Uncharted

by Adriana Anders

  Adventures. Funny way to think about the lifetime he and Leo had spent running for their lives.

  For five hours, they searched for Bo, taking breaks only so Elias could catch his breath—he’d broken a couple ribs after all, gotten shot, and had his head bashed in—and drink water.

  But his legs still worked and his feet, though a mess, could handle the terrain now that he’d managed to borrow boots in his size from Jameson.

  Shoulders bowed, back hurting, he trudged back into Schink’s Station, Von at his side, straight into a rebuilding scene like he’d never imagined.

  Leo’s team was efficient, that was for sure. As they neared the lodge, a couple guys stopped cutting and hauling and hammering long enough to nod hello. Their eyes skipped quickly to Von and back before returning to work. Nobody mentioned the missing dog, which he appreciated. He’d find Bo. He wouldn’t give up.

  He focused on the work the people had done in the past few hours. Amazingly, they’d almost finished repairing the lodge’s structure. All that was missing was the massive window, which they’d had to special order from Anchorage.

  On the lodge’s front porch, Von stalked to a cooler and grabbed a couple beers, throwing Elias one.

  Just the sound of the tab popping did things to his insides. The smell reached his nose and his mouth watered. His first slug drained half the can. When he looked up, Von’s cynical nonsmile cut into his deeply scarred face. For a second, Elias wondered if the man could smile at all with those injuries.

  Von lifted his brows and grabbed a couple more beers, which he brought to a picnic table before sitting down.

  “Doing okay?”

  Elias had a feeling he wasn’t talking about his physical injuries.

  “Fine.”

  “You sure? You seem…” He tightened his lips. “Not fine.”

  Oh, good. Another guy who matched him in eloquence.

  He opened his mouth to reply and then paused, let the air puff from his mouth, shut his eyes, listened to the sounds, took in the smell of fresh-cut wood, the bitter taste of beer on his tongue.

  Slowly, he shook his head. “No, man. I’m…lost.” His eyes opened and met Von’s black ones. “What if she doesn’t come out of it?”

  “She will.”

  The other man’s confidence did nothing to boost his own.

  “What if she…” He swallowed and let the thing he’d been denying swim to the top. “What we went through?” He tried to smile, but it was pointless. “It was just five days, man. Five days. She might not even remember me when she gets up.” He thumped his fist to chest. “People don’t just…” Find their soul mate in five days. He couldn’t say it out loud. This guy wouldn’t get it. And, frankly, just thinking the words made him feel ridiculous.

  “People?” Von took a swig and squinted out at the lake, the mountains, birds soaring above as if everything were perfectly normal. “Not sure you and Leo count as regular old…people.” He shrugged. “Anything can happen if it’s meant to be.”

  That sentiment shocked him, especially coming from a man who looked like emotion wasn’t in his wheelhouse at all.

  “I, uh, could use your help.” Von cleared his throat, shifted, and leaned in. “Need you to tell me more about the virus. Exactly where it is. How we can get it.”

  Elias nodded, took a breath, and let it out, eyes hard on Von’s. The man’s gaze didn’t waver.

  “Turner destroyed every sample but one. That one, he hid in an old locked storage unit.” Saying the words was liberating and guilt inducing. “Labeled XR-54. It’s supposed to be cold viruses or something. Archived research and stuff. But that tube, the one he hid, is labeled as a variola sample.” He grimaced. “Hidden way back in a freezer.”

  “That’s smallpox.”

  “Yeah. Chronos isn’t supposed to have smallpox at their facility. It’s only housed in two places in the world. But there’ve been cases of it showing up randomly in labs. He said if they found this one, they’d treat it as a highly infectious pathogen.” Elias swallowed and forced the words out, which was hard after keeping them in for so long. “He refused to destroy it. Said it held too much potential—on the cancer front. Had to keep one sample. He planned to go back one day and…”

  Von watched him closely, intensely, as if memorizing every word.

