Broken Doll {ManxMan}

CHAPTER 23

For a moment I thought I really had died, or blacked out at the least, but I was still conscious. I wasn't completely sure what had happened, but I was lying on my stomach against the ground, my cheek pressed against the cold concrete and my arms lifted and folded over my head in an attempt to shield myself, instinctively trying my best to survive. I could hear gravel and debris raining around me, wood splintering and occasional pops of after-explosion.

There was an arm wrapped tightly around me, squeezing me, it felt like someone was practically lying on top of me like a shield. I managed to peel my eyes open, squinting through the dust to see Logan was next to me, on his side, curled up with his arms raised over his head and eyes pinched closed. He didn't look too badly injured, besides a road rash on his left cheek, so that was good.

Then I glanced up over my shoulder to see Cormac was the one draped over the two of us, arms wrapped around both our shoulders and head bowed, like he'd grabbed us both and shielded us with his own body. His face was pale, eyes pinched closed, but they opened when I started to move and he quickly pushed himself up so he was hovering over Logan and I.

"Are you two okay?" he asked, and Logan lowered his arms slowly before shifting around and pushing himself to his knees, touching his cheek before turning to Cormac and slapping the back of his head, signing something before getting to his feet.

"What happened?" I found myself asking dizzily, and Cormac hummed as he rubbed the back of his head and stood up, swaying on his feet a bit.

"Big explosion from a bomb, or maybe a grenade. It went off right as shit was about to go down inside," he offered a hand to me to help me up, and I hesitantly accepted it as he continued, "Logan's mad at me for shielding him, says he can take care of himself. Are you okay?"

I nodded my head slowly and looked over myself, searching for injuries but finding none, "I... I think I'm okay," I looked back at him to see he was holding his shoulder, a grimace on his face, though he tried for a smile when he caught me staring.

"We should... probably check to see if everyone else is okay."

Logan stomped back over to us and grabbed Cormac by his ear, which was a bit unexpected, turning the pilot to show the back of his coat had been torn, shredded at the shoulder.

"You got hurt," I stated the obvious, I was good at that, and Cormac laughed.

"Did I? Nah, it's just a scratch."

"It doesn't look like a scratch," I argued, holding my head with one hand as I looked around the area slowly.

It was still taking me a bit to really understand what had happened, all of it slowly catching up to me as I stared over at the warehouse. The window had been destroyed completely, blocked by debris that was still on fire, and seeing that block had my heartrate quickening, shuffling forward a few steps and lowering my hand from my head.

Beside me, Logan had removed his own jacket and folded it up as Cormac reluctantly pulled off his own ruined coat, his back and shoulder in full view so Logan could press the folded coat against his wound, to slow the bleeding. I barely caught sight of him from the corner of my eyes, concentrating on the warehouse.

A scar on my leg was aching from a nine year old memory, when Bryn left me for dead in a collapsed building in Vienna. The feeling of watching the warehouse burn was the same. Horrified awe. Confusion. Then shock. How could this have happened? Almost as if it had been planned. Conveniently going off right when Andrei pulled a gun on Tobias?

Tobias.

"Carter," I felt a hand grab my arm, but didn't turn to look at Cormac as I tried to walk closer to the building, "Stay back, there might be other explosives rigged up."