The man remained expressionless, while his eyes swung to the side a few times—looking for help, probably. Backup for an old woman.
She’d have laughed if it weren’t so true.
“Could you help me with this, sir? I seem to have lost my—”
Though his gun was out and up, he didn’t see the bear spray until it was too damn late. He was down, covering himself and trying to breathe, in too much pain to warn his partner. She fumbled with the tranquilizer gun and almost lost her hold. Her pulse picked up a bit when the sound of heavy boots running reached her, but she kept her cool and just had time to turn the gun before the other one could wrench her arms behind her back.
Chapter 22
Leo adjusted her stance, shifting her hand closer to the knife at her waist.
“There’s no virus?” She knew that statement for the lie it was. The virus existed. She’d flown a sample of the damn thing out of Antarctica. Her team had it contained in their secret headquarters, where a team of scientists was trying to figure out why it was worth killing for. “Okay.” Caution made her voice artificially light. “If you think there’s no virus, then where are we headed? Where have you been taking me, Elias?”
She took a quick look around, expecting… Hell, she didn’t know. What more could happen at this point?
Don’t ask questions like that, dummy.
“Where?” Though she had the urge to yell, the word came out low and quiet and gruff.
“I was going to send you to Canada. Like Amka wanted.”
“Canada.” Her nostrils flared in anger. “And what was your destination?”
“Schink’s Station.”
“To face the enemy on your own.” Not anger, hurt. He didn’t trust her. Didn’t want her by his side.
“I can’t put you in harm’s way, Leo. You’re injured. I have to get you to safety and then make sure they don’t hurt anyone in—”
“When did you plan on mentioning this?”
“Soon.” He at least had the good grace to look guilty. “When things were safer.”
She nodded slowly, stepping away from the tree where she’d almost done something unforgivably stupid. With the yeti, for God’s sake. The lying liar. That would teach her not to trust so fast. Not to be taken in.
She opened her mouth to give him a piece of her mind and then shut it. Yelling wouldn’t solve a thing. She didn’t know this guy at all.
Then what the hell am I doing groping him in the woods?
“Crap!” She didn’t remember ever being so angry with herself. Or so out of control with her body, her emotions. Was this because of the head injury?
“What?” Ever vigilant, he glanced around.
With the helo somewhere to the south, there wasn’t much to see. Well, that wasn’t true. There was a ton to see—trunks, spiking up from the uneven slope around them, some skinny and white, others dark and wet looking—all of them tall and sturdy as a battalion of soldiers. The ground told its own story, littered with fallen trees and branches, felled by the elements. She didn’t want to die in this cold, bitter place, refused to wind up as just more collateral damage in this monstrous business. Which meant no more losing her mind in this place. It was dangerous.
She eyed Elias. He was dangerous.
No more her letting her feelings guide her actions.
“First.” With a head shake, she put her palm out—to keep him away or to steady herself, she wasn’t sure. “Let’s say that weird post-adrenaline…thing didn’t just happen, okay? Never happened. Can we agree on that?”
He didn’t answer, and she let her gaze settle on the ground, rather than looking at him. Hell, she’d seen people lose it like this after almost…well, losing their lives. She’d seen colleagues screw complete strangers or—worst yet—people they worked with every day. That didn’t end well. Not once had she been tempted. Work and sex never mingled.
Ever.
Resentful now, she looked up at Elias, wanting to blame him for their frantic makeout session. She couldn’t, though, when her skin flushed at just the memory of it. The way her hands had raced to get him out, to put him in her. If he hadn’t stopped everything, she’d be having sex with him right now.
“Hey.” His voice was soft.
Shaking her head, she shut her mouth tight, folded her lips in on themselves, and waited for this fresh wave of mortification to pass.
“I’m sorry.”
About which part? The lying or the almost doing me against the tree?
“I’ll take you to Schink’s Station and from there, you can get home.”
Jaw tight, she glared, shaking her head. “What do you mean there is no virus?”
