Chapter 8 Shattered Glass

Wren

The streets were dark by the time Talon left, and I carefully set the alarm for nighttime as he'd instructed. I looked around for signs of the cameras, but they were very subtle. I only noticed them because I'd basically grown up in this bakery. Talon and his team did a good job disguising them.

The nerves I'd felt the past few weeks weren't as bad tonight. My skin didn't itch, and I wasn't unconsciously pressing my fingernails into my arms. Something had changed. I still felt uneasy about the whole Kenny thing, I still missed Gavin and worried about him, but I also felt like a new factor had entered my life in the form of Magnum. He brought with him a little bit of comfort that I wasn't alone for the first time.

I liked lingering with that feeling and held onto it as I tried to sleep, but around midnight, a beeping alert on the control panel startled me.

It said there was motion at the front door. The screen showed a dark figure looking through the glass. My heart raced and a cold sweat broke out across my skin. I curled up in the corner of my room and became as tiny as possible until it was quiet and the cameras showed he had left.

I walked out slowly, cautiously, not turning on the lights. The front door looked fine. No one there. It could have just been a homeless person or someone peeking inside out of curiosity .

The back door slammed open, and Magnum's urgent voice filled the air. "Wren, run! This way!"

I turned to see him racing toward me from the kitchen, his face set in fierce determination. My whole body froze up like a glacier. I needed to run, but my legs were locked.

As if in slow motion, his steps thudded as he got closer.

Darn it. Run, Wren. Run.

Finally, my feet unglued from the floor, and I sprinted toward him.

A deafening boom erupted behind me. A huge wave of pressure hit my back and knocked me into him. I ducked my head at the unmistakable sound of shattering glass. A million sharp stings pelted my skin like a swarm of bees attacking me. Mag's arm wrapped around my waist and suddenly I was spinning, falling. My knee hit the floor with a rough smack, and his weight on my body forced the air from my lungs. Blackness clawed at the corners of my vision.

Pop-pop-pop-pop.

Mag's lifeless body fell to the floor.

Suddenly I was a helpless child watching a shooting unfold before my eyes. Mag was dead. Someone killed him. No!

"Magnum!"

"I'm here." His deep voice came from behind me, and I exhaled a huge sigh of relief.

My panic subsided as I slowly came back to consciousness. His chest rose and fell against my back. His ragged breath puffed in my ear for several seconds as the commotion settled. Crackling and sizzling sounds around us fizzled out, and the smell of acrid smoke filled my lungs.

"Jesus." He carefully lifted his body off mine. "Come on. "

More gently this time, he turned me over and managed to work an arm behind my back and another under my legs. He lifted me and carried me bridal style to the back door. He checked the alley first and then rushed to set me down in the back seat of the Jeep. "Are you injured?" he asked as he looked me over.

I just stared at him. He was definitely alive, but for a moment back there, I was sure he was dead. "I thought someone killed you."

He checked my back quickly. "We have to get out of here before I can help you." He closed the door and raced to the driver's seat. We pulled out of the alley and sped away. The rattling of the seat hurt my back, and I had to sit forward to prevent it from rubbing.

Mag made a phone call as he drove. "Small explosive device detonated at the Song bakery in Chinatown. No fatalities."

No fatalities. He wasn't dead. I wasn't dead. We were both alive. It was just a hallucination that he'd died. He was alive.

"The system activated the cops. Need someone there to answer questions and refer them to me. I'm en route with Wren to Echo House." His voice was agitated, but he was focused and speaking clearly. He shared a few more details that I didn't even understand before he disconnected.

Dust and dirt covered all of him. Blood dripped from his face in several spots. "You're bleeding."

He wiped at his cheeks. "I'm alright."

"I didn't even know you were here. What happened? "

"Looks like someone came up to the front door, breached it, and threw in an explosive device."

"Oh. I thought I heard gunshots."

"Nope. No one there. They ran before it detonated."

He made a few more phone calls as we drove out of the city.

"The deliveries. I need to receive them."

"I'll have someone there, but the shop isn't opening in the morning."

