Leveling the Field

by Elise Faber

The notion that things were about to go FUBAR.

  That was when I heard the rumbling.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Jesse

  I tore my eyes away from Leo’s and squinted at the tree line, trying to see what the source of the rumbling was.

  But it was nearing dark, dusk having settled over the mountains, and it was hard to discern more than shadows.

  The reverberating grew louder.

  My stomach clenched . . .

  Just as a huge metal monstrosity burst out from the trees. It resembled a Humvee, but smaller, like an armored ATV, able to navigate the forest floor . . . and it drove straight toward us.

  Laila retreated as it barreled into the wall, knocking several of the logs out of place and sending them tumbling toward the agent. Ryker grabbed her by the waist, yanked her behind a portion of the chimney as the ATV retreated then accelerated forward.

  “Fall back,” she ordered, as it plowed into the wall a second time, sending it tumbling around them, the logs colliding with the ground in an almost deafening fashion.

  Olive and Linc peeled off as we covered them.

  Ava and Dan followed.

  Then finally, Ryker and Laila.

  “Go!” I told Leo, knowing I had the better cover, knowing that it went against his every instinct to leave me, but he didn’t protest, just took off for the tree line while I peppered the ATV with bullets to buy him time and space.

  “We’ve got you, Jess,” Hannah said. “Move, now.”

  No hesitation.

  Just keeping my head down and sprinting for the cover of the trees.

  Bullets pinged behind me as I zigzagged, thunking into the trunks, causing dirt and rocks to explode up around my feet.

  And then I was next to Leo, back in the cover.

  “How the fuck do they keep finding us?” Laila snapped, her back to a tree, reloading her gun and turning back to the cabin, now crumbled into a heap of timber and stone.

  “I don’t know,” Hannah said, doing the same. “But it’s fucking pissing me off.”

  Ava was on her belly, her rifle pointed across the clearing, each shot careful and measured. “Something’s happening.”

  Yes, it was.

  The ATV slid to a stop, its lights shining toward us, blinding me—and I assumed the rest of us—temporarily. I squinted, watched as its passenger door opened, and . . .

  Daniel stepped out.

  Laila cursed.

  Ava fired a shot, but Daniel had apparently been anticipating that. It ricocheted off a clear barrier I hadn’t been able to see beforehand.

  “Tsk. Tsk, Ava,” he said. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten you. Come out, and let’s see how good your aim is.” He spread his arms. “I’ll even give you a clear shot.”

  Two pops, one after another in rapid succession.

  A ping-ping as they collided with the barrier just over his heart, on his head.

  “What the hell is that?” Olive said.

  “It’s bulletproof,” Ava muttered, squeezing off another shot, this one bouncing off the barrier, directly over Daniel’s crotch. “That’s the only thing I can tell you.”

  Daniel smirked. “Such a temper.” He lifted his voice. “Where’s my good friend, Laila? I know she’s got to be around, she never lets the little killer, Ava, have too much leash.”

  “How long until the support arrives?” Laila asked, instead of engaging.

  Hannah paused, glanced at her watch. “They should be approaching the property and radioing in five—”

  An explosion rent the air.

  My gaze immediately went to the clearing, but I knew instantly that the blast had come from some distance away.

  Hannah’s voice took on an edge of panic. “Red team, pull back immediate—”

  Boom.

  My heart sank. This one was closer and from the south.

  “Red team, report in,” she said and waited, no answer on our earpieces. “Blue team. Report.”

  The silence was sickening.

  “They won’t be reporting on anything,” Daniel called. “Not unless there’s an encrypted signal straight from hell.

  Fury danced a fiery path down my spine.

  Daniel stood in the clearing, glowing in the headlights of the ATV, a smirk on his face that told me he was either seriously deranged or he just had no moral compass. Hannah had ignored him, was still trying to make contact with our backup, even though we all knew what had happened, what the fucker who’d betrayed KTS had done to them.