  “That’s where I came in. He passed me the baton.” He shut his eyes, remembering. “Passed it to others, too, but they’re all dead. Every last one of them.”

  “You survived.”

  Elias opened his eyes and stared out, not seeing the water or the mountains or the lodge in the foreground. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

  Someone shouted and both he and Von turned. “There.” Von lifted his chin to where Pam stood on the porch of Leo’s cabin, waving her arms, with a huge grin. “Looks like Leo’s awake.”

  ***

  Again Leo tried to get out of bed, and again Pam stopped her with a firm hand and a firmer smile.

  “Just wait,” the woman said. “He’s coming.”

  A second later, the door flew open and a massive, handsome, bare-faced white man blew in. She looked past him for Elias.

  When he didn’t show up, she shot the doc an accusatory glare. “What kind of—”

  “Leo.”

  She turned and stared. He was a massive monster of a man, the kind she’d definitely have looked at twice, with his sharply cut jaw—those squared-off indents bracketing his mouth—and freckles scattered over his nose.

  She opened her mouth to ask him to clear the doorway for Elias when he said her name again and her heart stopped beating.

  “Elias?” she croaked.

  Her eyes took in the rest of him—a nose that looked carved from bedrock, hair with those sun-tinted curls that salons could never properly emulate. There was gray in there, too. Just enough to match those two sunburst sprays of creases around evergreen eyes.

  There was love in those eyes right now. Tenderness. So much tenderness that she almost lost her shit right there and started crying.

  “Yeah, Leo.” He was at her side, reaching for her hands and then backing up, as if afraid he’d hurt her.

  “You’re fine,” Pam said, which didn’t make sense until Leo realized there were tubes hanging out of one of her arms. And her nose.

  “Leo.” He knelt by the bed, brought her hand to his mouth, and warmed it with his breath. “Leo.”

  It was apparently all he could say, which was fine, because every time was a new iteration, full of emotion, full of love.

  “Yeah.” She turned her hand, cupped his naked chin, caressed his beautiful bare skin, and nudged him up. “Hi.”

  “You weren’t waking up and…I thought…” He dropped his face into his hands, shoulders heaving. When he lifted it up again, there were honest-to-God tear tracks on his cheeks. “I can’t lose you.”

  “You won’t lose me, Elias.” Full of tenderness for this man, she leaned in. “And I can’t lose you, either. I love you.” She breathed in the wood and smoke of his hair. “I wouldn’t trade those days with you for anything in the world.”

  He huffed out a disbelieving sound. “Right.”

  “I mean it.”

  “Good times, right?” he said, one brow up, a grin curving his ridiculously beautiful lips, a sparkle in those deep green eyes.

  “The best.” A laugh burst from her, quickly turning into a pained groan. “Crap, my head.”

  “Ah hell, sweetheart. I’m sorry.”

  “No. No, it feels good to laugh.” She smiled and lost her breath when she met his gaze and got caught up in it. “It was worth it.”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “It was. Every second. I’d live through those five days again for you, Leo. Hell, I’d live it on a loop for the rest of my life if it was the only way I could be with you.”

  Emotion swel
led up, filling her, warming her. “Same.” She squeezed his hand and nodded. “Good thing we don’t have to.”

  ***

  “Where’s Bo?” Leo asked over breakfast the next morning.

  Elias met her eyes and looked away, feeling crushed yet again at the loss. “Haven’t seen her.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since I fell in the river.”

  She threw down her napkin, shoved her tray out of the way, and moved to get out of bed.

  “Leo! You’ve had a concussion, you can’t—”

  “Can’t?” She stopped him midsentence, her eyes huge and direct in that way she had. It pummeled him right in the solar plexus. “I can, Elias. You know that.”

  He shook his head and felt the beginnings of a smile on his lips. “You can. I just want you better.”

  “I’m better.” She walked to her closet and pulled it open. “Let’s go.” Reaching in, she grabbed some clothes and started throwing them on.

