Mortal Brother

by Teyla Branton

  “I’ll get you some curequick. Just let me check all these guys first before anyone else decides to use you for target practice.” Or me.

  “Good idea.”

  I covered her with a blanket before going around the tent to examine each bandit. Marisa began cutting one of the blankets with a knife so I could tie them all up. No way was I leaving any free. Except Javier, who wasn’t going anywhere ever again. Occasionally, I caught Marisa’s gaze drifting in his direction. Every time, her relief was clear, and I wondered again what had been between them.

  “I took care of the man who relieved the first lookout,” I said, “but don’t forget we still have one more out there. Did you see him when they captured you?” It bothered me that he hadn’t yet appeared. If he was hidden in the trees with a rifle, getting out of here alive would be difficult.

  “I saw him. He won’t be a problem.” Marisa’s face held no expression as she spoke, but her eyes seemed haunted. I didn’t ask her what happened. I hadn’t heard any shots, but she likely had a few more tricks in her bag. I know I did. Renegades valued diversity.

  I found my weapons and put my nine mil, the backup pistol, the grenade, and two knives back in their places, along with the extra tranque darts. “I’ll be back in just a few minutes with your meds,” I said to Tenika. With the last bandit out of the picture, I’d take the long way around the tent instead of wasting time cutting through.

  “Uh, Chris,” Marisa said.

  I looked over to see that the other bandit woman, the younger one, had appeared in the tent doorway. She held a gun pointed in my direction.

  My stomach tensed. I’d made another grave mistake in forgetting her, in discounting her because of her youth and pregnancy. She spoke now, her eyes wild. Her Spanish was slower than everyone else’s, but I still didn’t understand it.

  “She says to drop your gun,” Marisa told me.

  The woman looked frightened but determined. The bulge of her child stood out sharply against the thinness of her small frame. I remembered Lorrie like that, a mixture of softness and angles, and so vulnerable. I didn’t want to hurt this woman, but as long as she held that gun, we were all in danger. I wondered if Marisa could explain to her that we just wanted to leave and take the Emporium captives with us. But that wasn’t really true. I wanted to be sure the bandits wouldn’t bother anyone again. Short of killing them, my only choice was to turn them over to authorities.

  The woman waved the gun, her volume growing now. I stepped closer, and her gun hand shook.

  I was contemplating more diving and rolling, and somehow sweeping her feet out from under her—all without damaging her baby—when Tenika, still lying on the floor under her blankets, spoke in Spanish. Her voice held command, and almost instantly, the woman’s expression relaxed. She lowered her gun and offered it to me. Closing the space between us, I snatched the weapon. Her face showed confusion now, as though she didn’t understand how I’d gotten the gun.

  Tenika kept talking. The woman’s confusion vanished, tears filling her eyes as she nodded vigorously. A sob erupted. She curled in on herself, shaking, and I sprang forward to support her, afraid she would collapse. She sobbed as she clung to me, smelling of smoke, jungle, and roasted meat.

  “Uh, what’s going on here?” I asked. I hardly knew where to put my hands; I wasn’t accustomed to holding women who weren’t Lorrie, pregnant or not.

  “I told her we’d take her someplace safe,” Tenika answered. “I just reminded her that she hated living here and that they’d kidnapped her in the first place. She wants to see her family.”

  I’d heard about Tenika’s hypnosuggestion, but I had never seen it in play. She was impressive. I wondered how many bandits she’d won over earlier before someone got smart and gagged her. “Great. Now what?”

  A smiled played on Tenika’s ruined face. “Help her sit down on one of the cots. Then go get the curequick.”

  “Right.” I didn’t sense any compelling in her words, and I could say no if I wanted to—which I didn’t—so I guessed she wasn’t using her gift with me. I led the pregnant woman to one of the overturned cots. I made sure she was steady on her feet before turning it over, freeing it with a knife when it got stuck in the mosquito netting hanging overhead. I helped her sit, and then, with great relief, headed outside.

  Marisa snorted her amusement as she followed me into the darkness. “Good thing no one will need that netting again.”

