“I know. Honestly, I don’t remember where I got it.”
“Are you getting blackouts again?” he asked in a low voice, low enough that hopefully Tasha didn’t hear him.
Terk averted his gaze.
“Goddammit, Terk,” Damon growled. “You know this isn’t the time to hold back information. We can’t do our job if you’re keeping stuff from us.”
“I can’t hold back what I don’t know,” he replied, with a note of humor.
But Damon wasn’t impressed. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. Come on. A first aid kit is over here.”
“Shit, if I’d have known that was there,” he muttered, “I could have taken care of it before.”
“Oh, that’s crap, and you know it. You’re the one who ordered the damn thing. Seems like there’s always something about our work that requires it,” he said, with his own note of humor.
“Isn’t that the truth?”
Even as Damon cleaned the wound, Terk didn’t appear to be bothered. He was just yawning and waiting patiently for Damon to be done. Damon lowered his voice and asked Terk, “How is everyone doing?”
Tasha turned at that question and asked, “Yes, how is everybody doing?”
Terk stared at her steadily. “Most are fine.”
“Most?”
“Most,” he confirmed. “Obviously not everybody is out of the woods yet.”
She frowned. “You’re saying Brody won’t make it, aren’t you?”
“He is tough, and he’s got as much of a chance as anybody, but it’s not looking particularly good.” Terk took another deep breath and added, “I have some other bad news to deliver.”
She looked at him in surprise. “What? How much bad news are we supposed to absorb?” she snapped.
“One more at least.” He looked over at Damon. “It’s Mera. She died this morning.”
Tasha bolted to her feet, crying out, “What? No! No. She was safe. What do you mean, she’s dead?”
He nodded. “I haven’t gotten official notice. All I can tell you at the moment is that her life forces have stopped.”
Tasha stared at him, trying to process the information, as Damon realized just how much Tasha was having to deal with. Normally these conversations would have been kept out of her range. But there was really no way to protect her from all that was going on right now.
“Did she die on her own?” she asked.
“I highly doubt it,” Terk answered quietly.
“I didn’t see anywhere else Peter could have been.” She pointed to the map. “I followed his footsteps, tracked him through the city all day yesterday, right up to where he ended up at his first hotel, to the meal, to the phone calls he made.” She then motioned over at the last person, a picture still up on the wall. “Including the government official that he was talking to five times on his last day.”
At that, Terk’s face hardened. “Well, I want to have a talk with him.”
“Well, that’s too damn bad,” she snapped, “because, just like Mera, this guy is dead.” He stared at her in shock; she nodded. “Yep. Our bad guys have been damn busy on their killing spree.” She shook her head. “But where the hell does this ever stop?”
“It doesn’t stop unless we stop them,” Terk said. “Unfortunately that’s part of the reason our department was created. We had to have a way to stop these guys, who just seem to be invincible.”
“The trouble is they aren’t invincible, and neither are you,” she said pointedly, looking at the bandage that Damon had put on Terk’s ribs. “And you need to remember that.”
He smiled at her. “I’m glad you care,” he replied in a teasing voice.
She rolled her eyes. “I do care. I also don’t want to be left alone to face all this shit,” she admitted. “If something happens to you, I’m totally screwed.” And just enough spunk filled her voice that his grin widened.
“So, it’s not about me at all,” Terk noted. “It’s all about you. Got it.”
She raised both hands in frustration. “Don’t you start pissing me off.”
“But it’s such fun,” he quipped. “You react beautifully.”
She groaned and slumped back in her chair. “I’m tired. I’m worn out. I’ve had a shitty night, and what was supposed to be a lot of really good information ended up in a dead end. Then we had a computer attack, and, even though I’ve got everything restored and have a bunch of traces going,” she added, “I’m starting to fail.”
Immediately Damon piped up. “Why don’t you go to bed?”
“Well, wouldn’t that be nice,” she quipped, “but how in the hell am I supposed to do that when so much is going on?”
He could see the shimmer of tears in her eyes and realized that it wasn’t so much that she was tired and worn out but that the news about Mera had hit Tasha hard. He walked over, wrapped his arms around her, and just held her close. She protested for a moment, then burrowed in, laying her head tucked up against his heart, a damn fine place for her as far as he was concerned. But he also knew he had a way to go before she would trust him, after deliberately keeping her at arm’s length without acknowledging the attraction between them. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“Me too.” She nodded. “Apparently being sorry doesn’t count for shit anymore,” she muttered. “I just want these guys caught, and I want this over with.”
“I don’t know that we’ll get both of those done anytime soon,” he admitted. “Our focus right now is finding the ones who have been taking out our friends. Then we’ll go from there.”
“And that was something else.” She pulled her head back, looked up at Damon and over at Terk. “Why was all of your team taken out one way and my team taken out another?”
“For the same reason that the Peter guy, who did your part of the team, was killed,” Terk said in a quiet voice. “Fast and efficient and all were expendable. Too many cooks spoil the broth. So they just turn around and start cleaning up.”
“Why is it that you guys in this business don’t expect to be in that position where you’re the ones getting cleaned up?” she asked with emphasis. “That’s the part I don’t get. How is it that we—or them—actually think we/they would be part of this forever?”
“I don’t know,” Damon replied, “and that’s a good and valid question. If and when we get a chance to ask them, we will.”
She snorted at that, pulled out of Damon’s arms, and stated, “I’ll go lie down.” She walked over to her bed and crashed.
He watched, seeing her wrap her arms around her shoulders, aware of the pain in her stiff movements. He looked over at Terk and raised an eyebrow.
Terk nodded. “I think I’ll go have a shower. I need to get back to the land of the living. Then we need to go over this information she dug up, which is huge, but I feel like something is in there we can utilize to find whoever took out our assassin here.” And, with that, he headed into the bathroom.