  “Don’t you know by now, sweet, delicate Hannah, that I can hear you?” He tapped his ear.

  “That’s impossible,” Ava murmured, and I silently agreed.

  The signals we used to communicate were supposed to be technology that couldn’t be picked up by surrounding radios, not like normal radio broadcasts or cell phone calls. They were transmitted via biometrics and satellites only KTS had access to, encrypted on both ends without any recorded backups that could later be hacked and listened to. In fact, we supposedly had the most secure communication system on the planet, newly developed with fresh safeguards, since we’d had the issue with Jack slicing our previous one to ribbons.

  And yet, Daniel was apparently listening in. Had been listening in, if he knew where our backup had been approaching from.

  Listening in as though we hadn’t completely dismantled and reworked our communications system.

  But how?

  He tugged out an earpiece, and even from the distance between us, I knew it was one of ours.

  Fucking hell. Because seriously, how? Had he closed the weapons deal while I was recovering and gotten his hands on the tech? If so, who amongst us was working with him? Who was continuing to betray us, over and over again? And who was betraying us while remaining consistently under the radar?

  Questions I’d had over and over the last months.

  Questions I’d fucking worked my ass off to discover the answer to.

  Questions that I hadn’t answered, and because of that, we were in this fucking situation.

  “This has saved me a lot of trouble.” Daniel grinned, slipped the earpiece back in. “And made me richer than a fucking king.” His lips curved further. “No, it’s made me a king.” Laughter filled the air.

  Laughter that had me reaching for a blade at my hip and launching it forward.

  It glowed silver as it spun through the air approaching Daniel, and—

  I held my breath.

  It bounced off the barrier, landing on the ground by his feet.

  “This isn’t the movies, Jesse baby,” he said, stepping forward and picking it up, twirling it over his fingers. “Nice blade, though.” He slid it into his belt. “I think I’ll keep it as a souvenir.”

  I wanted to launch myself across the clearing to see if his shield would be able to stop me up close, but we were in a dangerous place here, and we needed to focus, to figure out an exit strategy.

  “We need to move,” Laila said.

  Ryker nodded, and I just barely heard him say, “We should head back to the house, at least we’d have a secure location to mount a defense until we can get someone in here for extraction.”

  Laila nodded. “You lead, I’ll bring up the rear.”

  Ryker brushed his knuckles over her cheek. “I love you,” he said, making my heart squeeze. He’d never been a tender man, at least not until I’d seen him with Laila, and to see the big lug be sweet, even in a moment like this, with the world going to hell all around us, filled me with a determination to get us all out of the other side of this.

  They’d found someone worth living for—Laila and Ryker, Dan and Ava, Linc and Olive—and I wasn’t going to accept a world where they didn’t have each other. I wasn’t going to accept a world without Leo or Hannah or Lily.

  I didn’t give a fuck who Daniel was, what he was a king of.

  We needed to survive this night.

  Leo squeezed my arm. “Let’s go.”

  Hannah was behind us, Li
ly and Linc and Olive in front with Ryker.

  “Wait,” I said, reaching into my duty belt, setting a timer on the small explosive that would create noise and smoke and hopefully enough distraction for us all to get back to the house, even with Hannah and Laila bringing up the rear.

  I handed it to Hannah. “Push that, roll it into the clearing, and haul ass,” I told her. “You’ll have fifteen seconds to get some distance.”

  She smiled, nodded. “You’re the shit, you know that?”

  “I’m coming to recognize that,” I said lightly. “Be careful and run fast.”

  “On it.” A beat. “Go.”

  Leo and I took off, running behind the others, and though my attention was on our surroundings and on any threat they might present, in my head, I was counting down from fifteen.

  Nine. Eight. Seven.

  Our feet pounded. We weren’t trying to be quiet. We were going for speed and distance.

  Six. Five. Four.

  I saw the lights of the house come into view, and we picked up our pace.

  Three. Two.

