Expired Hero

by Lisa Phillips

  Another explosion. The wall of his cell blew out and a gust of wind came with it, filling the room with dirt and smoke.

  Stuart clambered to his feet, fell back on his knees, and cried out his frustration.

  He wasn’t going to die here. He would rather die out there, fighting for his life. Trying to escape, even if he had no weapon.

  Visibility outside was near zero, but that might play in his favor. He climbed over rubble and waited. Watched. Listened through the smoke.

  On the ground was a twisted piece of metal. Stuart held it with both hands and made his way outside. The compound was only a few buildings, but the wall was high. He wouldn’t be able to climb over it.

  Gunfire cracked in the black sky.

  Stuart flinched, but it was on the far side of the compound. Two men raced across the open space, headed toward it.

  They never even saw him.

  Stuart raced to the door. It was hardly fortified, even the main entrance. Just a place people could slip in and out, avoiding the vehicles at the other entrance.

  A guard stepped out, gun pointed. Stuart swung the metal and the man went down. He took the gun and the man’s phone, making the call before he even fully broke free of the compound. Even if he didn’t succeed, he wanted someone he trusted to know the truth.

  Brad was the only friend he had, but the group of men were those he knew he could count on. He’d always known they lived lives of honor. And though they were hours away on a mission, he’d hide, and they’d find him. Get him out.

  Stuart took the phone with him and stepped out of the cover of the compound wall. A pickup truck was parked fifteen feet to his left. Aside from that, there was nothing but shrubs and mountains for as far as he could see.

  The second he left cover, Stuart would be completely exposed.

  But he did it. He’d driven away, fighting his way out the entire time, and then he had hidden in a neighboring farm until Zander and his team, Dean with them, had picked him up. That had been a battle of its own. So much war.

  Stuart was still exhausted, and it had been months since he climbed into the chopper and they took off.

  He never wanted to see another desert or scrub bush—or pickup truck, for that matter. Not for as long as he lived.

  He rolled to his back and stared at the ceiling, one hand on his chest. The password. He had to go back further, to the days before he’d been forced to shove that knife into Brad’s stomach, murdering him.

  “Dean!”

  The door cracked. “Yeah?”

  “Stuart, are you okay?” Kaylee’s face was so much like her brother’s, he saw there in her eyes the same expression Brad wore when Stuart had killed him.

  He rolled away from her to face the wall. That was why he couldn’t stay. Every time he looked at her, he would see the gaze of the man he’d killed. He would know that the hurt she lived with was because of him.

  And he would keep hurting her. He knew that with as much certainty as he knew she would find someone else.

  A man who knew how to love her.

  “I’ll get my kit.” Dean’s footsteps retreated.

  Stuart pulled in a long breath and blew it out slowly. His entire body was sweat slicked and achy. His head pounded, and his muscles were cramped.

  “Are you okay?”

  He didn’t look at her.

  “What is this room?”

  Stuart pressed his lips together.

  “Why are you doing this to yourself?”

  Dean came back. “Kaylee, I need you to wait outside. Everything is okay.”

  It wasn’t, but Stuart understood the sentiment behind Dean’s words. He needed to reassure her in a way that was efficient, so they could get back to work.

  “I don’t know.” She even sounded unsure. “I think—”

  Stuart needed her to leave. He wanted to get this over with as soon as he could, get the password, and take the flash drive. Leave the town of Last Chance for good, so she would finally be safe.

  From him.

  He rolled over. “Kaylee, get out.”

  She glanced around the room. “But—”

  “GET OUT.”

  Her eyes filled with tears, and she ran from the room.

  Eighteen

  Kaylee fled up the stairs. She blinked against the blur of tears while twin tracks rolled down her face. He’d been distant after what happened in the car, then he’d kissed her forehead, and now he was back to being mean? She turned at the top of the stairs and slammed into a huge body. Her nose bounced off the man’s chest.