He threw another look over his shoulder, an unconsciously cautious movement that spoke volumes about his life experience. Then he looked at her and sighed. “Turner didn’t have it.”
“And you? You don’t have the virus either?”
“No.” His gaze held hers, firm, honest.
“They must think you have it though. Isn’t that what this is all about?”
“I don’t have the virus. Never have.”
A few feet away, something scurried in the underbrush, reminding her yet again that they weren’t alone. The quiet here was deafening for a woman who was happiest listening to an engine’s growl, especially when she considered how much movement was happening beneath the surface. Alaska wasn’t just a breathtaking landscape, it was billions of living things awakening, stretching, yawning, getting ready to burst forth.
She turned away from the sight of Bo digging at the half-frozen ground and focused on Elias. His expression was wary, his stance tense. “You need to explain.”
He swallowed. “The day I took Turner into custody, everything changed.”
“How so?”
“He wasn’t a criminal. He was a goddamn whistleblower. He knew they’d kill him eventually. Claimed they’d created a false history for him, made him out to look like a bioterrorist when he was just a middle-aged researcher who was thrown into something big.” The look in his eyes was chilling. And yeah, she was mad that he’d kept the truth from her, but she believed him right now. Every word. “The work they were doing in that lab…that was some high-level destroy-the-human-race kind of shit.”
Leo shivered and glanced up, expecting the aircraft to suddenly appear. It was getting closer, flying over the lake, she assumed. “What happened to him?”
“Campbell?” He scoffed. “He tagged me and then took one for the team.”
“What?” Another look at the sky showed nothing—no helo, no clouds.
“Those were his calcified remains found in Mount Pleasant,” Elias said, loud enough to be heard above the approaching hum. “Not mine.”
“Wait. Are you saying he killed all those people? He’s the one who carried out the massacre?”
“No.” There wasn’t an ounce of doubt in his expression. “That was a setup. They’d ruined my life by then, killed my…” A strange low hum left his body—more animal than human and one hundred percent pain. “They slaughtered my parents.” His voice broke on the last word. “Made it look like I’d done it. I was on the run, my days were numbered.” He was breathing hard, his eyes out of focus, and Leo wanted to hold him, despite the anger still running through her veins. “It was supposed to be me that day in Mount Pleasant. They set up a meet, told me mistakes were made. Said I’d—” Elias’s head tilted to listen when the helicopter’s hum changed. “They landing?”
Shit.
Someone shouted in the distance, and they both sprang into action, grabbing their supplies, throwing on still-damp coats, scuffing at the signs of their passage.
Before they took off again, though, she stopped him with a quiet, “Wait.”
He leaned low, his face beside hers an unwelcome reminder of the havoc he wreaked on her hormones.
“They’ll be crawling all over Schink’s Station, right? You sure you want to go back there?”
He reached out and pulled her hood over her head, and though brusque, the move was intimate enough to squeeze something in her chest.
“Sure of nothing, Leo. Except we’re better off moving.” At her quick nod, they set off at a quick pace, side by side. “Got to get to a safe place to hole up. We stay out here, they’ll find us eventually.”
“If we head there, we fall right into their net. You know that, right?”
“Let me ask you this, Leo. What do you think’s happening in Schink’s Station right now?”
She’d wondered the same thing, and no matter what angle she considered it from, the answer never looked good. “They’re killing people, aren’t they?” She huffed out a breath. “Or threatening to.”
“It’s what they do.” He stopped and bent low again, his expression angry enough to border on scary. “My job is to save them.”
“Our job, Elias. Ours.”
***
“Stand down, Deegan!” Ash yelled into the headset to be heard above the din of the helicopter. “Your search is mucking up this operation.”
“Mucking it up?” Even at this volume Deegan didn’t sound happy. Then again, he wasn’t the most expressive bloke. Happy, sad, angry, horny—he probably barked orders in bed the way he did out here in the field. “Far as I can tell, you’re the one who hasn’t caught up with them yet.”