  “What, you planning on starting your own bandit club?” I asked.

  “No, I . . .” the words trailed away. “Look, about Javier.”

  “You don’t owe me anything.” But a part of me felt she did.

  “My husband had a farm on the edge of the jungle,” she said, her voice losing emotion once again. “It was a beautiful place. Javier came to our farm when I was married only six months. He burned it all because my husband wouldn’t pay his peace tax. Javier took me, though, because he knew my father and brother. He used me to get them to do things for him. And also because he wanted a woman. For the first year he kept me here in this camp like a prisoner. I hoped my husband would find me, but then I heard them talking one night.” She stopped and the relative quiet in the jungle emphasized the stark pain in her voice.

  “You learned he was dead.”

  “Yes. He’d tracked me here and Javier killed him—after making sure my husband knew I was now his woman. Javier kept me here for two years. Then I arranged a few incidents with his men—he’s very jealous—and that convinced him I’d be better kept with my father and young brother. He’d come to visit.” The revulsion in her face told me what she thought of those visits. “I had planned to steal their car and some extra gas to get me to my uncle’s ranch. He has men and guns, but I was worried Javier would come for me there and cause him trouble.”

  “And then I came along.”

  “Then you came along,” she agreed. “I should have told you.”

  Ya think? I wanted to say, but really, why should she have trusted me? Her father and brother had let her down, her husband hadn’t been able to save her, and she’d been used for years by Javier. “You saved my life,” I said instead.

  “You saved mine. He would have killed me. If not today then another day.”

  On that we could agree.

  We’d come around to the back of the tent, where the older woman still sprawled in the foliage. She had a heartbeat, but it was faint. “She’s going to need a doctor.” Still, I tied her wrists with a length of rope from my pack. I’d learned something with both Marisa and the pregnant woman: never assume anything. This woman had already held a gun to my head once. Between her, Javier, and the pregnant woman, I had almost grown accustomed to it. I definitely understood the adrenaline rush, which was maybe why my Unbounded siblings sometimes seemed to enjoy their battles with the Emporium far more than they should.

  While Marisa hefted my pack, I carried the woman into the tent. After setting her on another righted cot, I gave Tenika tiny injections of curequick all along the cut on her arm, followed by two bigger injections in her stomach and shoulder.

  “What about your face?” I asked.

  “That bad, huh?”

  Tenika was ordinarily a striking Angolan woman, but I couldn’t see much of her African features behind the mass of bleeding flesh. Only her eyes and the tiny braids of her hair were halfway normal. “Kind of.”

  Her battered lips stretched in a smile that looked painful. “Better wait an hour. I’ll be on a high in a minute as it is with this stuff.” Tenika was speaking low, so that Marisa couldn’t hear, but Marisa was watching us curiously from across the room. “She doesn’t know about Unbounded, does she?”

  “She has to suspect. She saw Irwin come back.”

  “Ah. Well, you can start putting our Emporium friends in the van.” The way she drawled friends almost made me laugh. “By the time you’re finished, the bleeding in my stomach should have stopped enough for you to help me to the van as well. But make su
re you get our weapons back. They took them into the cabin.”

  I went to work dragging our captives back to the van but left behind all the bandits. I’d stop at the first clearing we found and connect with a satellite to request that Ava send whatever passed for the local sheriff to pick up the bandits. Or I’d leave them for Irwin’s guys. I’d accomplished what I’d set out to do.

  Marisa shook her head in disgust at the apparently dead Unbounded captives, refusing to touch them, but she helped me with the weapons in the cabin, which were far more numerous than just those they’d taken from us. There was an actual bed in the cabin and a desk, and it didn’t take much thinking to know this was where Javier had kept Marisa. I didn’t object when she pulled a rifle over her shoulder and pushed a large box of bullets into a shoulder sack she carried. I also didn’t say anything when she went to a loose brick in the cabin’s fireplace and pulled out a metal box filled with cash. She deserved it, and it wasn’t as if Javier could object.

