If I Ever

by SE Jakes

  Had LT been taken, along with Karen? Wouldn’t someone have contacted Dean?

  He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, waiting for LT to call. Maybe half an hour before going inside, mainly because the rain started unexpectedly. He heard Nico talking to Reggie about some kind of jammer close by and wandered into one of the empty rooms to sit and hold his phone.

  He heard footsteps and figured Reggie had come to collect him. “I still haven’t heard from LT.”

  “We can’t make calls,” Reggie told him.

  “Signal jammer,” Nico confirmed. “We really should get out of here.”

  Just then, Dean heard a truck in the distance. He also heard Nico and Reggie ready their weapons too. He tried to ignore the voice in the back of his head that told him things were really, really bad and instead, he lied to himself.

  It’s all going to be fine. It’s always fine. LT makes sure it’s fine.

  Maybe it’s time you stopped relying on LT to make things fine.

  He told himself to shut up and told Nico to prepare for whatever—and whoever—was coming this way.

  Prophet sat in the passenger’s side of the old Range Rover, with Tom in the back. Mal was the only one not playing hurt, so he did all the driving to Dean’s house . . . and the fact that Cillian had packed up and left while they’d been sleeping remained an unspoken worry, a new construction in light of Ahmet’s escape.

  The betrayal in Mal’s eyes had been painful for Prophet to see. But they all forged onward, for Dean.

  King and the others had been called immediately after discovering Cillian’s disappearance, and they chose to fly into Dean’s house, since driving would’ve taken them far too long. They’d landed just before Mal pulled into the house, and were waiting to greet them.

  “You look like hell,” Ren said warmly, touching Prophet’s shoulder like he was checking to make sure it really was him. An old gesture, one Prophet recognized and appreciated. Mal and King hugged but King merely did the light touch on the back to both Prophet and Tom.

  “Hear you boys had a bit of a rough time,” he said.

  Hook’s voice boomed. “I don’t care what else happens. This was a victory. So fuck the long faces. We go find Dean and then we go home. Deal?”

  Prophet smiled, because that was a deal he’d take.

  They learned quickly from the guards at Dean’s that Dean, Nico, and Reggie had all gone to the clinic . . . and that Nico had only gone because he couldn’t get through to Dean or Reggie.

  And still, Prophet couldn’t reach any of them. King and the others borrowed one of Dean’s trucks and followed behind Mal to the clinic, which was another hour’s drive.

  It seemed like years, and he barely let Mal stop the truck before he was getting out . . . and Nico was heading out of the clinic toward him, like he’d been expecting him . . .

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Nico told him.

  “I didn’t realize how badly you missed me,” Prophet started, but Nico cut him off with, “We’ve got a major problem, and you look like shit.” Then Nico looked over his shoulder toward the porch of the main building, where Dean sat, unmoving. He looked more troubled than angry. Defeated, even.

  “Thanks for caring about my well-being. I know something happened to LT,” Prophet started, trying to ignore the rising feeling of dread in his already aching body. Everything was so normal here at the bustling clinic . . . and yet, he couldn’t help but feel nothing really was. Kids were playing in the dust and he was discussing escaped terrorists.

  “What the hell happened to you?” Nico demanded as he glanced at Tom, who looked equally shitty, Prophet knew.

  “We ran into an old friend.”

  Nico’s brows rose and he looked between both men. “And?”

  “It’s taken care of.”

  “Finally,” Nico breathed. “One asshole down.”

  “LT,” Prophet prompted, because there was time for storytelling later. “He’s okay?”

  Nico shook his head. “We don’t know. I saw him late last night, when he came to pick up Karen. I was at the house when I heard that Ahmet escaped, and I tried calling here, but the signals were fucked.”

  “That’s why we came here,” Prophet explained. “LT left me a message last night—said he’d found the missing specialist—”

  “Karen,” Nico said, and Prophet frowned. “She came to Dean’s house, Proph. Said you sent her there—told her to go if there was ever any trouble.”

  Prophet shook his head. “I never told her that.”