  “Come on, Hannah,” I breathed.

  One.

  The world exploded into a cacophony of noise just as we reached the bottom step of the front porch, and I risked a glance back, seeing the smoke rising from a half mile away, lights flashing.

  “This way,” Ryker said, tugging me inside, his eyes on the trees. “Secure the space.”

  I joined the others in blocking the doors with as large of furniture as we could move, closing the blinds and pulling the curtains. I’d just secured an exit that led down to the basement when I heard feet pounding on the porch and turned to see Laila and Hannah burst through the front door, Ryker on their heels.

  Their chests heaved, but they were in one piece.

  Linc and Leo shoved an armoire and blocked the entrance. Ryker, Ava, and I ran around the house, flicking off lights.

  “You two, okay?” Olive asked, as we all moved back toward each other.

  They nodded, and I watched Hannah’s lips press flat. “I swear that was too easy,” she said, her gaze scanning the space. “It was almost as though they let us go.”

  Dan—Ava’s Dan—was checking the phone but shook his head when Laila asked if they had a signal. “No, it’s either been cut, or the service is out.”

  “Anyone have any bars?” Hannah asked.

  I pulled my phone out, saw that I didn’t have any signal there, either, listened as everyone else said they were in the same boat. “What the fuck?” I whispered. We had a lock on our own system of satellites. We should have a signal. Always. That we didn’t was . . .

  Fuck.

  How were we going to get out of here?

  I saw the lights before anyone else did, flashing through the curtains, illuminating the interior of the house for one brief flicker.

  “Down!” I said.

  We all moved, taking cover in case bullets started flying, but none came. At least, not for the moment.

  “Three cars,” Ava said, her rifle positioned in a tiny corner of exposed glass. Rumbling that grew louder. “And that fucking ATV.”

  I’d sunk down behind the couch, my eyes catching on something that was beneath the frame of it—

  Something flashing.

  “Why did you guys leave the house in the first place?” I asked quietly.

  A beat then Laila asked, “What?”

  “Why did you meet us at the cabin instead of here?” I clarified. “Why not stay here, where it’s more secure?”

  “We never made it in,” Laila said. “We were met with too much fire and couldn’t hold our position. We tried to make it around back to find some cover, but we were cut off and didn’t even make it halfway there before we were forced to retreat.”

  To the cabin.

  I pulled out my knife. “And then they allowed us to come back here,” I murmured.

  “What are you thinking, Jess?” Leo asked.

  I turned, began sawing at the back of couch, yanking the fabric down as I moved my blade.

  “They prevented you guys from getting in here, and then they just let us leave a position where they had us at a disadvantage to come set up something more secure here?” I shook my head, kept sawing at the back of the cushion. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “No,” Hannah said, “it doesn’t.”

  The final bit of fabric gave way, and I hissed out a breath. “And now, I know why.”

  Leo leaned over, saw what I’d revealed hidden inside the couch, and cursed.

  “What?” Hannah asked.

  I opened my mouth to explain . . . but that was the moment the bullets began flying.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Leo

  Glass shattered.

  Bullets sank into walls and furniture.

  And I was behind the couch with Jess watching the numbers count down on a bomb that was big enough for me to understand that unless she defused this bomb, we were completely and utterly fucked.

  “What do you need?” I asked.

  Her eyes met mine for a flash, then she turned back to the bomb, pulling out a screwdriver and undoing the bolts that kept the timer in place. “You need to get everyone out.”

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  Tears in her blue eyes. Terror on her face. “There’s not enough time. You have to get them—”

  I gripped her jaw. “Shut up and tell me what you need to diffuse this thing.”

  “Go,” she whispered, a tear sliding down her cheek. “Please, just go.”

  “None of us are leaving,” I snapped, my tone probably too harsh, but knowing that Jess needed to focus, that with a bomb this size, we wouldn’t get far enough to be out of the bomb’s radius, even if we left right now. “So, get that fucking thought out of your mind and tell me what you need.”

