by Anna Hackett
Her lower body spasmed. She watched him stride towards her, every part of her filled with electricity.
He pushed her back into the armchair, then he kneeled between her legs. His big hands pushed her thighs apart, baring her to him. He made a humming noise and pressed his mouth to her.
“Cruz!” Her hips jerked upward. The sensation was…indescribable.
He worked her hard. He lapped at her, sucked on her clit, his tongue stabbing into her, not letting up until she was sobbing his name. Her orgasm crashed over her, her back arching.
Then he stood, tore his clothes off and scooped her up.
He set her on her feet and bent her away from him until she pressed her palms flat on the seat of the chair. When his hand curved over her buttock, she pushed back against him. “Yes.”
Cruz pumped into her with one hard thrust.
A groan escaped her throat.
“Tilt your hips,” he growled. “Take more of me.”
She thrust back against him, their bodies slapping together. It felt so good to be filled up by him. It was so raw, so real.
“Damn, mi reina, I could fuck your forever.” His guttural voice rasped over her ear.
Her skin tightened, her nipples hard as pebbles. She felt her release coming, growing to frightening proportions. “Harder.”
His fingers bit into her ass and his other hand slipped over her belly. He used his fingers to spread her open and found her clit. She thrashed against him.
“That’s it, bella.” His mouth grazed the side of her neck. “Come for me now.”
And she did. She screamed so loud she was sure his neighbors would be complaining in the morning.
A second later, he groaned and his cock pulsed inside her. He buried his face against her neck and growled out her name.
***
Damn, he felt good.
As Cruz moved around the tiny kitchenette, making breakfast, and deliberately rubbing up against Santha at every opportunity, he felt on top of the fucking world.
He’d made love to Santha until they’d both been exhausted and he’d slept well with her wrapped up in his arms. Perfect.
And now she was here, in his space, and while she was dressed in cargo trousers and a T-shirt, her hair was mussed and her face relaxed. She was even humming under her breath.
She set some slightly singed eggs down on the table. “Breakfast is served.”
He brought over two glasses of protein drink and raised a brow at the eggs.
She sat and shrugged. “Told you I wasn’t much of a cook.” She nibbled on the edge of some toast. “I want to go and check in with Noah and Elle as soon as we’re done.”
Cruz nodded. “They should have eliminated some of the bridges around the city—”
“Maybe they have a location?”
He shook his head. “They would have called us.”
Santha’s shoulders sagged. “You’re right.” She took a bite of eggs. “I thought I might go and visit Bryony. I want to see if there’s someone who can cut her hair.”
“Liberty,” he said. “She takes care of stuff like that. Always has a cloud of blonde hair like she stepped out of a salon.”
Santha paused and studied him with a considering eye. “She’s a good…friend of yours?”
Shit. The eggs in his mouth turned to concrete. Liberty liked men, especially soldiers. She was sexy and unafraid of it. Cruz had shared the sheets with her once. He swallowed. “Ah…all I can say is that I only have eyes for you now, mi reina.”
Santha’s eyes narrowed and she shook her toast at him. “And don’t forget that, soldier. I’m rather handy with knives—” a narrow smile “—and if you get forgetful, I may have to pay Ms. Cloud-of-Blonde-Hair a visit…after I’m through with you.”
Right. He took a sip of his protein drink, then he grinned. “Damn, you’re sexy when you’re mean.”
She laughed and forked up more food. “I’ll track down this Liberty and see if she’ll do Bryony’s hair. And I want to check and make sure Bryony slept okay. She was talking about broken bridges and scary faces…” Santha stopped, her brow creasing.
When she trailed off, Cruz set his fork down. “What is it?”
“Scary face. When Bryony mentioned a scary face, I thought she was just talking about the raptors. But she said face.” Santha snapped her fingers. “Luna Park!”
“Luna what?”
“You aren’t a local, so you probably don’t know about it. There used to be a small, historic amusement park on the northern side of the Harbor Bridge. It’s really old. And it has this giant face at the entrance.”
Cruz straightened. “We need to check it out.”
“Can we get a drone over there? Confirm any raptor activity.”
He nodded. “I’ll get Elle on it.”
An hour later, Cruz stood beside Santha as they watched Elle furiously tapping at her computer and swiping the screen, taking the necessary steps to view the drone feed. Slowly but surely, the rest of Hell Squad had also filed in.
“I don’t know why all you grunts have to be in here,” Noah grumbled, glancing at the assembled crowd.
“Can it, Kim,” Shaw said. “I know you prefer talking to your computer chips and hard drives, but an occasional conversation with an actual human could help your lack of personality.”
Noah gave Shaw a bland stare. “You’re only proving my point. You standing here all glowering and scowling won’t make this go any faster. Don’t you have something to shoot or wrestle?”
“Look you—”
They both cut off when the door opened and General Holmes strode in. “You found something.”
“One of the rescued prisoners remembered something that narrowed down the location of the raptor lab,” Marcus said. “Luna Park.”
Holmes looked at Elle. “You have confirmation?”
“I’ve been running a program to analyze the drone feed of that area.” Elle tapped the screen. “Here are the results.”
