by Hope Anika
“I knew it,” Bridger muttered, his gaze narrow on Ruslan.
“Fire!” Butch screamed.
Smoke suddenly curled between them. Ash’s nostrils stung.
“Motherfucker, let me go!” Jesse snarled. “Jace!”
But his brother turned and ran.
“Jace!” he cried again.
“Now is not the time,” Ruslan said.
Ash caught Jesse’s flailing arms. “Stop. If you go after him, they’ll kill you. And maybe him.”
“Let go!” he raged, fighting her hold.
“I promise we’ll come back for him,” she growled. “I promise. But right now, we have to go.”
“So fucking go!” he snarled. “I’m not leaving without my brother.”
“There is no time for this,” Ruslan said, and without warning, he dropped the boy, who stumbled and then fell to his knees. Before Jesse could push to his feet, Ruslan leaned down and clocked him, a powerful but abbreviated blow that knocked the kid cold. He then hauled the boy up off the ground and slung his prone form over his free shoulder.
Ash slapped her palm against her forehead. “For crying out loud.”
Ruslan’s brows rose. “You would prefer to leave him?”
“I would prefer him conscious.”
“Your argument did not sway him. Plan B was again necessary.”
She was going to take Plan B and—
“You need to go,” Bridger ordered, striding past them. “I’ll stall them.”
Them who?
But then a team of men in black suddenly appeared behind Ruslan, a dark, ominous swarm that made endorphins spike wildly in Ash’s veins. Ruslan nudged her not-so-gently in the opposite direction, and Bridger strode past them, his hands lifting into the air, his eyes narrowing into pale gold slits.
The men in black screeched to a halt as one body, as if they’d slammed into an invisible barrier, and instantly froze in place. Faces slackened; eyes grew distant. Guns dropped to the ground like birds falling from the sky.
Ash watched, and her blood went cold.
Bridger turned his head and met her gaze, his golden eyes glowing with an unnatural inner light. Ruslan nudged her again.
“Go on, darlin’,” Bridger repeated. He suddenly looked far older than his sixteen years. “I’ll take care of them.”
Ruslan pushed her, hard, and she tore her gaze away. Horror gripped her heart and squeezed; blood roared in her ears. Smoke filled her lungs.
“Ashling,” Ruslan rasped. “Move.”
She did.
*****
Wylie stared down at the shimmering blue surface of Red Lake. The man-made body of water was created by a reservoir formed by an ancient earthen dam and fed by the Antelope Flats River. This time of year the lake was steadily shrinking, its banks ebbing further and further from shore as the mid-summer heat slowly baked the basin dry.
From where he stood behind Charlie’s cabin, at the rim of a steep sandstone ridge that towered nearly five hundred feet above the lake, Wylie could see where the lake deepened, the water turning deep blue-green where the narrow canyon that lay hidden beneath ran the length of the reservoir. The cliff rock below him was uneven and porous, the layers of sandstone bright ribbons of brilliant orange, pale gold and blush pink in the greying light of sunset. Clouds built overhead, and lightening flickered on the horizon as the wind rose, brief, strong gusts thick with dust and the smell of ozone and rain.
The storm was almost upon them.
Eva stood beside him, staring down at the lake, which was beginning to form white caps. “Are you mad at me?” she asked quietly, her amber gaze lifting to meet his.
Wylie rubbed the back of his neck. They’d arrived at the cabin half an hour ago, and he’d escaped shortly thereafter to walk the perimeter; it’d been years since he’d been at the cabin, and he hadn’t ever looked at it through a soldier’s eyes. When he was a kid, it had seemed dilapidated and isolated, and it was, but it was also well protected from ambush and easily defensible.
The cabin sat atop the ridgeline, nestled among several huge boulders. It was powered by two large solar panels which Charlie had installed last year, and water was provided through a deep stone cistern that sat half-buried, the recipient of an intricate catch system which utilized the boulders and all of the cabin’s narrow eaves. The plateau of the ridge was less than an acre in size, the land covered in scrub brush, creosote and massive chunks of rounded, eroding sandstone. A small fire pit sat off to the north of the cabin, and tucked between the only two trees on the land—thick, twisted junipers—was a narrow shed just big enough to park the SUV. The rough dirt track that led up the side of the cliff band was steep and deeply rutted and only wide enough for one vehicle to safely travel. There was no other access to the property.
Unless someone had a helicopter. Or was stupid enough to try and climb the sandstone cliff.
Both of which were possibilities.
“Wylie,” Eva prodded, staring at him.
“No,” he replied and turned away from the lake. “I’m not mad at you.”
He strode back toward the cabin, and Eva followed, dogging his heels.
“I’m sorry,” she said from behind him. “I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.”
Wylie halted. He turned to look at her. “But you knew someone might, didn’t you?”
Color flushed her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said again, the words rushing from her. “I hoped it wouldn’t, but I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t mean for it to happen. Wanda...Wanda’s my friend.”
“I know,” he said. Jesus. Just a kid, regardless of what she could do. “But you need to tell us what’s going on, Eva. Otherwise, we’re walking around blind, and these assholes, they’re not going to stop. You know that, right?”