  T-shirt, damp with sweat. She looked down at beat-up tennis shoes and basketball shorts, then up to a clammy face, red cheeks, and glistening hair.

  He was huge. Her head didn’t even reach his shoulder, and his arms were thick like two ham legs. His T-shirt stretched across his upper body, and his hair was short in a military style. Not longer and flopped down over his forehead like Stuart’s.

  Kaylee swallowed a scream. Don’t freak out. She’d done enough of that today.

  The man backed up a step and glanced back over his shoulder. “Hit the showers.”

  Three men trailed past them. All were big, but this guy was the biggest. Kaylee pressed her palm into her chest, willing her heart to quit beating so fast. She looked like a mess.

  “I’m Zander.” He didn’t wait more than a second before he said, “And you’re Kaylee.”

  She nodded. If she spoke, she’d probably fumble her words. Or tell this guy she’d never met that the man she liked had just yelled at her.

  “He’s downstairs?”

  “Yes.” Kaylee cleared her throat.

  “Let’s go to the kitchen.” He motioned with a sweep of his hand for her to go in front of him. “Leave them to it.”

  Downstairs, Stuart started yelling again. Crying out. Asking for help. Kaylee’s whole body shuddered. She walked down the hall. “He sounds…” She didn’t know how to explain it.

  “He’s trying to remember what happened, right?” Zander’s voice was low. He could probably sound lethal if he wanted. Even being cordial made her want to snap a salute—or pee her pants.

  He might be a perfectly nice guy, but for some reason, God had seen fit to make him the most massive, scary-looking man she’d ever seen.

  Zander pulled out a stool, and then circled the breakfast bar to the kitchen. He pulled two bottled waters from the fridge, handed her one, and then downed the entire contents of his before he filled it back up at the sink and did the same thing again.

  He crushed the water bottle, replaced the lid, and threw it in the recycling bin against the wall. “Do I freak you out?”

  Kaylee shook her head.

  “I can’t make myself any smaller even if I wanted to.”

  She almost smiled at that. “The man who murdered my parents had red hair and freckles, but in my memories, he was as big as you.” She tried to shrug off the tension of the past few days. “And the last person to point a gun at me was a woman who was supposed to be my best friend.”

  “Rough day?”

  “I think Stuart’s might be worse.”

  “Is that why you’ve got bruises on your neck?”

  Kaylee touched two fingers to her throat. “I startled him.”

  “It’s good he’s with Dean.”

  “He’s trying to remember what he can’t, right?”

  Zander nodded. The man’s expression was flat, and she wondered what it would even look like if he was excited. Or mad. Then again, he was just a distraction right now. Her life was in shambles, and she was latching onto something that had no bearing on her future. Or the level of danger she was in at present.

  He pulled the blender away from the backsplash and pulled bags of frozen fruit from the freezer.

  She looked away from him and sipped her water, turning to study the living room. It was clear a group of guys lived here. But they weren’t slobs. In fact, given the military angle, she figured it was more likely they were hyper c
lean. Nothing had been left out. The carpet was older but looked like it had been vacuumed recently.

  Downstairs, Stuart cried out.

  The sound rang through the house. She flinched in her seat, nearly spilling the water on her lap. It was hard to hear. To know he was in that much distress and she was not able to do anything to help. She couldn’t take it. He didn’t want her help. He only wanted to suffer alone, with Dean supervising.

  Zander flipped the blender on, drowning out the sound of Stuart and his therapy session.

  The question she wanted an answer to was whether Brad had intended for her to give the flash drive to Stuart. Could be her brother hadn’t trusted him, and so she shouldn’t either. Which meant she might as well not bother waiting around for the right person to show up. She could just take the flash drive to the FBI, or someone who could break into it without the password. There were people who could do that, and both Conroy and Tate knew someone at the FBI. Agent Eric Cullings was Tate’s brother-in-law.

  The FBI would know what to do with the information her brother had gathered. Her part in this, done. There would then be no reason for whoever was coming here to want her. And she wouldn’t need to fight the urge to throw the flash drive off dead man’s cliff. Or flush it down the toilet.

