“Okay,” she replied, taking another puff. Jasper ended up on her other side. Quinn watched them all, while Elijah talked to Vincent, both still smoking as well.
“All these people,” Jasper despaired. “So many of them.”
“I hope it was quick,” Sawyer added.
“It was,” Quinn told them. “Most were strangled by vines in their beds. Those who were unlucky enough to wake up and find out what was happening…they died to animals. Some were probably bit by snakes. Depends on what this Druid most associated with.”
“What do you mean?” Zander asked.
“My mother associated with wolves. Another Druid had an affinity for foxes. Some love snakes, some have no favorites and deal with everything equally. They do have some personal preference and that changes how they work. Some let the animals around them work things out on their own and only deal with the land itself, the plant life.”
“To think Druids are just Magi with some fucked up powers,” Sawyer mumbled.
“Legends are like that.” Jasper groaned. “You know what really gets me?”
“What?”
“Druids are born to regular people, other Magi normally, like everyone else. They just…got unlucky, or lucky depending on how you look at it. Their powers manifested, and they are Druids and that’s it. Think about being their parents, too. Their daughters just run off into the woods. That’s it, and there’s no stopping it.”
“Just like any other Magi,” Zander said, sounding pissed. “They’re the ones who decide to go live in the woods and forget they’re fucking human. Not many Magi go out and do shit like this.”
“Zander is right,” Quinn declared. Sawyer didn’t like the angry expression on his face. “It is their decision. Their powers manifest like all of us, in their teenage years, and they decide they are better than humanity. They choose to leave. They choose to cut themselves off and separate from the world. They choose to be monsters like this. If this bitch hadn’t killed off this town, I wouldn’t hunt her down. I was hoping she didn’t. I don’t care about farmland. Humans need to just accept their losses sometimes, but this is too far. These people were mostly non-Magi and innocent. Too bad this bitch probably thinks she’s a god.”
Sawyer raised her eyebrows at the sudden hostility. It shouldn’t have surprised her, but it was still a little shocking. He’d been calm and patient when they arrived, and now he was furious.
“God?” the colonel seemed shocked by Quinn’s hostility as well.
Quinn snarled. “I won’t say every Druid considers themselves that way, but it’s my experience that they feel they can do as they please,” he explained. “Everyone should get some good sleep tonight.” He walked away from them all. Sawyer watched him go, hoping he would be okay.
She didn’t notice Elijah walking to her with a bag until he spoke. “Food. Mostly snack type items for us to keep our energy up.” He held it out and she reached in. She pulled out three granola bars and shoved two in a pocket, eating the third quickly.
“You okay?” she asked him softly. She felt like she was asking everyone that.
“Could be better,” Elijah admitted. “Want to talk about anything?”
“Not really. Lots of people are dead here, and we’re about to track down a Magi who has decided to use her…gifts to do it. Druid or not, this isn’t acceptable. I’m worried, a little scared, but I’m glad we’re here to do this.” Sawyer took a deep breath. “Seeing this, I’m glad we’re here.”
“I almost agree with you,” he agreed.
They spent the rest of the evening making sure they ate and they all had places to sleep comfortably. Elijah would be taking over the entire backseat of their SUV, Sawyer and Vincent deciding to take the front seats. The soldiers had tents, but the team weren’t in the mood to do that and had the space in their vehicles. It earned them some teasing from the war dogs, though.
“Jasper,” Zander called out.
In the dark, Sawyer chuckled. They both needed to get some sleep. She didn’t know why they were still wandering around.
“What?” Jasper groaned loudly.
“Make sure to take your leg off. Sleeping with it on will give you a rash.”
“I know, jackass,” he snapped. Sawyer was in a fit over it. Zander was telling Jasper what to do? The planets must have aligned.
“Both of you just sleep,” Quinn snarled. “You’ll distract the patrol.”
“You sleep too, Quinn,” Elijah yelled out.
“Fine.”
Sawyer heard doors slamming and was still chuckling ten minutes later. A small bit of humor in the horror of this mission. She liked to think that when the world was going to hell, a laugh was needed.
