Beau had, in all his perceptive glory, realized that Titus’ meager luggage was stowed inside the rental car and brought it inside. He’d also taken the liberty of figuring out Titus’ system of putting dirty clothes into the laundry bag provided by the motel before returning it to the suitcase, thereby keeping the clean laundry from commingling, and washed a couple of loads while Titus had been unconscious for the past two days. Titania had saved them all from the silverfish that had stowed away with the dirty laundry by chasing it down and eating it, and Titus wasn’t sure in that moment which of them was a bigger hero in his eyes.

Of course, Beau had wanted to know how a silverfish had ended up in the suitcase, which led to Titus recounting the various infestations he’d encountered in the past week. Which then led to a proclamation of “Oh, hell naw!” from Beau and an immediate insistence that Titus could keep on sleeping on the couch. “Besides,” he’d added, “I don’t wanna have to deal with Oberon howling at the top of his lungs every night at 2 am because his new favorite bed ain’t here.”

“He does sing the song of his people very well,” Titus allowed, followed by a string of praise laden baby talk as he scrunched up the cat’s face. Oberon rumbled like a motor boat through the whole ordeal.

A shower for Titus and a pot of coffee for Beau later, they were sitting at the small kitchen table over ham sandwiches when Titus finally got a reply to the text he’d sent to Ky a couple of hours prior. “Oh! He says he just woke up out of surgery about an hour ago,” Titus reported after identifying the sender aloud. “Looks like his left arm and ribs took the worst of things; Ky’s bitching about texting with one hand. He’s been in the hospital since the raid, but the doctors had to wait for the swelling to go down before they could set his arm. You want to go with me to visit him, or are hospitals too much for your nose?”

“Naw, I can suck it up. Ky’s one of the few cops like you that gives a damn and I wanna stay on his good side. I’ll just take the tin of menthol rub with me in case I start havin’ problems.” Beau shoved the last of his sandwich into his mouth, then scooped up his empty plate with one hand and Oberon with the other, as the cat was on the table eyeing Titus’ sandwich with avarice. “How you gonna explain the fact that you came out apparently unscathed?”

Titus paused to consider that. “Well, the whole thing was so damn chaotic, I don’t expect anyone remembers a whole lot of the details. I can probably get away with saying that I called you to pick me up after being seen in the ER. Kind of depends on what Ky remembers, though, so I’ll definitely be winging it at least a little.” A thought occurred to Titus. “Why did I get brought to your doorstep, though? That doesn’t make any sense.”

Beau’s face turned to stone in an instant. “Been thinkin’ about that for a while,” he finally ground out, his voice going gravelly in what Titus decided was anger based on the way the Garmr’s brow knitted. “And I’m pretty confident someone was tryin’ t’send a message. Specifically t’me. They coulda just left ya t’bleed out in a ditch somewhere, or let ya get taken to the hospital like everyone else. But they made a point of pickin’ you up and dumpin’ you in the one place where you’d be found by me for certain. So someone was tryin’ t’tell me somethin’.”

Apparently, when he was tired wasn’t the only time Beau’s drawl got thick, Titus noted. It also got markedly more pronounced when he was truly angry. “But what was the message, though?” Titus asked, rather than commenting about the accent.

“Prob’ly t’back the fuck off. Keep my nose outta business that ain’t mine. Kind of a ‘look what happens when ya piss in someone else’s territory’ message. Which, lemme be clear, don’t fly with me. They got Danni. Which makes it my business. Though it’s interestin’ that they chose you instead a Ky; ain’t figgered that part out just yet. Which is another reason fer goin’ t’visit Ky: I wanna hear what he remembers, since yer memories of the incident got right scrambled.”

Titus scrunched up his own face in thought. “It was definitely a lot,” he allowed. “I certainly wasn’t expecting them to be as heavily armed as they were. And I’m still not sure what the explosion was all about. Though I’m pretty sure those were car parts raining down on us.”

“Well, I may not know a lot about shootouts, but I can say for certain no one shot up a gas tank. Those TV science guys did a whole episode on that, and gas tanks don’t explode when shot.” Beau set to washing the dishes. Perhaps with a little more vigor than was strictly necessary, Titus decided, but he wasn’t about to step into that. If Beau wanted to take his aggression out on the cups and plates, who was he to interfere?

“That was such a good show,” Titus agreed instead, scrolling through the local news headlines and pointedly ignoring the voicemail icon that was probably from his boss. He already knew he screwed up, and definitely didn’t need his section chief to remind him of that fact. And he wasn’t in any mood to admit that he’d let a civilian get abducted. Titus felt like shit about that enough already. I’ll call him back when I’ve got some progress to report, he told himself firmly.

Once Beau had finished the dishes and showered himself, they hopped into Beau’s car and drove to the hospital Ky had said he was checked into. Titus spent the entire drive rehearsing what he was going to say if asked about the incident and making sure Beau was on the same page. He was also secretly concerned that Ky would blame him for what happened; a couple of officers had been killed, and Titus absolutely blamed himself. While it wasn’t likely Ky would have him arrested for gross negligence or similar, it was still a non-zero chance. And getting his ass thrown in jail would pretty much guarantee that he’d be fired with no chance of being hired with another force. There was only so much the police union could do to protect its members in an instance like this.

The hospital itself was quite nice when they pulled into the parking lot. Four stories of glass walled medical expertise greeted them. Beau found a spot as far as he could from the entrance so that there was very little chance of his car getting hit by someone opening their own doors a little too forcefully. A quick stop at the information desk told them Ky was in room 318 and they slapped the sticky visitor badges onto their shirts before heading for the elevators. A couple of passing nurses greeted Beau as he strode along, which made Titus wonder how it was that Beau knew so many people.