Images filled the screen.
There were raptors all over Luna Park. In every image but one.
Santha gasped. She focused on a slightly blurry picture of a line of humans chained together, being led into a building.
“We’re going in,” Marcus said in his grit-edged voice.
Holmes’ jaw tightened. He opened his mouth—
Santha slashed a hand through the air. “No resting or waiting or planning. While we rested last time, they were killing those people. They know we’re onto them now, so there’s a good chance they’ll start euthanizing other humans as well.”
The general raked a hand through his dark hair.
Marcus crossed his arms. “We’re going in.”
Holmes nodded. “Go. Get them out. And take whatever resources you need.”
Chapter Fifteen
The Hawk ride was silent and tense. All of Hell Squad sat silently, mulling over the possibilities of what they would find at Luna Park. Doc Emerson sat in her chair, her hands fiddling with her m-scanner.
Santha stroked her crossbow. Time to end this. She’d help free any prisoners, and then she was going after the commander.
Elle’s voice came through their earpieces. “No raptor signatures at the Luna Park location.”
Several people cursed and Santha’s hand clenched on her weapon.
“There are several human signatures, though,” Elle continued.
Santha exchanged a look with Cruz. “Trap?”
“Could be.”
Marcus stared at the floor for a second. “Doesn’t matter. We have to help those people.” He arched his neck to look into the cockpit. “Finn, don’t bother dropping us too far away. If this is a trap, they know we’re coming.”
“Roger that, Marcus.”
The Hawk dropped them near the remains of the northern side of the Harbor Bridge. The bright afternoon light glinted off the waters of the harbor. As they jogged toward the park, the ruins of the bridge loomed overhead. Once, it had been an ico
n of the city, stretching over the harbor like a solid metal coat hanger. The center of the bridge had been blown away, leaving jagged, twisted metal behind.
They rounded the point and the face of Luna Park came into view. The gigantic visage was at least ten meters across, multi-colored, with towers flanking it. It’s wide, smiling mouth was the entrance to the park. Somehow, the entire thing had escaped damage during the raptor invasion.
“Bryony was right, it is creepy,” Cruz said as they walked through the mouth.
Everything was quiet. No sign of any raptors. Inside, was a wide avenue flanked by colorful buildings made to look like circus tents and castles. It should have been cheery and welcoming, but the park had an eerie, haunted feel. The rides sat silent, and the stalls and restaurants that would have once sold food and drinks were derelict. A large Ferris wheel was visible in the distance ahead, drunkenly tilted to one side.
“The human signatures are in the large building with the yellow-and-white striped roof. It’s called the Big Top. It was a function center and concert hall,” Elle said.
Santha spotted the large building, with its name emblazoned above the main doors in a circus-style script. Sometime during the last year, the letter B had fallen off.
“Got it,” Marcus murmured. “Let’s move, Hell Squad.”
They entered through the glass doors, Claudia and Gabe going in first.
The foyer contained a large bar, where guests would have grabbed a drink and a bite to eat before a concert. Now, all the bar stools were scattered across the floor like fallen Skittles.
Claudia waved them toward the doors leading into the main auditorium.
“Hell,” Marcus muttered.
There were no raptors inside, but what Santha saw made nausea roll through her stomach.
In the huge, open area, there were far more beds than there’d been at the other lab.
Every bed was filled with bodies attached to various machines. At the back of the room, where Santha guessed the stage would be set up, were rows of small cages, stacked two high against the wall. Quiet moaning filled the room.
“Doc?” Marcus said.
Doc Emerson pushed forward. “I’ll assess everyone’s condition, work out who we can move.” She set to work, determination in the set of her jaw. “See if you can find Dr. Lonsdale.”
The team spread out. Santha moved down the row of beds, searching the pale faces. At the same time, she went to work, undoing the straps holding some of them to the beds.
“Found him,” Gabe called out from the second row of beds.
Santha yanked at a strap that refused to budge. The woman in the bed had her eyes open, and her mouth gaped. She stared, unseeing, at the ceiling.
“Dammit, come loose,” Santha muttered, yanking harder.
“Here.” Cruz leaned in from behind and pulled the strap off.
“Thanks.” She closed her eyes for a second. “This is…”
“I know.” He pressed a warm hand to the nape of her neck. “We’ll do what we can to help them.”
Santha let her gaze drift over the beds. She already knew a good number of them wouldn’t survive, or if they did, they’d never be the same. She didn’t need a medical degree to know that some of these people had been broken—physically and mentally.
“Shit. Guys, take a look at this.” It was Shaw.
Santha and Cruz hurried over to the back corner, deep in the shadows, where the sniper stood. He had his hands on his hips, his back tense.
“What is it?” Marcus said, striding up.
“Look,” Shaw gestured.
Three large tanks stood in a triangular grouping. Three bodies hung in the cloudy liquid inside—two men and one woman, her hair floating like blonde seaweed around her head.
“What the fuck?” Marcus bit out. “Are they alive?”
As Santha neared the tanks, one of the men moved and she jerked back. “I…think so.”
