Lucas almost pitied the dumb fuck who'd left him there less wounded than he appeared. When he'd seen the sheer number of enemies approaching, he knew he needed a different tactic if he was going to get Ellie out of here unharmed.

Hopefully he wasn't too late for that.

Her screams had blistered his soul.

Leaving her in the hands of the man who starred in her nightmares was one of the hardest decisions he'd ever had to make. It was only temporary.

Very temporary, he promised them both silently.

The Men in Blue had to be close. He and Ellie were wearing enough tracking gear to be found from halfway across the galaxy, after all. But even the seven or eight minutes it might take for the guys to devise and execute an infiltration strategy might be more than Ellie had.

She would fight that bastard.

Lucas wouldn't love her quite so much if it weren't in her to rage, as he knew she would.

And if they got out of this shitstorm in one piece, relatively, he planned to make sure she knew how he felt.

He lay still, tracking the boot clomps of the men moving indoors, with the exception of the poor sucker assigned to Lucas-watch. When they'd disappeared inside the warehouse, the steel doors clanging shut behind them, he still refused to budge.

Lucas waited as patiently as he could, concentrating on the pain in his shoulder from the gash there, to keep alert and grounded while appearing anything but that.

It was only thirty seconds or so before the guy came near, clearly half-assing his responsibilities. He used the toe of his shoe to nudge Lucas's stump.

When there was no response, he spun away.

"Fucking gimp-who would've guessed?" he mumbled to himself.

Just for that, Lucas added some extra power to his grip when he lunged upward and put his uncut arm around the fucker's neck. He didn't need fancy weapons to dispatch the man. He just needed his superior strength and determination to finish the job.

They fell to the ground, rolling around as the man thrashed, gurgled, then finally went limp.

To make sure there was no chance he made the same mistake as his captors, Lucas snapped the man's neck. He took the guy's gun, jammed it in his waistband then stood, balancing on his one foot.

It was kind of a long way to the warehouse from where they'd left him, but what choice did he have but to hop or crawl?

Well, there was the car.

Lucas peeked in the limo. Keys still in the ignition.

Grinning, he got in and drove himself right up to these assholes' front door, using his left foot to operate the gas and brakes for his short journey. He surveyed the outside of the building. No hint of cameras. Perfect.

Without much to go on but absolute desperation, he carefully opened a side door to the warehouse and peeked around. Loading docks led to a large, empty cement floor. Way down at the other end, there was an enormous window overlooking what once was probably a factory or logistics operation. A nasty orange light glowed from the area where the crooks probably had their headquarters.

Nearby was a shabby office. He hopped into it and searched for any tools he could appropriate.

A rolling desk chair? He could work with that.

Lucas plopped into it, put his back to the illuminated sector of the warehouse and began to push himself in that direction. On the smooth surface, it was an extremely effective mode of transportation. Until he heard a noise off to his right.

Shit, some dudes were still hanging around up here. And hiding wasn't even an option as he scooted across the wide-open area. He was going to have to cowboy this thing. His least favorite way of operating. He much preferred stealth and intelligent attacks.

It wasn't in the cards today.

Sure enough, they spotted him soon after he noticed them. Concrete flew as their bullets made divots in the floor too close to him for comfort.

Lucas used the arm of the chair to brace his elbow and steadied the gun as best he could, given his injured arm, which was growing numb. Thankfully, he'd done so much range work that this was nothing.

He didn't pause his trajectory across the factory, rolling and shooting as he went.

The men fell one by one, a single bullet for each.

Never say he didn't do his homework.

He would pay for this later. Killing was one of the things he was not sad to leave behind when he had been forced to retire, but he would do anything for Ellie and these scumbags had brought it on themselves. If there were any other way, he would have taken it. There simply wasn't.

The back of his chair bumped into the wall sooner than he would have thought. He'd made quick work of that distance. Ellie would have been proud to see him doing things his way and not giving a fuck about it.

No, she would be, when he told her about it later.

He had a moment of doubt when he stood from the chair, rising just enough to peek over the edge of the window, which started at about hip height. The firefight above had sent another wave of attackers in his direction, leaving their forces divided. In fact, only two guys had stayed behind with the guard who had Ellie.

Sirens in the distance told him the Men in Blue were closing in. Would that evil fucker, who even now held his gleaming knife to Ellie's throat, let her live if he knew his game was up?

Lucas didn't think so.

His best chance was to act. Right then.

He peered around and saw a pulley on the other side of the glass. It was hooked to the wall, probably used to raise and lower things to the level below. He had to hope his mental math was right and that the rope was just short enough to stay suspended when fully extended.

Otherwise, this was going to be a rough landing.

He gauged the distance, fairly sure he could reach it if he got a good enough push off the ledge.

But he didn't have time to be 100 percent sure as boots clomped up the metal stairs to his right. Any moment they were going to burst through.

Lucas roared, releasing a battle cry. He shot out the window, which shattered into a billion pieces, raining glass shards onto the level below like some kind of extreme waterfall. He didn't stop to be impressed with his handiwork.

Instead, he climbed onto the busted-out window frame, stood on his good leg, bent his knee and swung his arms once...twice...

"Lucas, no!" Ellie screamed from below.

He wasn't going to stop now.

On the third swing he had enough momentum-he hoped. Recalling what Ellie had told him about hope and how she had used it to stay alive, he figured that was the best he could do given the situation. He leapt, shoving off hard with his foot.