Room 318 turned out to be a private room. Inside, Ky was sitting up and scowling at the remote control in his hand before pointing it at the television hanging on the opposite wall and mashing a couple of buttons seemingly at random. “Ugh! Why is it the only channels with reception are showing telenovelas?” he complained before noticing he had visitors. “Titus! Damn glad to see you in one piece! And Beau too? Wasn’t expecting you! I would've thought the smells in here would be too much for the best nose in the southwest states.”

“He’s still got some good drugs on board,” Beau muttered into Titus’ ear. “This oughta be a hoot.” Titus choked back a snort of laughter at the dry tone even as Beau raised his voice again. “Jesus, Ky! You look like the roadkill ‘possum I dragged under my car for two miles last week! Ma woulda sent a fruit basket, but she blew all her spare cash last week at Bingo Night.”

Ky apparently forgot he’d busted a couple of ribs in the raid, because he tried to laugh and just ended up wheezing. “Ow! Dammit, Beau!” The words were choked out around chuckles, so even though it clearly hurt, Ky didn’t seem to be too upset overall at his situation. Though that might’ve been the drugs, Titus reasoned. Once the worst of the laughter had passed, Ky asked the first question Titus had been dreading. “How’d you manage to come out with barely a scratch, Titus? Last I saw, you looked like five miles of bad road.”

“Well, I took a blow to the head. It looked worse than it was; you know how scalp wounds bleed.” It was only partly a lie. Still, Titus was glad he’d rehearsed this on the way.

And Ky seemed to buy it. “Damn. Yeah, those bleed like a stuck pig,” he nodded. “Didn’t expect those fuckers to be armed for bear, either. And where the hell did they get a grenade?”

“Is that what that was?” Titus asked, astounded. 

“I didn’t get a good look, but I’m pretty sure they hucked some army surplus pineapples at us. One of ‘em went into the car we were sheltered behind. Which turned out to be lucky for us, believe it or not; the car soaked up most of the damage. It was mostly the pressure wave that hit us and tossed us like blankets in a tumble dryer.”

“Fuck,” Titus breathed. “That would explain why I looked like a plum in the mirror.”

“Yeah. We flew a good ways,” Ky agreed. “Maybe fifty, a hundred yards or something.”

“Damn lucky you weren’t hurt worse’n you were,” Beau growled. Titus and Ky both nodded agreement. 

An awkward silence fell over the room as they all realized just how wrong the raid had truly gone. At least, Titus was having that realization, and he assumed from the quality of the silence the others were as well. “Well.” Ky cleared his throat as he tried to break that oppressive air. “At least some of us made it through that alive.”

“How…” Titus’ voice faltered, so he took a deep breath before trying again. “How many did we lose?”

“Three officers down,” Ky reported solemnly. “Another two taken hostage. We know they’re alive for now because their body cams showed up delivered to the station, with video evidence that they were being treated decently. Along with a note that said they’d be released in four days if the police left well enough alone. I heard that from one of the guys that visited yesterday. He also told me SWAT was preparing to go after the hostages.”

“Well, that’s about the stupidest response your boys coulda had,” Beau growled. “You know that, right Ky?”

“I know. And I tried to warn them. But you try telling a hardline, third generation cop to sit on his thumbs when his brothers in blue are on the line.” Ky sighed. “Besides, it’s probably already done and over. I think they were mobilizing either last night or early this morning. Maybe I’m wrong, though; I kind of lost track of what day it is, what with being put under sedation and all.”

“Any way we can get an update on that?” Titus asked hopefully.

Ky sighed. “Lemme just…ugh!” It was clear the other officer was struggling with the fact that he only had one useful hand at the moment. He’d managed to drag his phone off the bedside table, but then dropped it on himself when he awkwardly tried to navigate the touch interface. Titus moved in and grabbed the phone before it slid to the linoleum floor, holding it within range so Ky could tap on the screen. “Thanks. Lemme call Sam and see how things went. I’ll put it on speaker if you promise to keep quiet.” Titus and Beau both nodded immediate agreement.

“Samantha Foster.”

“Hey, Sam, it’s Ky.”

“Hey, buddy! How ya feeling?”

“Eh, been better, but I’ll live. Listen: Cameron told me there was a SWAT raid on that location I was at the other night. Can you tell me how that went?”

There was a pause before Sam answered. “Can I? Yes. But should I?”

Titus watched Ky pale. “Did it go that bad? What, did they upgrade to rocket launchers?”

“No no no!” Sam replied hastily. “No, nothing like that. I just want to make sure you’re not gonna take this wrong. I mean, damn! You’re in the hospital! Are you really okay to hear about work right now?”

“Sam, I’m fine,” Ky reassured the other officer. “What happened?”

There was another pause. “They didn’t find anything.”

Titus felt his eyes widen as Ky looked up at him and Beau. “Wait, what do you mean ‘nothing’? There was a whole warehouse of alter-humans being guarded by assholes with automatic weapons and grenades! How can SWAT have found nothing?”

“I don’t know, Ky. The place had been cleaned out. Fast, too; it’d only been a day.”

“Which means they’re highly organized,” Ky concluded. “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Thanks, Sam. I'll let you get back to your paperwork.”

“Get better quick, Ky.” The line clicked dead.

The three men all stared at each other for a long minute. Titus didn’t know what was going through the minds of the other two, but mentally, he was cussing vehemently and calling himself seven kinds of idiot.

Their trail had just gone cold.