  Especially now that she was sure her brother had died because of it.

  Whoever betrayed him and fractured Stuart’s mind needed to pay. But putting that mission on her was asking for failure. She didn’t know how to do this. Stuart was even trained in covert operations, and he was having trouble with all of it.

  Maybe this Zander guy could take the flash drive.

  The blender’s deafening whir shut off. “Want some?”

  She shook her head.

  He pulled out four cups and filled each one, then pulled out his phone and sent a text. “Need anything else?”

  “Uh…no. I don’t think so. Thanks.”

  He shrugged one ham shoulder. “Stuart is a good guy, you know.”

  “I’m not sure he believes that.”

  “Who we are and who we wanna be are sometimes two different things.”

  “That’s true,” she said. “Then there’s Trina. My best friend…or she was. She sticks a gun in my face because she wants the flash drive for herself. And how did she even know about the flash drive? That’s what I want to know. Like, I literally want to slap her until she tells me. I can’t believe she would do that to me.”

  Zander sipped from his smoothie cup, his hips leaned against the counter where he had a giant container of protein powder.

  He looked thoughtful but didn’t seem to feel the need to comment.

  Kaylee’s phone rang. She slid it from her bag and saw she had a video call coming in from Mia, through an app known to be encrypted. She swiped to answer. “Hello?”

  “Kaylee, its Mia.” The lieutenant’s face filled the screen.

  “Is everything okay?” The background of the image was a plain wall and a gold frame around cheap, mass-produced artwork. “Is it Conroy?”

  “Actually, yes.” Mia smiled. “He’s awake, and he asked to talk to you.”

  “Me?” Kaylee settled back onto the stool. She used the pop socket on her phone case to stand it up so she could take another drink.

  The image shifted and she saw him. Pale faced, hooked up to machines.

  “Conroy.”

  “It looks worse than it is.”

  Kaylee swiped away an errant tear. “I don’t believe you. I think it’s exactly as bad as it looks.”

  Zander grinned. “You tell ‘im.”

  Conroy said, “Are you okay? I heard about Trina and her dad.”

  “Don’t worry about me.” Kaylee frowned, shaking her head. It was weird seeing her own image on the phone screen. She looked like she’d been dragged through a hedge backward. And Stuart had kissed her forehead? Talk about pity affection. He probably couldn’t wait to get her out of his life, and that was why he was down there torturing himself into trying to remember what he might never have known. How long would he keep trying until he gave up?

  “Just concentrate on rest and healing. Everyone is praying for you.” She sniffed, feeling the swell of emotion. “I’m glad you’re all right.”

  Conroy smiled. His eyes drifted shut, and Mia shifted the phone back to herself. “He was really worried about you. The first thing he said when he woke up was to tell me to call you, so he could see for himself you are okay.”

  Kaylee smiled. “I’m okay.”

  “And you’re safe?”

  She nodded, then flipped the camera so Mia saw Zander in the kitchen where he was still standing, within earshot. Another man, freshly showered, walked in and grabbed two smoothie glasses.

  “I want updates.”

  Zander snapped to attention. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Mia grinned. Kaylee flipped the camera back to herself and said, “Between my new friends, and Dean and Stuart, I’m sure I’ll be safe.”

  “Trina is still at large. Basuto is keeping me posted on the search for her.” Mia said, “Zander?”

  He lowered his glass, clearly listening to the entire conversation. “I’m on Kaylee until otherwise instructed. The boys are going to do a sweep for anymore fake federal agents and snipers.”

  “You can find snipers?”

  His expression shifted. Kaylee swallowed, unsure if Mia wanted to know how Zander reacted to that question. “Uh… he’s looking a little…”

  “Affronted?” Mia shrugged. “It’s all hands on deck. And those military snipers? You can walk right by one and have absolutely no idea they’re even there.”