  “Because you knew,” Nico started hesitantly, glancing back at Dean.

  “Knew what? Cut this cryptic shit, Nico—there’s not a lot of time if LT’s in trouble.” Prophet pushed past him and walked toward Dean, with Tom and Mal at his heels. The others stayed back with Nico, but they were all within listening distance. “Dean, what the hell’s going on?”

  “Wish I knew, Proph.” Dean took a deep breath and Prophet sat next to him, turning his body to face him.

  Dean didn’t reciprocate. “Did you know about Karen Sutter?”

  “That’s a pretty broad question, but simply put, yes, I knew Karen Sutter. I knew her as a specialist who needed hiding. So I hid her, and for a long time, she was fine. A couple of days ago, she ran, of her own accord—but I’m inclined to think she had some motivation.”

  Dean shook his head wordlessly.

  “Dean, man, you turning mute too? Because I need some fucking answers.”

  “You think I don’t!” Dean yelled. “What the fuck were you thinking, Prophet—keeping the woman who did this to me safe and never telling me? Letting me think she was dead.”

  “What?” The air left his lungs and hell, with the injuries, he hadn’t been pulling in much to begin with. He put a hand to his chest and in seconds, Mal was there, tapping his chest—his way of telling Prophet to fucking breathe, man, and then there was an oxygen mask over his face and he was ripping it off because it was too much, too claustrophobic.

  “Prophet—please—stop.” Dean’s voice. Dean’s hand on his face.

  “Back off, everyone,” Hook said. “Give them some space.”

  Everyone must’ve listened because when Prophet looked up, it was just Dean, still sitting, and Prophet was lying on the porch, facing the land—the cars—the men who’d come with him. “Dean, I didn’t—”

  “You didn’t know. You really didn’t know.” Dean’s voice had returned to normal, not that icy cold shit that scared the hell out of Prophet.

  “I thought the guy who hurt you was dead. Hell, I thought it was a he.” Prophet reached out to grab Dean’s hand. “LT said he killed that specialist.”

  “That’s what he told me too,” Dean started. “He never said anything about involving you in hiding her.”

  “He didn’t approach me to do it. Another guy from the CIA did.” Prophet wasn’t sure how much Dean knew—or wanted to hear—but he pressed on anyway. “Karen had a son. She made a deal—the agent would place her son in a safe place with a new family and I’d hide her. No one knew where she was—I was the only contact.”

  “But she was free to go anytime.”

  “I was told she turned herself in voluntarily because she was tired of running. Someone had tried to sell her to a terrorist—”

  “So why not kill her?”

  Prophet sighed. “You don’t think I’ve been asking myself that question for the past couple of days? But at the time, I didn’t know she’d hurt anyone. I don’t kill the specialists I can relocate safely—you know that. I only take them out if they’re in danger of being captured.”

  Dean ground his teeth together. “LT lied to me. To us. And he came in last night and he took Karen and he promised me she’d be safe.”

  “You thought about killing her.”

  “Of course I did. She nearly killed me. Took my sight . . . and then she saved my life.” Dean shook his head at the impossibility of the situation. “When she told me she thought I was trying
to sell her, I thought maybe she was bullshitting me. I think she finally realized it wasn’t me, but she didn’t offer up any other theories as to who it could be. And then LT came in and . . .”

  “And what?” Prophet pressed.

  “I can’t see, Proph—I can’t fucking see reactions, but I can feel them. They knew each other. Somehow. And they didn’t meet when she tried to kill me—I was rescued by someone else.”

  “And that’s when she ran.”

  “She and LT knew each other. And still, I let her go with him.” Dean blew out a harsh breath. “There has to be a good explanation as to why LT lied to me. To us. There has to be.”

  Prophet wanted to agree, and for the moment, he let himself. “LT left me a message—he got her settled safely.”

  “Right. And Ahmet just happened to escape the black site she built without her, right?” Dean’s voice was hoarse, grief and anger mixed.

  At this point, Mal and the others were there, listening in the background.

  “Maybe LT and Karen met when you were hurt?”

