare look toward it.

He heard the pak of a gunshot. Short. Sharp. The light popping sound of a pistol, not the louder and throatier rattle of the AR-10 in Kennedy’s hands.

Kennedy’s eyes grew wide, and he gasped in shock.

“Taylor Kennedy,” the figure said, a hoarse rasp in his voice. “You are under arrest on suspicion of conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism. You have the right to remain silent, and anything that you do say can be used against you. You have the right to an attorney. If you can’t afford one, the court will appoint one to you. If you are not a citizen of the United States, you may contact your country’s consulate prior to any questioning. Do you understand each of these rights as I have explained them to you?”

Axel’s breath quickened as the smoke drifted away.

Fox stood there, wreathed in the last remnants of cloud, gun still aimed at Kennedy even though the final round had been spent and the slide was locked back.

Fox was alive.

Axel felt his features transform into the biggest shit-eating grin he’d ever displayed.

Kennedy gasped for air and sank slowly to his knees as he put his hand over his chest. There was no exit wound there, no blood, which meant the bullet was still inside him.

“I said,” Fox snarled, “do you understand each of these rights as I have explained them to you?”

Kennedy burbled a laugh, but it sounded like water gurgling in a blocked drain, and he pitched forward onto his face.

“You’re okay,” Axel breathed.

“You’re alive!” Fox gasped at the same time.

“You saved my life.” Axel kicked the rifle away from Kennedy, then crouched down to examine his wound. “I’m gonna have to thank you later.”

Kennedy groaned.

“Shut up,” Axel instructed him.

* * *

He did what he could to keep Kennedy alive while Fox called for an ambulance. He didn’t have tape, so in the end all he could do was hold a credit card to the wound and roll Kennedy onto the affected side so that only one lung would fill with blood and leave the other clear and safe.

Axel handed the first aid off to Jones the moment he arrived, but the paramedics were on the scene minutes later.

It had gone from potential disaster to safely wrapped up so fast that he hadn’t had a moment to breathe, so he stepped away from the paramedics now and took Fox by the elbow to steer him away from the bodies.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

Fox had already handed Axel’s gun over to Jones’ team for forensics, and now that his hands were empty they plucked at his own shirt a lot. It was torn, filthy, but had far less blood on it than Axel’s own. “Any time,” he quipped, though it was more subdued than usual.

“Hopefully never again. But once is plenty.” Axel looked into Fox’s eyes and reached for his jaw to raise his head a little. “You did the right thing.”

“I can’t believe it’s over,” Fox whispered. “Months of chasing him down, and now it’s done.” He laughed weakly, without any trace of humor. “Feels weird.”

“Yeah. Long operations can be like that. Don’t worry. If he makes it to court, you get all the fun of being cross-examined by an asshole whose job it is to get bastards like him to walk free.”

He didn’t want to say the obvious. But thankfully Fox saved him from it.

“The psych evals will get dragged through court, won’t they?”

Axel shrugged. “Yeah. But I’ll be there the whole way. Right by your side.”

Fox glanced around, then leaned his cheek against Axel’s hand and mustered a more honest smile. It was small, but genuine. “Nobody’s looking.”

“I couldn’t care less if they were,” Axel replied.

He cradled Fox in his arms and kissed him, and finally allowed the relief to consume him.