Blaze

by Joan Swan

  Hell, yes. “Nope.” Two could play this game. “I don’t give a flying fuck whether he goes or not. I can handle this on my own.”

  You always could. Never needed anyone. Sure as hell never needed me.

  Luke’s thoughts pierced her skull. She gritted her teeth and forced them out. Luke Ransom’s head was the very last place on earth she belonged.

  “Play nice, Keira,” Angus directed in low tone before refocusing on the map and circling an area of the main building with his dark finger. “We have reports of your target in this area. If you position yourself here”—he tapped the paper—“you have opportunities for shots here and here. This is your point of entrance. This your exit. Got it?”

  Keira nodded once, her gaze scouring the floor plan she’d already memorized.

  Angus dropped a hand on her shoulder. “Alive is preferred. Dead is perfectly acceptable.”

  Ice spread through her belly, but she met his intense eyes. “Yes, sir.”

  “Your call sign is Sniper Six.” He gave her a gentle push off. “Be careful out there.”

  “Yes, sir.” She started toward the building without waiting for Luke. Her legs pumped hard in an effort to put space between them, but he caught up to her in seconds.

  “Keira.” He pulled her around by the arm. “What the hell is going on?”

  Her lungs decompressed on a whoosh of air. Three long years she’d imagined all the possible ways they might connect again. What they might say. How it might go. None ever slumped to this level. So many daydreams wasted. So many fantasies shattered.

  She dug in her pocket for the two photos. The first landed against his chest with a satisfying thump. “This is the man I’m going to either capture or kill.” When he took the photo, she hit him with the second. “This is the kid I’m going to find and rescue. Keep your eyes open. If you spot either one, signal me. And stay out of trouble, Ransom, ’cause you’re not on my favorites list. I have enough to think about besides saving your sorry ass.”

  She started toward the ladder leading to the roof again. Luke easily kept pace with her. “When did you become a fucking sniper?”

  The dig pinged off her psychic shield, leaving a dent. Everything he did, said, thought, left a dent. “Probably about the same time you became a fucking ATF agent.”

  A local deputy stood at the base of the metal ladder, securing it against the building. “Be careful up there.”

  “Will do.” Keira slanted the strap of her Remington over her chest and whipped the weapon around to lie against her back.

  “Watch where you’re throwing that thing,” Luke groused behind her.

  “If I did,” she shot over her shoulder, “it would break your perfect nose.”

  She scaled the ladder with ease. With cool metal beneath her hands, her quads pumping as she ascended, bittersweet memories of her years as a firefighter flooded her mind. The fact that Luke now tailed her only shoved her into a time warp. And as soon as they landed on the rooftop together, crouched and ready to attack, their three years apart evaporated. No two people worked together better—professionally, if not personally.

  Only now they weren’t focused on drowning a fire. They were hunting a psychotic Russian cult leader holding hostages. Kevlar replaced turnouts, subguns replaced Pulaskis, helmets replaced breathing apparatus. Easy reminders of the bizarre event that changed their lives. All seven members of their hazmat unit had gone into that firefight as ordinary people. Six had emerged permanently altered. One hadn’t survived. Keira often wondered if he had been the lucky one.

  Focus. Get in, hit the target, find the boy, get out.

  She scuttled across the roof toward the single window along the second-story wall, planted her back against the peeling paint, and searched for Luke. He was right there, mirroring her position on the opposite side of the glass.

  Despite the intel Angus insisted was accurate, something felt wrong. Wrong location. Wrong target. Wrong . . . something. And Keira couldn’t tell if the sensation was expert intuition or some enhanced psychic ability, which was really annoying.

  She eased forward, glanced through the window. No one inside the bedroom-turned-office, but the laboratory set up in the corner explained all the sensations Keira had received through Rostov’s image. Sink, microscope, slides, test tubes, beakers, floor-to-ceiling glass-fronted cabinets filled with chemicals.

  What the hell?

  The thought wasn’t Keira’s, although it echoed her own. Luke also squinted through the glass, studying the mini-lab.

  She tilted her chin toward the radio speaker on her shoulder to check in with Angus and pushed the TRANSMIT button.