  He wasn’t exactly sure how to handle her right now. On the one hand, she needed to get back in bed. On the other, this was Leo. The woman he loved. And he loved her because she wouldn’t give up. Ever.

  “Listen.” He stood and walked over to where she was struggling into a pair of jeans, clearly not in any shape to go tromping through the woods. “Von’s helping me. We’re heading out there every day, looking for her.”

  “Well, I want to go.”

  He opened his mouth to tell her that she needed to stay in bed and then shut it. After a second, he asked, “I’m not gonna change your mind, am I?”

  “No.”

  He nodded, watching as she started to throw more shit into a bag. “What are you doing now?”

  “Packing.”

  “For what?”

  “In case!” She backed up and looked around the room, wide-eyed. “Who are you and what have you done with Elias?”

  “What are you talk—”

  “The man I know and grew to love in an absurdly short time would never leave home unprepared.” She stepped toward him, dropped the bag, and put a hand on his chest. “It’s one of the things that attracted me to him.”

  “Preparedness?”

  “Yeah. And competence.” She smiled. “It’s kinda my thing.”

  “Competence.” He couldn’t keep a disbelieving note from his voice.

  Biting her lip, she nodded, and with a rush it occurred to him that this was Leo flirting under pretty normal circumstances. No running for their lives, no hanging from cliffs, no getting naked for body warmth. This, right here, was Leo being Leo. And he liked her.

  A lot.

  “Okay,” he said, letting his own smile take over his face. The woman had managed to get his mind off his lost dog for a minute—while talking about his lost dog. She was a freaking miracle. “Tell me more.”

  “I have a better idea.” She folded her arms over her chest and tilted her head, and he could feel the challenge coming off her. He couldn’t wait to hear what she’d say next. “Take me out in the woods, Elias. We’ll find your dog and then…” She leaned in and whispered in his ear. “I’ll show you how much I love your competence.”

  ***

  After two days of searching for Bo, Leo’s head wasn’t so bad and her body wasn’t so rough, but her desire for Elias was off the charts. She’d never seen a man do things with such fluid ease.

  They kept their searches close to home—his requirement—but they walked for hours—hers. She could tell he mostly avoided ridges and more dangerous areas, but at one point, they arrived at a stream and he wouldn’t let her cross it.

  “No jumping,” he insisted. “Pam’s rule.”

  She turned and gave him a look.

  “You jump that, Leo, and I’m going home.”

  “Home?”

  “To your cabin.”

  “Fine.” She smiled. “We need a bridge.”

  “Fine.” He smiled. And went and built her one.

  The pile of sticks and branches looked wonky at first, but within fifteen minutes, he’d made something solid and wide enough to cross without any risk of falling in.

  She fell a bit more in love with him right there. “That’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Yeah?” He shook his head with a smile. “Taking you to Pam to get your head checked again.”

  Holding hands, they started up the slope on the other side at more of a meander than the speed-hiking they’d done out in the wild, calling for Bo every minute or so. They’d made it almost to the top when Leo heard something.

  “What’s that?”

  Elias shook his head, sniffing for bears or any other creatures that could turn this into an unhappy adventure.

  “There. That’s a dog. That’s barking.” She was sure of it. She turned, faced west, so excited she stomped off in that direction.

  And then came to a dead stop.

  There was Bo, running towards them, a white streak in the late-afternoon light. Elias squatted just as the dog jumped into his arms and they both went rolling on the ground.

  But Leo didn’t take part in the festivities. She stared, instead, at the silhouette on the next ridge over. It was the time of day when the snow-covered ridges shone with sunlight, while the shadows moved up from the ground like ink seeping through paper. The figure stood where the two met—neither shadow nor light. She might have thought him a tree if he didn’t lift his hand in a long, deliberate wave before turning away.

  “Elias,” Leo said, her low voice somehow cutting through the dog’s happy whines.