The rope flew toward him, and for a moment he thought he might have overshot it. Then it was in his hands and the impact of his full weight broke it loose from its hook in the wall.

His guts lifted up to flop around somewhere in the vicinity of his throat as he rode the pulley in an arc down to the second level like some insane version of a bungee jump crossed with a zip line. And when he skimmed the floor below, he dropped off, tucked and rolled.

Good thing too since his reception wasn't very warm with the two henchmen below.

His inertia took him straight toward one, bowling him over. Lucas kept his momentum going, landing on top of the stunned man. He took advantage of that hesitation to punch the man in the face a few times until he could wrestle the guy's gun away.

Seeing as the limo driver's had fallen out of Lucas's pants somewhere around the time he did his Tarzan routine, he was grateful to be armed again. Lucas shot the man between the eyes then came to his knees, blowing away the second gunman before the bewildered guy had even processed what happened.

That only left Ellie and her guard.

Lucas edged closer to them on his knees.

"I can see why you like this freak." The guard laughed as if they were best friends. "He's as nuts as you are, Pretty. Too bad he's still not going to be able to save you."

Ellie gasped when the guard pricked her neck, drawing blood.

"Put the gun down or I'll slice her open." The guard grinned. "You don't know how many times I dreamed about that."

The guard wasn't alone. He was the bastard who haunted Ellie. Lucas had known their limo passenger was her old guard the instant he'd called her Pretty. And he wanted to make the man pay.

But the knifepoint was sinking into her a sliver deeper with every instant.

So he tossed the gun away.

"This is the OSPD," someone-Mason, it sounded like-blared through a bullhorn. The commotion from the upper level increased as the cops rounded up the majority of their opponents.

The guard snarled. He glanced up to the first level as if he could see the raiding cops.

Lucas couldn't believe what happened next. He wasn't prepared when Ellie took her chance. She picked up her foot and kicked blindly between the guard's legs, catching him directly in the balls with her heel. Thatta girl!

The guy went down. His knife skittered away.

Ellie dove for it and the guard chased her.

Lucas looked around, but the only thing within easy reach was his prosthesis, which the guard had displayed beside where he was holding Ellie, presumably to upset her. That would do. Carbon fiber was strong shit.

He rose to his good foot, snatched the socket and bashed the guard over the head with it, imagining the birds Ellie had drawn on it were pecking him to death as he made a second impact on the man's skull.

It was enough to slow him down but not stop him entirely.

At least it diverted the guard from Ellie and the knife. He changed directions, taking Lucas down by swiping his leg out from beneath him.

They grappled with each other. Wrestling. Rolling over and over.

Ellie screamed for help, begging for the Men in Blue to make it to them in time.

Lucas didn't think there was a chance of that. They were on their own.

The guard landed a particularly painful jab directly to Lucas's gashed arm. It went completely numb and hung by his side. It probably would have recovered fairly quickly, but there simply wasn't time.

The guy scrambled to his feet then hauled Lucas up, with his hands around Lucas's neck.

Lucas couldn't breathe and the furious thrashing he did was making darkness encroach on the fringes of his vision pretty damn quickly.

If he was going to die like this, he wanted to see Ellie one last time.

When he peeked over at her, she was staring at something on the floor. Her fist unclenched and she leaned forward to take it.

Ellie picked up the guard's knife-likely the one that he had used to torture her so often in Morselli's dungeon-and while Lucas watched, with huge eyes she charged, stopping only when she'd plunged it into the man's neck from behind and slightly to the side, just enough to miss his spine. The tip of the blade emerged clean on the other side, nearly severing his head in the process.

Blood gushed from the guard and he gurgled out his final breaths. His hands fell from around Lucas's neck, allowing him to suck in huge lungfuls of air. At the same time the guard collapsed, Lucas set his prosthesis down, jammed his leg in the socket and ratcheted the proximal lock tight before jogging to his discarded gun.

Even Lucas wasn't cruel enough to leave someone to suffer like that.

He returned, putting the gun point-blank against the man's temple.

The guard surrendered a wet whisper. "Please."

"Close your eyes, E," Lucas ordered.

She fell to the floor and put her hands over her face.

He pulled the trigger.

When the body quit flopping, Lucas toppled over then dragged himself to Ellie with his unhurt elbow. He wrapped her in his arms and held her tight, cocooning her in whatever comfort he could muster.

He shouldn't have been surprised when she looked after him before herself.

She tugged on his tie, loosening the knot then using the silk to put pressure on his wound. If he'd expected her to unravel into hysterics, he would have been mistaken.

They sat there, propping each other up, until Matt and Clint burst through the stairwell door, guns drawn. When they took in the human wreckage around them and the two survivors sitting relatively calmly at the center of it, Matt cursed.

"I always knew you were a badass, Lucas," Clint said in awe. "But...damn."

"Thank God you two are okay." Matt used his radio to alert the team to their status. "We had no idea that guy was part of this organization."

"I don't care," Lucas practically growled. "It's over now. You hear me? She's done. For good. This will never happen again."

"Roger that." Matt put his hand on Lucas's shoulder.

Thirty seconds later, paramedics hit the scene in response to Clint's call for help. They began fussing over Lucas's arm and Ellie's shock, wrapping her in a warm blanket. Still she plastered herself against Lucas and he was happy to have her there.

"Lucas?"

"Yeah, E?" he asked, his lips set in a flat line.

"I decided," she said, sounding drained.

"What's that?"