She nodded, the picture of abject misery. “I know.”
Guilt seared him, but...goddamn it. “I’m not mad,” he said again. “But we need cards on the table. The truth—all of it. No matter how bad or crazy it is.”
She nodded. Her chin wobbled, and panic flared through him. “Eva—”
“I’m a freak,” she said, her voice low, as if it were a confession. “I’m sorry.”
Christ.
“Listen to me.” He knelt down to take her narrow shoulders in hand. “You aren’t a freak; you’re a goddamn miracle. But what you can do is always going to scare people. That just means you have to be stronger, harder, braver. Being different isn’t bad, just fucking hard.”
Eva stared at him, her eyes glinting, the ring of green that surrounded her iris glowing like sunlit emerald. Wylie rubbed the back of his neck again. Fucking words. He wasn’t any good at them.
You shouldn’t listen, he thought. I don’t know shit.
But he was the grown up. He was the one who was supposed to know what the hell the answers were, even though that was a lie, that the answers never magically appeared, and only lessons were delivered, painful and scarring.
“Are you my friend?” she asked, watching him with her witchy eyes.
“Of course,” he said gruffly. Jesus, two days ago he hadn’t even wanted to be responsible for ordering a pizza.
Now he had two lives in his hands, one of which he’d freely—and fiercely—vowed to caretake. And there was no longer any ambivalence in him about that decision, no doubt that he would fulfill his promise. The apathy he’d worn like an old coat had disintegrated, and in its place was raw, unflinching determination. Part of it was Wanda, and the crazy, heated, potent connection that tied them. Her derision and distrust—no less than he deserved—and the piercing, painful self-awareness she engendered within him.
He wanted to crush her disappointment and build a monument of conviction in the rubble. Not only meet her expectations, but surpass them. He’d been one hundred percent honest when he’d told her he would take such good care of her she wouldn’t remember when he wasn’t there.
Time. He just needed time.
Which was quickly leaki
ng away.
“They’re going to come,” Eva said.
“I know,” he replied.
Because with what she could do... She would never be free.
Not ever.
To be able to heal... Shit. He’d seen it and hardly believed it. It seemed impossible, fantastical...like a crazy movie. Or a bad dream. But the girl standing beside him was very real, and the painful mix of hope and fear in her eyes as she watched him meant that no matter how impossible it seemed, he had to help her.
Save her. Somehow.
And he wondered how the hell he was going to pull that off, because neither he nor Ash had the kind of contacts—or the bankroll—to make the world safe for someone like Eva. Killing was the least of what people would do to get their hands on her.
“I don’t want them to hurt you,” she said in a small voice. “But they will.”
They would try. Wylie hoped like hell Ash was okay. They’d left the Bandit behind at Ana’s, and he had no way to reach out and check. Wanda had talked him into picking up a couple of disposable cell phones, but he was afraid to use the damn things.
“You let me worry about that,” he said. He pushed to his feet and squeezed her narrow shoulders. “For now, you just stay close and keep your eyes and ears open. Can you shoot?”
He was surprised when she nodded.
“Yeah,” she said. “Joe taught me.”
“Is Joe your dad?”
“No. He’s...he was my friend.”
“Was?”
“He’s dead.”
The words were flat. Her eyes shimmered, and an icy finger traced Wylie’s spine. “You know that for sure?”
“Yes.”
A chill whispered across his skin. And he wondered if healing was the extent of her abilities, because the malevolence staring back at him had nothing to do with making someone well again.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He slung an arm around her shoulders and tugged her toward the cabin. “My dad died last month. I miss him.”
The stiffness eased out of her. “I miss Joe, too.” She looked up at him. “Are you gonna leave us again?”
Shame lashed his nerve endings. “No.”
“You promise?”
His chest went tight. “I promise.”
She stared at him for a long, silent moment, and Wylie wondered what she saw. But he didn’t really want to know. Half of him was rotten...and she had the kind of gaze that saw right through the façade he’d perfected to the decay underneath.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s going to be okay.”
“It’s not,” she said. “Not for a long time.”
Again, that chill touched him. She sounded...certain. As if she already knew the future, and none of it was good.
“We need to talk,” he told her quietly.
“I know,” she whispered.
Cards on the table.
No matter how bad the news.
It was past time.
CHAPTER
-17-
“Goddamn it.”
Ruslan watched silently as Ash tore apart her desk in search of Charlie’s keys. He was not entirely sure why they were necessary.
Pens and paperclips skittered across the scarred wooden surface; a stapler thumped as she tossed it aside. A dark scowl drew her brows low, and her full, lush mouth was a hard line.
She was furious.
“Ashling,” he said.
But she ignored him, as she’d been doing for the last two hours. First in the Jeep, as they’d waited to move in and retrieve Ellery St. Clair, and then after they’d secured the girl, when they handed her and an unconscious Jesse over to Butch, and then drove back to the office in chilled silence.
Ruslan had tried to initiate conversation—they needed to talk about what had happened at Reginald Kline’s compound—but her single-worded, brusque responses made the effort impossible. That she was angry did not alarm him, but her coldness did. Ash was a steady, relentless smolder that flared into flame at unexpected moments—as it had with Bridger, when she’d knocked him to his knees and put her blade to his throat, a moment that had thrust brutal satisfaction through Ruslan and roused his body to almost violent life. She was not icy and controlled and distant.