  “I was rescued by someone else. She saved me and then she ran. But hey, I guess anything could’ve happened right in front of me since I couldn’t fucking see.”

  “Prophet.” Tom was in front of him now, leaning in. “I don’t mean to interrupt . . . but something’s happening.”

  “What?” Prophet sat up and looked around . . . and then looked into his partner’s eyes. “Something bad’s already happened, T.”

  “Something worse is going to,” Tom told him. “I don’t know . . . it just feels . . . it’s bad. Like we need to get the fuck out of here fast, bad.”

  “Then we leave,” Prophet said.

  “We’ll go to my house. The one you and I went to, Proph,” Dean told him. “Fewer people know about that one.”

  “Does LT?” Prophet said.

  “Yes,” Dean said. “You think that’s a problem?”

  Prophet treaded lightly. “If he’s been compromised, it could be.”

  He glanced over at Tom, who drew a stuttered breath in and looked away for several long moments. Yeah, something was really fucking wrong.

  “Yeah, T, I know,” Prophet murmured so only Tom heard. When he hoisted himself up, Dean rose too. Suddenly, there was a ruckus to the left and all the men were pointing weapons . . . until they saw it was a group of women and children, using the land as a cut-through.

  Reggie called, “Weapons down,” and Prophet saw that King and Ren only partially obeyed that request—because in other parts of the world, women and children weren’t always safe. But Reggie went over to them and they were speaking to him, and pointing behind them and then other local women who worked at the clinic came out too.

  “What’s going on?” Dean called, and one of the female clinic workers ran over.

  “Rebels are coming through,” she said breathlessly. “Many of them. They evacuated their village. More of them are coming, they heard. They just want to cut through.”

  “How far out?” Dean asked.

  “They said a woman came in from town to warn them. There’s time to get away, but it’s not much. They are headed this way—to the clinic.”

  “Let them go,” Dean told her. “Tell them to go fast, and get as far from here as possible.”

  She complied, heading back toward the group and ushering them across the expanse and into the path on the west side of the clinic.

  “This isn’t a coincidence, is it?” Prophet asked quietly.

  “Never is,” was Dean’s answer.

  One minute, Tom was watching the women and children rushing through the clinic grounds, and the next, he was grabbing onto Prophet’s shoulder to keep from falling.

  The pain in his side had been getting worse all day but true to form, he’d ignored it, because there was far more important shit to be handled. But suddenly, upright was a major issue, and Prophet was lowering him to the ground, telling him to hang on and calling for Dean to find a doctor for Tom.

  “A doctor? Good thing we’re at a clinic.” A young woman stepped forward as she spoke, her words just sarcastic enough to calm Prophet’s panic as she knelt by Tom to check his vitals and Tom liked her immediately. “Tom, I’m Pei.” She was slim. Young. Dark haired and pretty, and proved her competence immediately as her hands flew over Tom like a pro, probing and pinpointing, “Spleen.” She pulled his shirt up to reveal a large bruise on his upper abdomen. “Were you in an accident recently?”

  “Something like that,” Tom muttered. “I was kicked. But the pain wasn’t this bad yesterday.”

  Still, Mal and the doctor had both warned him about his spleen. Now, Pei said, “Spleen injuries can sometimes take a while to show themselves. I’d like to get you inside. I can have the OR ready to go within the hour. I need to get you stabilized first. And I’m going to need some blood.”

  “OR?” Tom repeated. “I can’t—the clinic’s under attack. This has to wait.”

  “We need to get out of here before they cut off the roads,” Nico was telling Pei as well.

  “You need surgery,” Pei told Tom in no uncertain terms as Prophet listened, uncharacteristically quiet. “Putting this off means risking your life.”

  “Can it wait until we evac—even for a couple of hours?” Nico asked.

  “There’s no way,” she confirmed. “We’ll take him in now.”

  “Doc . . . the rebels . . .” Tom told her.

  She waved him away and looked between Prophet and Nico. “They’ll have to stop them. You just concentrate on going to sleep and let me take care of you.”