“You’ve lost half your team and the target. If you’d let me do my job the way I requested, we’d be halfway home by now, bonus in hand.”
“Halfway home?” Deegan’s laugh was forced, his features wooden. “Like hell. The guy’s too damn slippery.”
“The guy,” Ash mimicked with a nasal American accent. “What guy do you think we’re chasing? Let’s start with that, shall we?”
In front, the pilot turned to the side, clearly listening in. Deegan—who looked crap after two long nights spent in the wild—wouldn’t like being one-upped in front of his men. Well, fuck him. Ash didn’t care for Deegan’s feelings. What he cared about was his mission.
“You kiddin’ me?” Deegan sighed, shaking his head, and turned to look out the window. “Campbell Turner. Male. Fifty-thr—”
“Wrong. This isn’t Turner. We’re after someone else.”
“The target is here and he’s on the run.”
He pointed at the lake below. “You truly believe you’re chasing an average-size fifty-three-year-old man? Do you? Our bloke’s fit as a fiddle. His feet are as long as my fucking forearm.” An exaggeration, but it got the point across. Besides, the f’s crackled nicely in the headset.
Deegan’s breathing came through, labored and fast, though his face remained stoic.
“Call off the damned chopper, Deegan, stop the air search, and put me down on the western shore so I can do my job…alone.”
“That’s not what—”
“Call her.” This was a gamble, but Ash trusted nothing if not his own instincts.
“What?”
“You heard me. Call the boss. Tell her you’ve fucked her operation. Tell her you lost multiple people, including the one who stepped in a trap and the people you sent into a booby-trapped building. Strange, the bloke in the trap was alive last I saw him. How did he die, Deegan?” The pilot tensed. Poor bastard now knew how likely he was to get out of this alive. Or not. Ash had known the risks when he signed on for this thing. He was quite possibly the only one who understood just how deadly this mission was. That wasn’t a problem for him. “The target’s gone AWOL because of you. Call off the bloody air search and I’ll salvage this mission my way. All right?” He leaned toward the man. “We don’t get the man or what he’s hiding, we don’t get paid.”
Breathing slowly and evenly, Ash leaned to look out of the helicopter’s window at the scenery below. It was best to give men like Deegan the illusion of power.
“How long you need?”
“Give me five days.”
“Four.”
Ash shrugged, forcing a serene smile. He’d take the time he needed. “Put me down over there.” He pointed toward the bean-shaped lake’s western curve, right where it fed into the river that eventually led to Schink’s Station.
Minutes later, he alit on the rocky shore, hefted his pack, and let his eyes roam the tree line, surprised when Deegan appeared beside him a moment later, carrying his own rucksack. Doing his best to keep his cool at the man’s unexpected presence, Ash cocked a brow.
Deegan smiled, setting off two dimples as out of place on the man’s square face as commas at the end of a sentence. “Let’s do this.” He held out one big, beefy arm. “Lead the way, tracker.”
He said tracker like it was an insult, instead of saying it like a man who, as of the moment the helicopter took off, was entirely dependent on Ash for survival.
Doing his best to ignore Deegan, Ash waited until long after the aircraft’s overwhelming hum had disappeared, until its stink and hulking presence were nothing but an oily smudge in an otherwise pristine environment. And only then—once silence descended upon this beautiful, perfect wilderness—did he set off after the mystery woman and her mystery companion.
Unfortunately, Deegan followed.
***
From maybe twelve miles off, Elias watched the helicopter rise into the midday sky and fly west. He swiped at the cold sweat on his forehead and caught Leo’s eye. “Need to stop?”
“No.” Mouth tight, chin firm, she took the lead. After a few minutes, she glanced his way. “Do you need to stop?”
He half smirked. “Maybe.”
She shook her head. “Men. Too macho to admit when they’re tired.” Her eyes dipped to his side. “Injury bothering you?”
“Little.”