  Tenika was looking a lot better when we returned to the tent to check on her. Even her face had knitted some, though the bruising was considerably darker. I injected a bit of curequick in several spots, and to her credit, Tenika didn’t even flinch. I wondered how many times she’d been almost killed, or killed and come back to life. I didn’t think it was something I’d ever get used to seeing.

  I left Marisa talking to the pregnant woman as I helped Tenika to the van. Like most Unbounded, she didn’t carry any extra pounds, but she wasn’t a small woman by any means. It said a lot about her condition that she leaned on me at all. Despite the agony I glimpsed on her face, she didn’t let out so much as a single groan.

  When I’d shut the van door, Marisa and the woman were leaving the tent. “She’s going with me,” Marisa announced.

  I blinked. “You’re not coming back with us?”

  “To the airport? Or to wherever you are taking those things?” She crinkled her nose. “I don’t think so. They have a double gas tank in that sedan, and there’s a gas can in the trunk. It’s enough to get me to my uncle’s ranch.” The pregnant woman was already checking the gas can in the back of the car.

  “Right,” I said. “You sure it’s safe?”

  “The road should be safe enough with this.” Marisa patted the rifle. “And now that Javier is gone, my uncle will welcome me on his ranch. It’s a good place.”

  “Okay then.” I wouldn’t stop her from doing what she felt was best for her life.

  She stepped closer until her hip brushed my thigh. “Chris, I want . . .” Slowly, her face moved toward me, her lips seeking mine.

  My heartbeat pounded loudly in my ears, and other parts of my body reacted without my giving them permission. I kissed her back, my arms closing around her slim frame. She was warm and soft and generous. I let it go on far too long before I finally reminded myself that I still had a job to do.

  She smiled as I pulled away, her fingers brushing my lips. “You could come with me. You are a good man—I know that. I promise to make you happy, and I will love your children. They will be safe. I bet my uncle has use for a pilot.”

  For a moment I was tempted. Tempted to run away from the fight with the Emporium and the painful memories of Lorrie. Tempted to lose myself in Marisa’s arms and in her world. Her recent life hadn’t been pretty, but compared to what the Renegades faced on a daily basis, these bandits barely registered on their danger scale. I longed to raise my children in a place where they weren’t at risk of losing someone they loved in a brutal manner that evoked nightmares even for adults. Where there was no chance of them being used in genetic experiments or exploited as pawns in a war that had already spanned centuries. I loved the idea of keeping this simple and generous woman by my side, of falling in love with her. The attraction was there—I’d felt it from the moment she’d appeared on the motorcycle. Maybe before that.

  We could be happy. I could finish my duty, take the cure back to Oregon, and return with my children to see where this relationship might take us. Marisa would never be Lorrie, but I didn’t want to replace my wife. I wanted the pain to go away. I wanted safety.

  Except there were also my feelings about Stella, however hopeless, and none of that was fair to Marisa. She deserved better. She deserved a man who couldn’t sleep for thinking about her, a man whose heart was hers alone. She most definitely didn’t deserve someone who was with her because he wanted to hide.

  I kissed her again deeply, enjoying a last taste of her sweetness. “In another life, I would.”

  She gave me a wistful smile. “I know. I hope you will be happy.”

  I watched her drive away, wishing I had said yes.

  I DIDN’T HAVE TO accompany Irwin and Tenika to the prison compound. By the time we’d retrieved the other unconscious Unbounded captives near the small road, Irwin was up and hobbling around the clearing where I’d left him. Tenika still looked a shadow of her normal self, but her face was already less hamburger and more bruise—a significant improvement from hours before back at the cabin. Irwin and I secured the prisoners, and by then several of his buddies from the prison had appeared, heavily armed.

  “You’re going to see to the bandits, right?” I asked.

  “Sure thing,” Irwin said. “We’ve already called in a few favors.” He leaned closer and spoke so no one else could hear. “I’m glad my four-footed friend didn’t attack you. I haven’t had much experience with jaguars. It’s crocs I know best.”

  “I’m really glad I didn’t know that before I went after him.”

  “I thought you might say that.” He chuckled and slapped me hard on the back, making me flinch. “Hey,” Irwin said, “Drew over there is a healer. You want him to take a look at you?”