  An explosion rumbled through the opposite end of the main building, as if Keira’s action had detonated a bomb. Her heart punched toward her throat. In mirror reflex actions, she and Luke braced themselves against the wall. When the roar of the explosion dimmed, she tried again.

  “Sniper Six to base. Update. Over.”

  “Base to SS.” Angus’s cool tone crackled over the radio. “Target has relocated. Hold for intel. Over.”

  “Dammit.” She dropped her head back against the siding, just a second to catch her breath.

  Is she really the best shot? What the hell is going on here?

  Luke hadn’t spoken. At least not out loud. He still peered around the corner of the building, watching the fire.

  “Yes,” she snapped. “I really am the best shot, and you are—evidently—still the jackass who thought I’d fall on my face when I joined the Bureau.”

  His head snapped around with a what-the-fuck? expression, then eased. “I will admit to the jackass part, but for the record, I never expected or wanted you to fall on your face.” His eyes narrowed. “Are you reading minds now?”

  “Don’t be an idiot. Even if I were, which I’m not, your mind would be the last place I’d inhabit.”

  She darted to Luke’s side and followed his gaze around the wall toward the opposite end of the compound. A twenty-foot section of the two-story building in the distance spit flames from every window. Black smoke rolled toward the sky, and somewhere deep inside the structure, sparks surged like a fiery volcano. Cobalt blue sparks. The kind she’d only seen one other time in her life. Five long years ago.

  She’d been with Luke then, too.

  That reality overwhelmed her. The questions, the repercussions, the complications so vast she simply couldn’t process them in the moment. She knew this incident was about to change her life, yet she had no idea how. And, worse, she had absolutely no control over that change. She was on a raft thrown in the rapids with no oars. Hold tight for the ride. Pray you don’t drown on the trip.

  Every priority in her life altered. Instantly.

  Screw following orders. Screw killing Rostov. She had to find that boy.

  TWO

  Keira jabbed at the radio on her shoulder. “SS to base. Update. Over.”

  She needed more intel to locate the children. This ranch house was a sprawling campus of additions and outbuildings, silos and barns. The kid she’d come for could be anywhere.

  “Base to SS. Abort mission. Repeat, abort mission and return to base. Over.”

  “That’s more like it.” Luke started for the ladder, reaching for Keira’s sleeve when she didn’t immediately follow. “Come on, Sniper Girl. Party’s over. We’ll figure this out on the ground.”

  “No.” She pulled back. “I have to find that kid.”

  “Keira.” Luke’s voice fell to a warning tone. “Think about this. You and me on top of this inferno, that lab, those sparks. You think this is all coincidence? Are you sure there even is a kid?”

  Damn him. She hated the way he dug into her insecurities. Worse, she despised the fact that he could be right. “Not everything in life is a conspiracy, Luke.”

  But because she fully realized this could be one of those times, Keira crouched, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly as she closed her eyes. As the chaos around her faded, she laid her pal
m against the black-asphalt roof shingles. The tiles burned from hours searing in the sun and singed her skin. She blocked the pain. Focused. Listened.

  Screams rattled inside her head. The screams of a child. Or . . . children. She winced, searching for their origin—present or past? To be sure these were voices and not her own memories, she searched deeper.

  I’m scared. I wanna go home.

  Where’s my mommy? I want my mommy.

  Definitely statements from the present. Aside from I’m scared, those words would never have come out of Keira’s mouth as a kid.

  Which meant the children were still inside these burning buildings.

  A rolling wave of fear rocked through her, leaving nausea in its wake. Not her fear. The collective fear of the children inside. It tilted her equilibrium and she fell forward, hit the asphalt with her knees. Fresh sweat broke on her face in one burst of dampness. She sucked at the hot desert air to keep from retching.

  “Are you okay?” Luke’s voice came from over her shoulder.

  Anger helped distract her from the queasiness. Why so many new powers all at once? Why here? Why now? Even back when she and Luke had been far more connected, her powers had never ramped this aggressively.

  She ignored the nagging questions and listened harder, searching through the cries and screams and voices for something more.