  He got up without hesitation and came to stand beside her. “That’s him.” They watched the figure get smaller. “Leaving.”

  She nodded and drew a shaky breath, then reached for Elias’s hand, laughing when Bo nudged her instead with her wet nose. “Yeah, baby, we’re here. You’re back. We found each other.” She hugged the dog and could have sworn the animal hugged her back. “We brought your stinky food. Yeah. Who wants some stinky food?”

  When she rose, Elias looked at her, then squinted back out at the setting sun. “Got a feeling we’ll be seeing him again.”

  “Great.” Her eyes followed his progress as the last bit of silhouette melted into the horizon. “A wild card.”

  “I thought I was your wild card,” he said, low and rough.

  “You’re my wild man.” She leaned in, put one hand on his chest, the other on Bo’s head, and tilted her head back for a kiss. “My highly competent wilderness man.”

  “I’ll take it.” He kissed her—not a light, happy thing, but a claiming, out here in his domain. When he drew back, she was light-headed and hot and ready for frankly anything. And what a miracle it was that she had this man by her side.

  Epilogue

  “What are you not telling me?” She sat in an armchair by the lodge’s big fireplace with her guys and a few of the people from Schink’s Station in a circle around her.

  Eric and Ford exchanged looks. Von remained expressionless. When she craned her neck to look at Elias, at least he met her eye.

  “Come on.” Her eyes darted around. “What the hell?”

  “First.” Eric sat up straight. “We’re working on next steps.”

  “Okay.”

  “We can’t keep the prisoners here indefinitely.”

  “Sure we can,” muttered Amka, earning a couple of smirks, a laugh, and one head shake from the rest of the room. Oh, Leo had heard about the old lady’s exploits. Hell, if there was one thing she’d learned from this entire business, it was not to underestimate the elderly. In fact—she grinned at the woman with deep appreciation—quite the opposite. She knew exactly who she wanted to be when she grew up.

  “What are your thoughts?” Leo asked.

  “We’ve got—” Eric’s eyes shifted to Elias, then back to her. “W
e want to hear yours first.”

  Her brows rose as she watched the byplay. Well, this was fun.

  “Okay.” She started to nod and stopped when she remembered how much that hurt. “My thoughts: enough secrets. I want to blow this thing wide-open.” Elias’s hand tightened on hers. “I know it’s been done before, but there are more of us now. Hell, we’ve got a whole town. We call the media, call every freaking government agency. Hand the prisoners over in the most public way possible. So they can’t just…disappear like everyone else. At worst, we’re considered oddballs. This is viewed as some conspiracy theory. At best, we break it wide-open and people finally get the truth.”

  Eric nodded, clearly in agreement or at least satisfied with that response.

  “First, though, we get the virus out.”

  “Right,” said Eric. “It’s hidden at Chronos headquarters.”

  “Do we need to get it out, though?” Jameson asked. “Can’t we report that too?”

  When Elias leaned in and spoke in his deep, slow way, everyone stopped to listen. “I could see them blowing the place up. Self-destructing to get rid of the evidence. Or taking it out first. We need someone there. In place.”

  “That’s absurd.” Daisy stood, shaking her head. “Is the CEO really that unbalanced? Does she have that much power?”

  “That kind of order might not come from her,” said Elias.

  “This thing is huge,” Leo agreed.

  “And I don’t care how much media you talk to, they’d kill us all,” Elias responded.

  Ford Cooper nodded in agreement. “They didn’t hesitate to blow up an entire Antarctic research station. They’d make this look like an accident. Whole town destroyed by a gas leak.”

  “Don’t got gas here,” said Amka.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Ford said. “They’ll invent a goddamn pipeline.”

  “He’s right.” Elias sighed. “I don’t know of every death, but there have been dozens at least. Law enforcement, the press…” He cleared his throat. “My family.”

  Leo squeezed his hand, showing him the fierceness of her love. “We’ll do this right.”

  “Good.” Ford exchanged a satisfied look with Angel.