  “Naw, I’ll be okay. Nothing a few weeks won’t heal. Excuse me, I’m going to say goodbye to Tenika.”

  I went to the van, which was missing a window after the shootout. I leaned through the opening and offered her my hand. “Looks like this is goodbye.”

  Tenika bumped her fist against mine, a gesture that served for both Renegade greetings and farewells. “Thanks for coming. I owe you one, mortal.”

  There was teasing in her voice, so I knew the “mortal” wasn’t meant to offend, but for a stark moment, I wished my mortality could be otherwise. “Only one?”

  “Or two. Just let me know.” She gave me a number scrawled on a piece of map she’d torn from someplace. “My direct line. Come see us sometime in New York.”

  “It might be a while. We have some rebuilding to do after the last attack.”

  Her face sobered. “We all do.”

  “I know.” She and her group were still recovering from the betrayal of one of our own that had caused Lorrie’s death and led to the murder and capture of many Renegades. The same man had been responsible for my captivity. But Renegades didn’t leave people behind, and we would find them as they had found me.

  “We’ll bring them home,” I said.

  She nodded. “I’ll be heading back tomorrow. Maybe when these guys”—she jerked her head to the rear of the van where the unconscious Emporium agents were stacked like so much firewood—“wake up, they’ll give us some new leads.” Her dark eyes held mine for another long second, and I knew she felt a deep responsibility for the people she’d lost. She wasn’t the only one. Maybe all survivors felt that way.

  I didn’t have the keys to Marisa’s motorbike, so I enjoyed a long, humid walk back to the plane, using the time to report in to Ava. I arrived at the makeshift airport as the sun finally broke through the trees of the jungle. There were no signs of vehicles or lights in the small building across the expanse of dirt, which told me César and Diego Molina hadn’t returned. It was just as well. I wasn’t too happy with either of them after what they’d allowed Marisa to suffer while in their household. As the men in her life, they should have protected her. I would have died before I’d let my sister Erin endure what she had. They would return eventually, I had no doubt, as soon as they heard th
at these particular bandits were no longer a problem.

  Maybe Marisa would even let them visit her eventually. I couldn’t help smiling as I thought about her. I didn’t doubt that she’d find someone else to love. She was that kind of woman. I envied the guy, whoever he was.

  After double-checking the lock on the plane’s door, I downed some rations, gulped water and a few pain killers, then fell across three seats and let myself drop into oblivion.

  The next thing I knew, my phone was ringing. I groped for it and pressed it to my ear. “Hello?”

  “On our way back,” Erin said. “Emporium’s probably not too far behind. Get the plane ready.”

  My watch said it was already seven that evening, so outside the plane it’d be dark. “What’s your ETA?”

  “Twenty minutes tops.”

  “I’ll be ready. But we’ll have to touch down for fuel in Mexico again. We’re running low, and the fuel here didn’t come through as planned.”

  “Guess we’ll make do. Thanks.” My sister sounded exhausted. Whatever they’d gone through apparently hadn’t been easy.

  After a quick preflight check, I had time to swallow more pain killers, rub some of the dry blood from my head, change into a fresh shirt, and pull on a baseball cap. The mirror showed a split lip and a nasty bruise on my cheek, but they couldn’t see the bandage on my arm or the huge bruises forming on my chest and stomach. In all I didn’t look too bad. No use in causing my siblings alarm. If I kept a low enough profile and didn’t move too stiffly, they wouldn’t guess how terribly my body ached.

  Of course, with Erin, I’d also have to watch my thoughts. She wouldn’t delve into my private ones without permission, but if my thoughts shouted pain, she’d easily pick up on it. With a little luck and repeated dosages of pain killer, she might never learn how close it had been.

  My hopes of sliding completely under the radar were upset the moment my sister arrived. Erin’s face was dirty and cut, her blond hair matted, and her gray eyes exhausted, but her concern for me was immediate. “What happened to you?” she asked as she practically fell from the Pinz—which was short for Pinzgauer, an old European army vehicle that roughly resembled a Humvee.