He didn’t like the difference.
“Ashling,” he repeated.
“Shit,” she muttered. She rolled backward in her desk chair, and scissors slapped the desk. A roll of tape.
“I am not your adversary,” he told her.
“No?” She snorted. “Well, you’re not my partner or my friend, either.”
He stepped toward her. “I am both.”
“No,” she retorted sharply and shook her head. “My partner wouldn’t withhold vital information. And my friend wouldn’t keep secrets.”
Ruslan watched her unearth a stack of bright yellow post-it notes and a long plastic ruler. “It was not my intent to withhold Charlie’s history from you. I assumed you were aware of the time he spent working for the Agency.”
“Whatever,” she said and shoved everything back in the drawer. Then she moved down to the next.
“Ashling,” he said again, disturbed.
“No,” she said flatly. “I’m done, Ruslan. You win.”
He blinked. You win. Why, then, did he suddenly feel like he’d lost? “I do not understand.”
“I give up.” She shrugged. “Do what you want, or don’t. Whatever.”
He stared at her, aware of his heart suddenly beating with unusual intensity. “Explain.”
“I just did.” She removed a pile of legal pads from the drawer and smacked them down atop the desk. “Weren’t you listening?”
He began to stride toward her. “You are rejecting me.”
“See? You were listening.” She leaned down and stared into the drawer. “Shit. What the hell did he do with them? I swear they were here.”
Blood rushed through Ruslan, making his temples pulse. He halted beside the open drawer, and the agitation he’d experienced earlier roared to life.
“We are partners,” he repeated, deeply perturbed by her refusal to acknowledge something he considered a significant accomplishment on his part. To collaborate was not his way; to share was a foreign and uninviting notion. But he had. “We are friends.”
“I don’t think that word means what you think that it means,” she said and sighed.
“Do not be glib.”
She looked up at him, and her brilliant eyes glittered. “Maybe you just don’t have it in you.”
The savagery within him snarled in response. “I am capable of many things.”
“Not trust.”
“Yet I trust you.”
Color suddenly flooded her cheeks. “Liar.”
“No,” he said. “You would not betray me.”
She watched him for a long, silent moment. “I can’t betray someone I don’t know.”
He tried to understand. She made no sense. “You know me.”
Another snort. “Like anyone knows you.”
“Explain,” he demanded again.
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s not important.”
He slammed the drawer between them shut with suppressed violence. Inside him, the wildness seethed. “Explain.”
Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “You’re a lone wolf, Ruslan. I get it. So be lone.”
He stared at her without comprehension.
“I don’t need you,” she told him. “You’re free to go.”
Adrenaline surged through him; his fingertips tingled. “I am going nowhere.”
“You seem to think you have a choice,” she replied with a sharp smile.
“I am going nowhere,” he repeated, a soft, dangerous rasp that made her smile fade. He closed his hands around the arms of the wheeled desk chair she occupied and swung it toward him. Then he leaned down and caged her with his body. “And you will not quit on me.”
She stared up at him, her pulse beating furiously, like delicate wi
ngs in the hollow of her throat.
The thing inside of him roared, infuriated that she wished to push him away. In stark contrast, the voice in his head was cold and clear and sharp.
Stop this and leave. Go.
But he was long past walking away.
“Goddamn you,” she growled, and the seething, restless creature within him calmed. “One more strike, Ruslan. One more, and then you’re out.”
Her scent filled his nostrils: sweet, heady jasmine and peppermint. Her eyes glinted with warning.
“And no more plan Bs,” she added. “The next plan B will land your ass out on the street. Do we understand each other?”
“It worked,” he felt compelled to point out.
Her nostrils flared slightly, and color flooded her cheeks, flushing her skin an even deeper red. Her heat licked over him. The sight of her below him, confined by his hold, made something hot and primitive move through him.
“You aren’t helping your cause,” she told him darkly.
“I did not mention plan B, because you would have vetoed my methods.”
“Exactly.”
“It worked,” he said again.
She snarled at him, and his body went hard and tight. “Do you know why I don’t consider you my partner?”
“No.” He focused intently on her. “Tell me.”
She folded her arms beneath her breasts. “Because being a partner means you don’t act arbitrarily. You don’t make decisions alone. It means we make decisions together.”
A piercing, hollow ache pounded through him. “I do not know together.”
“I know.” She glowered at him. “But you’re going to have to learn, because you have to talk to me, no matter how you think I’ll react. You don’t get to usurp my place in the conversation because you think you already know the answer. Together means we get to the same place working as one. Two halves acting in tandem to produce one whole.”
Ruslan felt as if he had wrapped his hand around a live wire. Her eyes held his, so bright and rich and clear, it was like staring into the Caribbean. Her belief was strong and earnest, and the sensation of hope returned, only stronger, a stubborn, searing flame, branding him inside.
“You have to try,” she told him seriously. “If you can’t try, this ends. No third strike. We’re done.”