Part 14

Vin clambered to his hands and knees and stayed there, swaying. His ears were ringing and his head ached with a horrible pulsing throb that made him sick to his stomach. Supporting himself on one hand, he wiped the other over his brow, feeling the warm stickiness of his own blood on his fingers.

'What the hell-'

He forced open eyes that felt full of grit. The air around him was thick with grayish-brown dust. It stung his eyes, caught at his throat.

Slowly, memory seeped back. He was at Buck's apartment. He'd been on the phone to Chris...then Buck had yelled his name-

'Buck!'

He tried to rise to his feet and was forced back down by a wave of dizziness. Mindlessly, he crawled on hands and knees to the staircase.

The top half of the staircase was gone.

The loft wasn't there anymore.

He could see the leaden Denver skies through a huge, gaping hole where the wall and ceiling of Buck's bedroom used to be.

"Buck!" Vin choked out. His throat screamed in protest. He coughed and tried again. "BUCK! Answer me!"

Nothing.

A darker shadow against the dust moved. By instinct Vin moved toward it, staggering forward like a drunk, clinging to walls and battered furniture. He moved around the sectional sofa. Behind that had once been a wall of windows, arched glass set into the stone walls.

The glass was gone now, no doubt lying four stories below in a glittering rain of death.

Buck was between the sofa and the windows, lying in a boneless pile, arms and legs sprawled anywhere, blood pooling underneath his body.

"Oh, damn, Buck." Vin fell to his knees beside his friend, afraid to touch him, afraid to know, afraid not to know. He hesitantly bent low over the still body, two fingers desperately pressed into the side of the bloody neck. "Come on, Bucklin...I know you aren't dead...you can't be. Give me a sign here..."

There was a tiny flutter underneath his fingers; Buck's faint breathing cooled his cheek. "That's it, Pard...you hang in there. You hear me, Buck? You hang on!"

He couldn't pull the battered body close to him as much as he wanted to hold the bigger man back from the shadow of death that was lurking to claim him. Any movement could be dangerous...fatal. Vin clasped Buck's hand tightly in both of his, trying to force life into their joined clasp. His ears still ringing from the blast, he couldn't hear sirens but he knew help must be approaching. He just had to keep Buck alive until it got here.

He knelt close to his friend, ignoring Buck's blood soaking into the knees of his own jeans.

'Hang in there. Just hang in there...'

Chris Larabee woke, startled. Sitting up straighter in the uncomfortable chair, he quickly checked Ezra, thinking perhaps the undercover agent had made some sound. Ezra had slept like the dead for hours, barely moving. As Chris watched, Standish's head moved a little against the pillow but he showed no other signs of waking.

Chris sighed and stretched, standing to work out the kinks in his back. The room was shadowy and chilly. The one window faced north and the sky, which had been heavy with storm clouds all day, was darkening with the approach of evening.

Suddenly alarmed, Chris checked his watch. Almost five p.m. Anxiety churned his stomach. 'Buck. Vin. Where the hell are they?' He'd last heard from his two friends when Vin had called from Buck's apartment around one-thirty. 'They should have been to the ranch hours ago. Vin should have called.'

As he reached for the bedside telephone to call his home, it rang. Chris grabbed the receiver. "Larabee!" he snapped.

"Chris."

Chills cascaded down Chris' back. Icy fear clenched his bowels. He knew, without Vin having to say more than that one word, that something was terribly wrong. "Vin, where are you?"

"At University Medical Center. The Trauma Unit-"

"You hurt?" Chris interrupted.

"Not me." Tanner's voice broke. "Chris, get over here right now. It's Buck." Chris could hear him take a ragged breath over the phone. "Chris...there was a bomb in his apartment."

Bomb.

Chris' mind slammed to a screeching halt. The pale beige walls of the hospital room disappeared, to be replaced by the vision that for so long had haunted his thoughts. Darkness, and police cars...the burned out hulk of his pickup...Sarah and Adam...dead.

'Not Buck. God, please, no. Not Buck.'

He became aware that Tanner's voice was still talking in his ear but he hadn't heard anything after that word "bomb." "Vin?" he said, his tone pleading, recognizing it for what it was. 'Tell me he's okay...tell me it's all right...'

Tanner's voice was rough with fear and urgent as he said "Chris. Hurry. Just...hurry!"