Page 43 of Target Acquired

“Ma’am? You okay?”

“Yes, it’s a smoke bomb. I have to call it in.” She fumbled for the radio that wasn’t there. Right. All she had was her phone. In her hand. When had she grabbed it? Whatever. Grateful for instincts, she lifted it, then stopped when she noticed the coating of red over her palm. She’d known she was bleeding, but that much?

The firefighter grabbed her while her head swam. She blinked, feeling the hard grip on her bicep even as she studied the blood covering her fingers.

“Where are you hurt?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” Her side? Had to be.

“Come on,” the man was saying, “we need to get you out of here.”

“Kenzie!”

Cole’s voice came through the fog that had invaded her mind.

Weakness hit her. Why was there blood on her hand?

She allowed the firefighter to help her to her feet and guide her toward the exit. And truthfully, without his support, she didn’t think her legs would have held her up much longer.

At what she guessed to be the halfway point, the smoke had thinned to a faint mist.

Cole appeared, rag over his face, eyes squinting. When he spotted her, relief flashed across his features. “You okay?”

That was going to be the question of the week. She could hear it now. “I’m good! Fine!” Okay, that was stretching it, but she pulled away from the firefighter’s grasp, not wanting Cole to see her leaning on the man. Her lungs burned, her eyes leaked tears . . .

. . . and her knees buckled.

Cole swept in and grabbed her up into his arms before the firefighter had a chance to act. And while she hated the outward appearance of weakness, it was better than falling on her face. She closed her eyes, coughed, and allowed Cole to hurry her out of the building.

Once outside, she noted the abundance of law enforcement, firefighters, and medical personnel. Cole headed toward the waiting ambulance.

“Hey, put me down. I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“I know. I figured that out, but it’s probably nothing. I must have caught my side on a metal shelf or something.”

“There’s more blood than that would cause. You’re not fine and you’re going to get checked out.”

The order rankled, but the tight-lipped concern registered. As well as his narrowed eyes and flared nostrils. The bystanders parted like he was Moses at the edge of the Red Sea.

He set her on the stretcher, his actions careful and gentle, yet she couldn’t suppress the low groan at the arc of pain that swept through her.

“What happened?” She ended the question with a hacking cough. One of the paramedics slapped an oxygen mask over her mouth, and she noted Cole trying to stay out of the way yet not going far.

When the paramedic peeled her shirt up from the bottom hem, Cole gasped.

Kenzie’s gaze flew to his and she pulled the mask off. “What?”

“Uh, I think you got sliced.” He looked at the wound, then back to her, his face pale. “Kenz, I think a knife got you.”

SHE BLINKED, shock written on her face. “Stabbed? What? By who?”

Cole ground his teeth for a brief second to ward off the alarm racing through him. “Think back to when you first felt pain.”

“Um . . . it was when we were heading to exit the store. I looked back and you were helping an elderly woman who’d fallen. So . . . couldn’t have been a metal shelf. I was in the middle of the aisle when I felt this pain in my side.”

“All right”—the paramedic shooed Cole back—“sorry, but we’re going to get her to the hospital. You can meet us there.”