  Take the children to the south tower.

  A man’s voice. With an accent. Russian accent. Rostov. Things were finally falling into place.

  Protect Mateo with your life.

  Keira siphoned a breath. Mateo. He was here. Alive.

  When she opened her eyes, Luke was still there, hovering. “And the verdict is?”

  “The kids are here,” she said. “They’re moving to the south tower.”

  She evaluated the next roofline, connected by slanted, steaming asphalt, then turned back to Luke. “Look, this isn’t your fight. Follow orders. Get back to camp. Until I know nothing more can be done, I’m going to stay. I can’t just leave them.”

  Anguished indecision creased the corners of his eyes as he squinted toward the south tower. Those intoxicating blue eyes she’d seen in laughter, love, ecstasy, agony, anguish, fury, and finally betrayal.

  She wondered, in that fleeting moment it took him to make the decision between duty and conscience, if he still believed she’d betrayed him in the end. Not that it mattered. Nothing would erase the years of regret that dogged her whenever he crossed her mind.

  But the past was the past. She had enough demons to deal with. And there would be more if she didn’t get moving.

  She pushed to a crouch, resting hands on knees until her head was solid and her stomach was steady.

  “If it’s your fight, it’s my fight.” Luke used his weapon to gesture toward the other roofline. “We stick together, right? I’ve got your back.”

  A fist of warmth clenched at the center of her body. She knew he wasn’t taking on her personal fight. Nor was he following through because he cared. This was loyalty. This was honor. This was sticking with your partner to the end, the way Royal’s partner had gone back under fire and dragged him to safety.

  She jogged across the roof’s heated shingles, her focus homed in on the south tower, but another of Luke’s thoughts slipped beneath her skull.

  This decision better not haunt me for the next three fucking years like my last one.

  Her feet stumbled. She stopped and twisted around. “What?”

  “Keep moving.” He shoved her forward. “And stay out of my head.”

  The radios on their shoulders squawked simultaneously. “Base to SS,” Angus’s voice crackled over the line, his Cajun accent emerging with his increased frustration. “Repeat, abort mission and return to base. Over.”

  Keira snapped her scattered brain cells into place and responded as she ran south. “SS to base. Headed toward south tower in search of hostages. Over.”

  “Base to SS. Negative. I repeat, negative. Get your ass back here, Keira. Over.”

  She cringed and picked up speed. The faster she found the boy, the faster she could obey his orders and return.

  She reached a dip in the rooflines and leaped from one slanted surface to the other. Luke followed, without pause, without question. He’d always been the best partner, dependable, supportive, loyal. Until everything changed.

  By the time she crouched at the window, Luke stood on the opposite side, looking tattered and sexy as hell sporting his rifle and that goddamned semiautomatic strapped to his thick, muscular thigh. Why, why, why did she find that so . . . hot?

  Because she was freaking depraved, that’s why.

  “Base to SS,” Angus rasped in her ear. “Come in. Over.”

  “Damn.” Irritation rolled beneath her skin. “He’s relentless.”

  Luke smirked. “No wonder you two get along so well.”

  “Ha-ha.” She hit the speaker with one hand and wiped at the sweat drenching her face with her other forearm. “SS to base. Over.”

  “Keira.” Anger shook her boss’s typically controlled tone. “Get. Your. Ass. Back. Here. Now. Over.”

  All she could do was placate and stall. “Yes, sir. Over.”

  Keira peeked through the glass. Children filed into the room like good little soldiers, ranging in age from toddlers to teenagers. Two women flanked them at the front and end of the line.

  “Oh, my God.” Excitement surged. “They’re here, Luke.”

  “Do you see the kid you came for?”

  “I can’t tell from here.”

  Another woman entered the room with a tray of Dixie-size white cups and passed them out to the children.

  “Oh, no. No, no, no.” She pushed the speaker on her radio. “SS to base. Two dozen children identified in south tower. Request rescue operation. Over.”

  Several moments passed with no response while gunfire continued to echo through the compound.

  Luke peered back into the window. “What are they giving them?”

  “I don’t think I want to know.”