  “You take care of him, Doc, and we’ll take care of you,” Prophet promised, before he and Nico were helping to get Tom up and inside the clinic, onto a bed. Pei got him some sedatives through an IV and he was feeling better pretty quickly, but not enough to deal with the underlying anxiety that there was a disaster heading their way, and he was the one holding them in place. “Proph—you need to go—”

  Prophet shook his head. “Hey, you need to deal with your spleen. I’ll deal with the rebels.”

  “Sounds like a fair trade,” Tom murmured sarcastically.

  “Those drugs are working, no?”

  “No,” Tom agreed, then frowned. He reached up to touch Prophet’s cheek. “If you die, I’ll kill you.”

  “You drive a hard bargain, T. Love you too. Give good spleen, all right?”

  “You’re just humoring me. But it’ll be okay. Close call . . . but okay.” Tom stared at him. “Proph. I didn’t want to say it—but don’t trust LT. Not completely. I don’t care what he says.”

  Prophet frowned. “Tom, you’re drugged—”

  “Voodoo, remember?” Tom closed his eyes, knowing that Prophet would much rather believe it was Rylan or maybe even Cillian. “Just fucking promise me you’ll tread carefully. I want to be wrong on this.”

  “Okay, I promise.” Prophet grabbed his hand and squeezed hard. “You just concentrate on coming back to me as soon as possible. I fucking need you.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Tom murmured, and he heard Prophet laughing as he drifted off.

  Prophet waited until Tom was put under before he let Pei kick him out of the small OR.

  “I’ve got this,” she told him firmly.

  And even though Prophet knew surgery was the right thing to do, all the questions he didn’t want to ask in front of Tom came tumbling out. “He’s got a concussion. Isn’t that more dangerous?”

  “It’s not ideal, but if I let the spleen bleed more . . . he could lose the whole thing. And then we’re talking a major surgery. He’s in good health otherwise.”

  “What if you can’t repair it?”

  “Let’s deal with that when we come to it. I know soldiers—”

  “I’m a sailor,” he said, managing to sound offended.

  “Sorry. I know military men in general like to plan . . . but I also know you’re taught to take things as they come and improvise when necessary. Let me take this one step at a
time.”

  “Doc . . .” He paused. “I love him. I can’t lose him.”

  She gave a small smile and nodded. “You work your magic out there and I’ll work mine in here. Deal?”

  “I don’t want you to worry about anything that’s going on out here. We’ve got it covered.”

  “Ditto. I trust you. Now, you need to trust me.”

  Prophet nodded. She closed the door and he touched it with his palm and said a small prayer to whoever was listening because fuck, John’s reach was goddamned long and treacherous. And what Tom said about LT? Prophet didn’t want to believe it. Hoped that LT or Rylan or both had been compromised by actions beyond their control. They always knew John and Agent Paul weren’t working alone. Both LT and Rylan—and even Cillian—had the right kind of resources and clout to make things happen.

  It also made them targets.

  Prophet grabbed the nearest garbage pail and threw up. Nico found him, on his knees, and Prophet waited for the smart-ass comments.

  Instead, Nico wiped his face with a cool cloth and handed him a bottle of water and an antinausea pill. “This’ll help,” he said quietly. And he stayed there until Prophet felt well enough to stand up. “Concussion?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve been through hell since I last saw you.”

  Prophet nodded. “I think you should take everyone you can and get the hell out of here. I’ll stay with the doc and Tom. If you bomb so they can’t get to us . . .”

  “You can ask, but I’m saying no. I have no doubt your team will tell you the same thing. Sentiment’s appreciated, but this is my fight too. I let LT walk off with that woman . . . and something wasn’t right.” Nico looked angry now at the memory.

  “LT might’ve lied to Dean about Karen being dead in order to protect him. And no matter what, second-guessing yourself’s not going to help. We don’t know anything yet, so let’s concentrate on what we’ve got to do to stay alive.”

  That worked, because that’s the way both of them—and the men who waited outside the clinic’s doors—were built, bred, and trained.