Vincent reached over and put a hand over her mouth.
“You, too,” he whispered sleepily.
Sawyer was in another nightmare. The trees around her weren’t the ones of the rainforest, but rather, the woods near one of Axel’s homes. She was out there with several members of the Ghosts. She wore her mask to protect her appearance. They had no idea who the woman in all black was except that she was Axel’s Shadow.
A body was dropped in a hole. Not one of hers. This was someone they killed, someone they had considered a friend. He’d tried to get out, and they had killed him for it. She was there because Axel wanted to remind her what running meant.
She walked silently back to the large house with Axel. The others just got in their own vehicles and left. She pulled her mask off, the liquid magic of it reforming into the solid mask.
He was in a bad mood and she knew it. Once they were alone, he decided to let it out.
The first blow took her by surprise. It sent her to the floor.
“Sawyer, fight back,” Jasper called out.
She didn’t need to be told twice. She swung up, connecting to a shield. It cracked. She swung again. It shattered. She jumped up and tackled Axel to the floor.
Then it was over.
Dawn was just coming over the horizon. She could hear the slow, deep breathing of Elijah in the back. Vincent was also still asleep. She was glad she hadn’t woken them.
She slipped out of the SUV without either of them noticing and went to the team’s other ride. Jasper was already awake, watching her walk up. He opened his door and sat out the side. She could tell he wasn’t wearing his prosthetic, the pant leg falling loose just below his knee. A stark reminder. It was easy to forget, honestly, since his prosthetic was so lifelike when he wore it. Enchantments made sure the leg acted as a normal one for walking and running, and Sawyer knew that they had worked on ways for Jasper to control it for climbing and jumping.
It was all much too complicated for her to really care about. It worked for him and that was all that mattered.
“You need to learn how to get lucid on your own, Sawyer,” Jasper told her immediately. “But you fight back faster now. You don’t take as long to listen to me, or second-guess yourself.”
“So basically, I’m terrible at the most important part.” She groaned, rolling her eyes at herself and her problem.
“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Jasper whispered. “I need to get my leg on and we can go for a walk.” He reached back and grabbed his leg. She watched him put it on, studying the straps and how snug his knee fit. She hadn’t yet taken a long look at how he wore it.
When he was done, he kept the pant leg rolled up and she gave him a curious look.
“It’s itchy first thing in the morning,” he explained. “I like being able to scratch it. Also, I might need to readjust the tightness, and I don’t want to need to pull my pants up ten times in the first thirty minutes of my day to do that.”
“I never noticed,” she commented plainly.
“I normally make sure everything is good before I leave my room.” He shrugged as he said that. “So, nightmares still a problem, even out here.”
“They were still a problem in Texas too, remember?” She crossed her arms as they walked. “It’s one of the reasons we started doi
ng this. So I could…take control of them. So I might get past them again.”
“You were never really past them to begin with. They faded, but they always came back. We’re working to give you control of it permanently.” Jasper sighed. “I mean, this is just a band-aid. Eventually, you will need to open up enough to get therapy.”
“No.” Out of the question. She wasn’t seeing a doctor.
“I know.” Jasper shrugged. “We’ll figure it out. I need to ask someone how I can teach you better. This isn’t bad progress, but I feel like I’m screwing something up.”
“Me or you. I think it’s me. I get sucked in so easily.”
Jasper didn’t respond. He leaned down, tightened one of the straps for his prosthetic and they just kept walking.
They saw that the soldiers were already getting ready to break their makeshift camps. Some looked at Sawyer and Jasper, interested. “What happened?” one called out, pointing at Jasper’s leg. “I know it’s rude to ask.”
“I had a building dropped on me,” Jasper answered, smiling.
Sawyer chuckled. “Yeah, that’s about the simplest explanation for it,” she agreed.
“No fucking way.” The soldier laughed, walking over. His name tag read Rodriguez. “Sorry. I’m one of the healers for this trip. I’ve never seen a prosthetic like that, so I got interested.”