  Her eyes closed for a moment.

  Then they flashed back open, her hand dashing across her cheek, wiping that tear away. “Light and quiet,” she snapped back.

  I grabbed my flashlight, shined it where she was working. “I can help you with one but not the other.”

  A huff.

  A roll of her neck, her gaze focusing on the bomb.

  “What is it?” Hannah called.

  Jesse didn’t answer her, probably couldn’t bear to. Instead, she was running her fingers lightly over the wires—all black—her lips moving as she silently formed words. I didn’t know what she was saying, I couldn’t make the bullets stop flying, but I did know that I could at least help her by answering Hannah’s question.

  I caught our team leader’s eye, used hand signals to indicate what Jess had found.

  Her face didn’t change except for her lips going flat, and then she turned to Ava, passed on the information, who then did the same, and in less than a dozen seconds, both teams knew.

  Which was, I knew, the amount of time we had left on the timer.

  Twelve. Ten.

  No time to even get out, never mind the blast radius. We wouldn’t even have a chance to make it to the windows or doors.

  Nine. Eight. Seven.

  Jesse pulled out another knife, still running her fingers over the wires.

  Six. Five. Four.

  She grabbed one wire, placed the knife beneath it, started to tug upward.

  Three. Two.

  She pulled the knife out, slid it to the side, put it beneath a different wire, and . . .

  I closed my eyes, waited for the world to explode. Instead, bullets kept on flying, glass continued to shatter. I should have trained my gun back outside the house, but all I could do was turn to Jess, wrap my arms around her, and haul her against my chest.

  “I love you.”

  Her mouth fell open.

  And even though we were basically fucked, even though I didn’t see how we’d possibly get out of this, I kissed her.

  Because I could lose her in a second.

  From a bullet, a wrong wire, a slippery road, a mistimed fight.

>   I could blink and not have her any longer.

  So, I was going to grab on to her, on to any part of her that I could get, and I wasn’t ever letting go—even if I only had her for the next few minutes.

  I released her mouth, my chest heaving, her breaths rapid gusts coating my lips with damp heat. She smelled of mint and Jesse, and I almost kissed her again. “I love you,” I told her again.

  Wide eyes. “Did you just say that?” she breathed.

  I smiled, somehow despite the circumstances, I felt my lips curve. “Twice,” I whispered, cupping her cheek.

  “Leo,” she whispered back. “I—”

  Linc dropped a magazine to the floor, making us both jump and refocus on the circumstances around us. “I’m almost out.”

  Lily’s voice was grave. “Me, too.”

  Laila and Ryker exchanged a look that I didn’t miss, one that told me they were in no better a position, even as Ava continued firing, switching windows, and conserving her ammo. Hannah had propped herself against a banquet, wasn’t firing, which told me enough about the state of her supplies.

  “Here,” Jess said, handing me three magazines.

  I slid them to Hannah, to Laila, and Ryker. Pulled one out of my pocket to toss to Dan, who was mirroring Ava’s movements through the house, covering her as she shifted positions, two more to give to Olive, where she and Linc were holed up in the kitchen. They all reloaded, but we were on dredges, and because Ava’s rifle was a different caliber, nothing Jesse or I had could help her reload.

  “Should one of us try to get out, gain some distance in order to make a call?” Olive asked.

  Hannah considered that then shook her head. “We don’t know the enemy’s numbers, and we’re too far from civilization to make any difference.”

  “We can’t just sit here and wait to die,” Laila growled. “We’ve got to do something.”

  “You have a fucking cell tower handy?” Hannah asked, voice sharp.

  Laila released a sharp breath through her nose. “Dan,” she snapped, “start looking around for some supplies, anything we can use for weapons, for a distraction. If one of us is getting out of here, we’re all going to get the fuck out of here.”

  Hannah’s tone was just as severe. “Olive, help him. Lily—”