  Looks like a fucking Jonestown rerun to me.

  Luke’s thought resonated with Keira, both intellectually and emotionally. “Like a Jonestown-slash-Waco rerun.”

  His gaze shot to Keira’s face. “What the hell? You are reading minds. That is just . . . wrong. Besides, it’s creepy. Knock it off.”

  “Base to SS,” Angus cut in. “Report back to base for rescue briefing. Over.”

  “Like hell.” She wouldn’t let these kids drink poison just so those testosterone-laden ego-mongers could sit around and make a pretty little plan. “SS to base. No time. Children in immediate jeopardy. Going in. Request air support. Over.”

  She sidestepped closer to the entry point, flipped the butt of her rifle toward the window, and sent Luke a quick look. “Watch yourself. Glass coming.”

  With little more than a rough plan in mind—break in, separate women and children, evacuate—she lifted the gun overhead.

  Before she had a chance to swing, the window exploded from the inside. The house rocked beneath her feet. Glass sliced the air. A rush of searing heat body-slammed her backward. She went airborne. Thoughts flipped through her mind, fast, disjointed. Hold on to the gun. Was Luke hit? Don’t drop the gun. If I live, I’m so getting fired. Don’t let go of the gun. Please let Luke be o—

  She hit hard on her back, knocking all thoughts from her mind. Her rib cage compressed like a sponge. Air squeezed from her lungs. Pain paralyzed her spine and limbs. She skidded across the roof. Hit another vertical surface. Bounced off. Rolled. A brick chimney blurred in her vision on the downward slide. The rifle butt stabbed her stomach. Don’t ever release your weapon. She tightened her fingers around the Remington. Her knuckles scraped. Burning asphalt tore at her knees. And she kept sliding.

  The edge of the steep roof appeared in her head, followed by a thirty-foot drop. Panic sliced in her chest. She struggled for traction, digging with her boots, clawing at the roof with the rifle.
Smoke muddled her sense of direction. Pain stabbed through the right side of her head. Gravity dragged her toward the roof ’s edge.

  Her legs plunged over the side. Swung free. Her hips dropped off. Her belly. Her chest.

  This is it. Free fall.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. Held her breath. Braced for the hit.

  The clank of metal vibrated in her head like a gong. Quaked through her hands, down her arms. But no free fall. No hit.

  Swinging. She was still swinging. She opened her eyes and made one last desperate grab for something, anything, to hold on to. Her hand hit metal. She curled her fingers. Held fast. Looked up.

  The sky above lunged with furious charcoal billows of smoke. Flames spiked along the roof’s edge. Her fingers gripped a rain gutter lining the eaves, her Remington wedged between metal and wood. A perilous savior.

  Never release your weapon.

  In this case that advice had saved her in an entirely different way than her academy instructor had intended. But she wasn’t out of trouble yet.

  She glanced down, assessing the risk of letting go and falling as she’d been taught to minimize injury. Only, the ground below her was littered with old lawn mowers, buckets, engines, appliances, tools. If she dropped here, she’d probably break her neck.

  The muscles in her arms burned. Fingers slipped on sweat. Vision faded at the edges.

  She closed her eyes and opened her mouth. “Luuuke!”

  Nothing came back but the crackle of fire, the whoosh of smoke.

  A whimper bubbled up her throat. Fear for Luke pressed in, adding to her panic. If he was hurt because of her damned need to push forward when they’d been ordered to retreat . . .

  No. She couldn’t face that now. Ever.

  She’d have to take her chances in the junkyard and drop. Regroup. Search for Luke—

  A hand closed around her wrist. She sucked a breath. Looked up as another hand clamped over her opposite forearm. Big, strong, warm hands. Luke’s hands.

  Relief pushed a mewl from her chest.

  He shimmied to the edge of the roof on his stomach, squelching the flames directly beneath him. Fire burned around his arms and shoulders but didn’t catch the cotton tee or scorch his exposed forearms. He remained untouched. Sooty, sweaty, but otherwise untouched. She knew his powers, had seen them in action before. But now found herself wondering if he’d also experienced an increase in his abilities during their short time together.