“My teammate, Elijah, the big one with the cowboy boots, got in touch with a company that makes them. He and Zander, our healer, did the enchantments for it.” Jasper lifted his leg, bent it at the knee and rolled the foot around. It all seemed perfectly natural, except his leg was fashionably not real. “Special Agent Jasper Williams. Nice to meet you…”
“Sergeant Rodriguez. Most call me Doc.”
“Of course,” Jasper chuckled. Sawyer watched them shake hands and stayed quiet. She didn’t want to interrupt the male bonding. Jasper ruined it, though. “This is Sawyer, our probationary agent. Uh…” He looked at her and she shrugged.
“Shadow. Yeah, I’ve heard.” Rodriguez bravely stuck his hand out to her too. She decided to shake with him and held his hand tightly when she felt his magic. It was calming and strange. She’d been riled up still from the nightmare, which was why she agreed to the walk. She wasn’t any longer.
“Don’t try to manipulate my emotions,” she whispered to him. “Empaths feel emotions, but you have emotional manipulation. Don’t do that to me.” She let go of him. The moment the contact ended, her own anger pushed through his magically-induced calm.
“Sorry. I noticed you were uptight and wanted to help a little.” He seemed thoroughly chastised. “I’m not empathetic without touch. It’s one of the quirks of emotional manipulation. Touch is needed to both feel and change the emotions.”
“Yeah, I know how your damn abilities work,” she snapped. She turned away and kept walking away.
Jasper moved with her. “Sorry. He didn’t try anything on me or I would have cautioned against it.”
“He was just being a damn healer. I’m mad because I don’t normally shake hands until I know what abilities someone has. I made a mistake.” Sawyer was more pissed at herself.
“Not a mistake. You’re trusting people more easily. He wasn’t trying to burn you for it. You got it right, he was just trying to be a healer.” Jasper was trying to play voice of reason. “It’s not a bad thing. He should have asked first, though.”
“Mistakes all around then,” she scoffed.
He just chuckled at her. “You ready for what’s about to come?”
The mood immediately soured.
“Is there any way to be ready?” she asked back.
“I don’t think so,” he conceded. “We’re probably going to head out in about an hour. I’m not sure I’ve really wrapped my head around this yet. Just a couple of days ago, we were thinking about a full three-month vacation.”
“You’re telling me,” Sawyer groaned. “Let’s go wake up everyone and get them moving.”
17
Sawyer
Three days in the rainforest, and Sawyer was already ready to leave. It was hot and humid, the insects were awful, and she wasn’t getting any sleep. The rain was even worse - not heavy enough to be the rainy season, but enough to get them all fairly wet. Some soldiers were beginning to complain about their feet.
They left their vehicles in the village, since the road had ended and the brush was too thick to drive or forge a path. Sawyer’s legs cramped at the end of the second day as she collapsed next to Jasper, who wasn’t doing so hot either. “This fucking blows,” she complained. She rubbed her thighs slowly, hoping to work out the tight muscles.
“I won’t disagree.” Jasper groaned and leaned against the tree.
She flicked away a spider that was crawling next to her. She wasn’t in the mood for the creepy crawlies that were around.
“Hey, we need to get tents up,” Elijah told them as he walked by.
“Fuck,” Sawyer snapped. She got back up, groaning.
“Make sure to get some rest tonight. Tomorrow, we’ve decided to move double time,” Petrov commented blandly as she walked past as well, along with the other higher-ranking enlisted soldiers.
God. Two days of her and Sawyer wanted to strangle the soldier. Sergeant Petrov was a tough bitch, that was for sure. When soldiers were out of line, making jokes or comments, she was normally the first on their asses for it. Sawyer respected it, but she couldn’t stand Petrov’s uptight attitude about fucking everything. Snack on the walk? Not allowed. Talking in the ranks? Not allowed. A fucking stickler, including with the team.