"Right." Of course the bakery couldn't open in the morning. "Please ask whoever is there to give the baked goods to the homeless shelter on First Street."

He turned and looked at me like I was talking nonsense. "Don't worry about the rolls right now."

He was right. Our injuries were the priority, but out of habit, I just focused on the bakery. It was what I knew. "If they don't sell, we donate them." I sounded a little like a robot when I spoke, but I was truly worried about the wasted food at that moment. Maybe it was a distraction from the reality of what had just happened.

He nodded curtly and made another call asking for someone to receive the goods. He reluctantly asked for the donation to the homeless shelter and rolled his eyes as he ended the call. It was a small thing, but it made me feel better in the chaos.

We arrived at a single story home in a middle-class residential neighborhood. He parked in the driveway and stepped out of the Jeep to enter a code that opened the garage door. We pulled in, and the door closed behind us. A small light from the opener stayed on, but it was very dark and quiet. The only sound was the ringing in my head from the explosion and the pinging of the Jeep's engine as it cooled down.

He helped me inside and turned on the lights as he walked us to the bathroom. "I'll be right back." He looked me over one more time then walked away.

I heard the interior garage door opening and closing, and a few moments later, he returned with several large bags that he threw on the couch. He brought a small rectangular one with him into the bathroom. "Where does it hurt?" From the bag in his hands, he withdrew a white cloth and a thick brown bottle that looked like hydrogen peroxide.

I stared at my stunned face in the mirror. Blood spatters stained my sleep shirt. My hair had blood in it like I'd survived the zombie apocalypse. It all felt very surreal. I wasn't sure how to answer his questions. Was this really happening? "I feel numb."

"You're in shock."

The bakery was my happy place, and now it was destroyed. My grandfather was gone, and if the shop was too, I had nothing left of him. My parents were dead. I was truly alone. "Your system," I mumbled.

"What?"

"Talon did all that work on the security, and now it's ruined."

"We'll fix it."

"How? Isn't it gone?"

"The shop is still there. It was a small explosive device. The glass cases shattered, but the walls of the building didn't. It's still there. "

Oh, I'd thought it was much more serious. It felt like a huge bomb had exploded. "You didn't hear the gunshots? It was like a popping sound."

He quickly wiped his face with a cloth. "No shots fired. You're gonna have to take your clothes off so I can see the injuries."

I shook my head. I didn't feel comfortable taking my clothes off in front of him. "I'm okay."

"I tackled you pretty hard."

"Yeah." The memory of his massive body slamming me to the ground came back to me. Was that what football players felt every time they took a hit? I hadn't noticed before but my knee was throbbing.

"I'm gonna check your head first." He seemed quite calm and professional considering we'd just been through a violent attack.

"Okay."

He worked through my hair, gently picking out bits of glass with tweezers and then wiping it with the cloth. It hurt a little but not badly. With a separate cloth, he wiped my face and my neck. He was methodical and focused while I was still a disjointed mess.

"My knee." I lifted my pant leg over my knee and discovered the skin was scraped raw, and the beginning of a purple bruise was forming. He cleaned it and wrapped it in a stretchy bandage. His touch was easy and comfortable. It was weird being this close to him. I knew he was tending to my wounds, but an intoxicating heat exuded from him. It was like he came to life with the rush of danger and his warrior mode had been activated .

His attention was extremely different from anything I'd ever experienced. The opposite of Gavin, who had never shown any interest in protecting me or caring for me physically. I found it appealing in a unique visceral way.

"You're good at this," I said as a way to summarize all that I was feeling.

"Been in a few scraps in my life. Why don't you lie down in the bed, and I'll work on your back?"

"I don't know."

He handed me a large white bath towel. "Change into this. We have to get the glass out so you can heal. I won't peek at anything." His eyes flared. He was still excited from the explosion, and he seemed very intent on finishing the first-aid job that he'd started. Maybe he felt guilty for not being there sooner or for smashing my knee to the ground so hard.

"It's not your fault," I said.

He looked down. "It is."

"Why do you think that?"

"Put on the towel and lie in the bed."

"If I put on the towel, will you tell me why you think it's your fault?"

"Fine."