  Kaylee felt her eyes widen. She glanced over at Zander who simply shrugged. “We’ll look anyway.”

  “Okay,” Kaylee said. “When Conroy wakes up again, tell him thank you for thinking of me.”

  Mia nodded and they signed off the call.

  Zander said, “They’ll miss the days when craziness was only about tracking down one of the founders or a murderer bent on revenge.”

  Kaylee blinked.

  “Don’t worry. We won’t let anything happen to you.” Zander folded those ham arms across his chest, his glass empty now and on the counter beside the protein powder. “Ted is looking into the corporation Stuart and your brother used to work for.”

  “It wasn’t the CIA?”

  Zander said, “Private company that was supposed to be a contractor for the US government. Ted hasn’t found much yet, but I gave him a couple of ideas on places to look. Rocks to turn over.”

  “Do you think they’re the ones who betrayed Stuart and my brother?”

  “Possibly.” He shrugged one shoulder, very noncommittal.

  It was irritating that he gave so little away, and she had a feeling it could get old real fast. As it was, probably he was cognizant of the fact they didn’t know each other.

  “For the record, not handing over the flash drive to the first person who asks for it is the right call.”

  Downstairs, Stuart cried out again.

  Kaylee flinched. “Are you going to ask me for it?”

  “Would you give it to me?”

  “Do you have the password?”

  He shook his head. “Maybe there is no password. Maybe Brad is the one who betrayed them both, and there’s nothing on the device. Or it’s all a setup, and they’re going to blame Stuart for the whole thing. There are multiple ways this could play out. They get what they want, and good folks are destroyed in the process.”

  “Are you honestly that cynical?”

  “I’m a realist. There’s a difference.”

  Kaylee pressed her lips together. She had incrementally figured out how to handle everything and thought she was coping pretty well. Now she’d had a gun pointed in her face. Trina had threatened to destroy Stuart’s legs, and now he was downstairs reliving the worst experience of his life, just so she didn’t have cause to withhold the flash drive from him.

  Dean strode in, sweat on his forehead.
She twisted in her seat, about to burst from wanting to know the result of this crazy experiment.

  Her stomach knotted. “Did he remember?”

  Nineteen

  Stuart had taken a shower and put on fresh clothes. His back was still sticky from not having toweled off all the way, and his hair was wetting the back of his collared T-shirt.

  He felt that this must be what showing up for your first date ever felt like when the girl opened the door. Or her father. Maybe that was what happened in most young relationships.

  Either way, he stepped into the common area and saw Kaylee. Her jaw flexed as she looked at him, probably remembering the fact he’d screamed in her face. When he’d been lying on the floor in a bad way. After she left, he’d had Dean inject him with a powerful, mind-altering drug. It was now nearly out of his system.

  “Here.” Dean handed him a strong cup of coffee.

  Stuart could smell it, and the liquid looked almost thick. “Did Zander brew this?”

  The big man looked up from his laptop, open on the dining table. He never sat. The man was on his feet constantly from the time he woke up to the time he laid down to go to sleep. And for the five hours between, he was unconscious. Seriously, one time there’d been a massive storm that nearly pulled the whole roof off, and he’d slept through the whole thing.

  “Drink it.” He went back to his computer and to a map he’d pulled up on the screen.

  Stuart glanced between Dean and Kaylee. “What’s going on?”

  Dean said, “We’ll get to that. How are you feeling?”

  There was zero point lying, or pretending. Dean was his doctor. Though, not officially. “Shaky and hungry.”

  Dean strode into the kitchen. “Like you have the munchies, or you’re so hungry you want to hurl?”

  Stuart took the opportunity to move closer to Kaylee, who still hadn’t gotten up. She didn’t need to stand. But she also didn’t need to look at him like he might bite her head off at any moment. Then again, he’d strangled her and he’d yelled at her. He deserved her wariness.

  He just didn’t like being a fresh source of fear for her.

  Stuart slipped into a stool so he appeared less imposing. Not the one next to her, but close enough. “Both.”