The only thing Petrov did, or rather, didn’t do that Sawyer liked was talk about the team like everyone else. A lot of the soldiers across the board were rude to the team for not being set up for this sort of work. The upper chain of command just made small remarks about the differences between the IMAS and the IMPO, but some lower ranking soldiers openly taunted them. The team just wasn’t built for this sort of work. There was a reason this was an IMAS mission and not the IMPO’s.
Vincent was exhausted. Elijah was getting cranky, but he knew how to camp and was used to roughing it a little. Zander was on another level of pissed off, since he kept needing to heal scratches, bruises, and bug bites. Sawyer and Jasper, they were both just fucking tired.
Only Quinn seemed completely at ease with the whole ‘hang out and trek through the jungle’ shit.
“Sawyer,” Quinn called out to her. Speak of the fucking devil.
“Yeah?”
“Come help me,” he ordered.
She looked to Jasper, who shrugged, standing up. She got up next, steadying Jasper when he stumbled with a groan. “Get off your feet for the rest of the night,” she commanded. “Take the leg off and relax.”
“Will do,” Jasper promised.
“Yeah, pirate, go relax,” a soldier called out.
Sawyer glared at Petrov, who turned away to reprimand the soldier. The big-ass bear just followed and growled at the soldier once Petrov was done telling him to keep his mouth shut.
“I hate them,” Jasper mumbled. “All of them. They like their nicknames. Hazing is also a serious problem. They like making life difficult for people until they prove they fit in.”
“Oh great,” she replied. They both walked to Quinn, who was setting up a tent. He pulled up earth to make a pedestal of sorts with no vegetation on it for the tent to sit on. Sawyer knew he would do it for every tent in their camp so that no one was down in the gross vegetation with the bugs.
Sawyer helped him finish the tent and then watched him walk off. “He’s been so quiet,” she mentioned to Jasper.
“He’s focused on the task. He’s probably overloaded too.”
“What?” Sawyer frowned, pulling out a small folding chair from the inside of the tent. They had two tents, each fitting three people on the team. Each tent had a few small chairs, made of canvas. She was bunking with Jasper and Zander. Shade slept at their feet, Quinn wanting each tent to ha
ve a wolf to handle any threats like snakes while they slept.
“He has naturalism for an ability, remember? And he’s in a new environment. He’s probably being overloaded by all the information. He needs time to process what he’s learning. Every time he brushes up against a new plant or runs across a new insect or something, he learns about them.” Jasper sighed. “It’s just the ability magnified by his power.”
“I forgot about all of that. Hadn’t even considered it.” Sawyer shook her head at herself. “Fuck, the heat must be frying my brain. I actually miss Texas - it wasn’t this fucking humid.”
“I never thought I would ever hear that from you.” Jasper chuckled, sitting down in one of their fold-out chairs. She sat next to him, watching Elijah and Vincent get their tent up, then sit down with them.
A thing fell in her lap and she looked down to see Jasper’s leg.
“You can hold on to that,” he said.
“Fine.” Sawyer just left it there in her lap and ignored it.
Elijah pulled out the rest of the chairs. She chuckled at the way Vincent collapsed and nearly fell down with the chair since he hit it too hard. Elijah was laughing as he tossed MREs at them.
She gagged. The military rations sucked.
He was kind enough to throw her a couple of granola bars as well. “We’re running low on those, so you need to cut back,” he teased, sitting on her other side.
“Look. They’re keeping me alive, all right?” Sawyer opened one of the bars and shoved it into her mouth. She was going to ignore the MRE for as long as possible. Processed, dehydrated, disgusting shit. For her, it just wasn’t going to cut it. She had some standards. She swallowed the food in her mouth before continuing. “I mean, I’m already playing in the fucking dirt. I should at least eat something I can stomach.”
“When you’re out of them, don’t whine to me,” Elijah sternly told her, sitting down.
They relaxed for a good portion of the evening. It was near dark when Sawyer could hear some soldiers get a little rowdy. “The chick is a fucking assassin. No joke. The fucking Shadow. You know, the crime lord’s bitch. You know the rumors.”
The Redemption Saga Box Set Page 85