“Let me check it.”
His breath left him in a whoosh, as if that one experience back there had trained him to think of checking his wound as a euphemism for something much more pleasant.
“I’ll just check it.” Her hands were up in a defensive pose. “None of that other…” She flapped them for a few seconds before they dropped tiredly to her sides.
“Don’t wanna kiss it this time?” He meant to smile and make it a joke, but his face wouldn’t obey. “Make it better?”
“I’ve created a monster, I see.” He caught just the start of her eye roll as she turned away. “Didn’t I tell you not to mention that again?”
“Told me not to mention the, uh…other thing. You kissing me is still on the table.” He didn’t remind her that he hadn’t agreed not to mention the other event either.
He caught just a hint of her whispered “jerk” as she grabbed the pack of wipes and stomped off, toward an area thick with underbrush, her feet slipping and sliding with every step. “I’ll be back.”
Elias clicked his teeth at Bo, who’d been watching Leo with a bemused gaze that was probably a mirror image of his. “Go on,” he said, low enough so only the dog could hear. “Go with her.”
With a little woof and her happy front-end pony lift, she ran after Leo. Satisfied that they’d keep each other safe—or as safe as they could be out here—he stalked off in the other direction to take care of his own business.
By the time he returned, Leo had set the two rolled-up sleeping bags on one of the Mylar blankets, like logs to sit on, and squatted, rummaging in his pack. He watched as she pulled out the dried fish, made a production of opening and sniffing it, fanning her hand in front of her face—all for Bo’s benefit, it appeared, since she hadn’t caught sight of him yet. With one of her big knives, she sliced up a chunk and stacked it in a neat pile on the ground. When Bo didn’t immediately move, she said, “It’s lunchtime. Dig in.”
With another pony head shake, Bo pounced.
Leo turned away, grimacing. “Don’t kn
ow how you eat that stuff.” Halfway to sitting on one of the bags, she caught sight of him. “What? Stuff’s gross.”
“Acquired taste.”
“You make it yourself? Catch the salmon, dry it, everything?”
At his nod, she expelled a disbelieving sound, then dove into the pack again. “Protein bar. Protein bar. Freeze-dried meal.” She looked around. “Got a camp stove?”
He shook his head and cast a quick look around them. “Need more distance for that.” Preferably a hundred miles or so.
“Protein bar it is.” He caught the one she threw at him and sat on the second bag. Their knees brushed once, twice. He held his breath, expecting her to move away and, when she didn’t, slowly let it out. “Still need to check your injury, Elias.”
He sniffed. “Gonna let me see how yours is doing?” Geez, when did talking about their wounds turn into a seduction? Or was that just him?
“Sure.” A pause. “Are you?”
His nod couldn’t come close to conveying the excitement swirling inside him right now. He swallowed it back with the first bite of food.
While he polished off his bar in three seconds flat, she consumed hers slowly, methodically.
“How’s the head?”
Her quick smile was dazzling. “Hurts like hell.”
“Still dizzy?”
She considered. “Sometimes. At least my appetite’s back.”
“Right. The stomach thing.” He accepted a second bar from her, though it probably wasn’t wise. They should save these for later, when they’d be even more exhausted than they were now. Although, at this point, he could feel the energy seeping from his body.
“Felt like crap. But, hey, I wouldn’t be here if I’d felt fine.”
“Why not?”
“I was supposed to fly my teammates to Anchorage this…yesterday morning? No. Two days ago. Wow. Anyway, I stayed behind ’cause I was sick.”
“Teammates?”
She met his eyes, calculating or maybe debating something internally. Apparently, she decided to share. “Ans and Von are two of the guys I work with. They’re friends, too. We were looking for you.” She scrunched her lips up into something between a smile and a grimace. Had to tear his eyes away so he could concentrate on eating. “Well, we thought we were looking for Campbell Turner. We’d received intel that you—he—was in this area. A private eye crashed here in the winter and—”
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