Under the Knife(110)

Now, he didn’t think, or hesitate. He didn’t care who these guys were. He simply attacked. A mindless machine, intent on taking them down and getting Rita the hell away from here.

He hit them hard, with a classic rugby tackle, low, using his shoulder.

The tall, sandy-haired one went down first. He appeared to be in the act of inspecting the robot. The wind Spencer knocked from him came rushing out of his mouth with a high-pitched yelp, and he went up and over Spencer, ass over elbows, spinning around and landing full on his back, onto the pitiless concrete.

Having not lost any momentum, Spencer then plowed into the other one, who was slim with dark hair. This guy was quick, and had already started to move out of the way, but Spencer’s impact was still tremendous. The two went down together.

The man grunted as Spencer landed on top of him. Spencer immediately straddled him and, before the man could recover, punched him in the face, his fist sinking to a satisfying depth into the soft cartilage of the man’s nose. There was a squirt of blood.

Spencer hit him again. It made a soft, wet sound, like a watermelon’s hitting pavement and breaking open.

The dark-haired man groaned.

Spencer clamped one enormous hand around the man’s throat and raised his other fist, which was now stained with the man’s blood. The man struggled at the hand around his neck. Blood gurgled from his mouth and nose.

Spencer hesitated.

Finish him! some ugly part of him screamed.

Spencer had never in his life been so angry, so full of hatred.

He squeezed the dark-haired guy’s neck harder. Two more well-placed blows, he knew, would smash most of the bones in the asshole’s face.

Three more would probably knock him into a coma.

The guy sputtered and squirmed, pawing at Sebastian’s hand.

Spencer’s raised fist shook.

No.

He was better than that. A man of faith and conviction. This guy was down for the count. That’s all that mattered.

For good measure, Spencer knocked him once more in the side of the head, with less force, before pushing himself up and off him. The man curled up into the fetal position and groaned.

Panting, Spencer glanced at the sandy-haired one on the floor. He wasn’t moving.

Rita.

He’d worry about the two of them later. Right now, he needed to get Rita away from those damn machines.

The anesthesia machine was the closest one to him. Remembering Montgomery’s spiel from the OR that morning, before everything went all to hell, he frantically ran his eyes and hands over its sides until he located a large red button.

The fail-safe switch.

The one that would shut everything off, wake her up, and reverse the paralysis.

He slapped it with his palm.

The machine emitted a low buzz, followed by a hissing noise. That was it: No other signals came, no other indications that it was doing what it was supposed to do. Spencer hoped pushing the button had done the trick.

Now, where’s the one for the damn auto-surgeon …

There it was.

Beckoning like a red beacon on the side of the robot, several feet away.

He strode over to it.

He was reaching out for the button, his hand inches from it, when the dark-haired guy jumped on his back.





SEBASTIAN


Christ, but this guy was big!

Sebastian had learned long ago to trust his instincts.

Dazed, and half-blind from both pain and the blood streaming into his eyes from his ruined face, Sebastian’s instincts were telling him that he wasn’t going to get out of this fucking situation unless he dealt with this big bastard—

(Cameron, he realized, that neurosurgeon in the ER)

—who was, quite literally, standing between him and his freedom.

Sebastian’s instincts had told him that jumping on his back was the thing to do: to buy time for him to recover his senses so that he could assess the situation, to temporarily throw Cameron off his game, maybe get him in some kind of choke hold.

He could have tried the conduction gun, which was tucked into its holster over the small of his back. But his instincts reminded him that he had just gotten his ass handed to him and that he could barely see straight, let alone aim and get off a clean shot.

With a surprised grunt, Cameron staggered backward, with Sebastian riding him piggyback, away from Wu and the auto-surgeon. Riding Cameron like a bull at a rodeo, the professional part of Sebastian’s brain wondered why the hell Cameron hadn’t beaten him to death when he’d had the chance. He should have. Because Sebastian had survived shit far worse than this, and he wasn’t planning on giving Cameron any more chances at gaining the upper hand.

Christ, he was strong! Cameron jerked Sebastian this way and that until his teeth chattered. Holding on to him much longer would be impossible. A choke hold was out of the question.

But then Sebastian’s instincts spoke to him again.

Clinging to Cameron with his left hand, Sebastian reached up with his right and clawed at Cameron’s head behind both ears.

There.

Behind the right one.

As he’d suspected.

Then Cameron threw him off, and Sebastian landed hard on the ground several feet away.





SPENCER


Furious, Spencer spun toward the dark-haired man and approached him, trying to ignore the pain in his right knee, which had gotten worse. Much worse. Maybe something he’d done while tackling the two men.