She peered through the glass. What the hell were the raptors doing? The man’s skin was mottled with dark patches. Then she spied something back behind the tanks and gasped.
“It gets worse.” Her stomach turned over. “Look.”
A pile of dead bodies lay discarded on the floor behind the tanks. On the top, a man with his chest cracked wide open, and a woman with most of her insides on the outside of her body.
“Shit,” Cruz muttered.
“Bastards,” Santha spat.
Doc Emerson walked up, her jaw set. “I can’t help them all. No matter what I do, even with nano-meds, the damage is too extensive.” She shook her head. “What’s been done…I’ve never seen things like this.”
“We can help them,” Marcus said darkly. “We stop their misery.” His gaze turned to the tanks. “We won’t leave anyone here for those alien fuckers to mess with. Their suffering ends here.”
With that, the team went about their gruesome rescue mission. Those who were able to be saved were loaded onto iono-stretchers. Those too far gone were euthanized using the meds Doc Emerson had brought with her.
Marcus assumed the grisly task of draining the tanks and pulling out the three people inside. But as soon as the fluid was gone, the men and the woman died.
“I’m out of drugs, but I think that’s everyone,” the doctor said, fatigue dragging her shoulders down.
Marcus nodded. “We’ll continue to load onto the stretchers and get them ready for transport.
Cruz was a constant presence by Santha’s side. And she was grateful for his quiet strength. This place…it left her feeling scraped raw.
But he was really quiet. “You okay?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No. This is…”
Yeah. There were no words to describe this.
“Cruz?” Marcus called out. “I need a hand over here.”
“On it.” Cruz touched her shoulder, then jogged over to Marcus.
It was then Santha saw a movement in one of the cages on the back wall. She frowned and peered through the gloom. She’d thought they were empty.
As she neared, a hand reached out between the metal bars. A slim, human hand with long, ragged nails.
Santha peered through the bars and into the thick shadows. “It’s okay, we’re here to help you.”
A harsh growl came from the cage. It sent a rush of goose bumps over Santha’s skin. She crouched. “We’re going to get you out of there.”
“Too…late for me.” The rasping voice was hard to understand.
And it was female.
“Let me help,” Santha said.
The woman moved, coming closer to the bars.
It took Santha’s brain a second to realize what she was looking at. Half the woman’s face was mottled with bruises and dark patches where it looked like the skin had died. Her eye was swollen closed.
But the other side of her face was pretty, with bronzed skin and a sad green eye.
A very familiar green eye.
The floor felt as though it had dropped out from under Santha, like the world had suddenly been thrown sideways. Her heart constricted.
No. No. No!
“Kareena?”
***
The anguish in Santha’s voice snapped Cruz’s head around. He charged toward her. She was standing near the cages at the back of the large room.
Then he saw the woman pressed against the bars.
A woman with the same color eye as Santha.
Oh, fuck. “Santha?”
“It’s Kareena. We have to help her.” Santha’s usually composed face was a mask of horror and pain. “Dr. Emerson!” She yelled the doctor’s name. “Please, please help.”
Cruz wrapped an arm around Santha, feeling the tension running through her. He waved the doctor over. She came at a jog, holding her scanner.
“Santhy?” The woman shifted in the cage. The raspy voice sounded hesitant, confused. “Is that you?”
“Yes.”
The woman shuddered, then she growled at Emerson’s approach. “Stay ba
ck.”
“Kareena, this lady is a doctor, she’s here to help.” Santha pulled away from Cruz and crouched down near the cage.
Emerson shot Cruz a worried glance, then looked back at Santha. “You know her?”
Santha’s chest shuddered. “She’s my sister. Kareena.”
Sympathy flickered over the doctor’s face. She leaned in closer. “Kareena. This is an m-scanner. I’m going to run it over you, okay?”
Kareena didn’t respond but she moved closer to the bars. Santha moaned and Cruz cursed. Kareena had an ugly, ragged row of stitches running from her belly button to her neck.
The scanner lights blinked, then it beeped.
Cruz watched Emerson’s face. Saw the way it smoothed into professional blankness. Not a good sign. Not good at all.
She stepped away and nodded at Cruz and Santha to move closer. “I can’t make sense of all the scan results. They’ve…removed most of her organs and replaced them with…I don’t know what. Whatever they’ve done to her…it isn’t reversible.”
“No,” Santha whispered, her eyes wide.
“I don’t know what we can do.” The doctor sighed. “She’s dying.”
“There is no living with this.” Kareena’s growling voice had them all spinning to face her.
Her hands gripped the cage bars. “It burns like acid, like an angry beat inside me.” Then her face fell, her eye filled with misery. “It hurts. It’s eating me alive.” She extended a hand through the cage. “Help me, Santhy.”
Santha instantly grabbed her sister’s hand. “I will. I’ll get you out and we’ll find a way to make it better.” Her fingers gripped Kareena’s hard.
Kareena made a choking sob. “God, I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too.” A tear ran down Santha’s cheek. “I’m so sorry. If I’d known you were alive…”
“It’s okay. Tell me, are you safe? You aren’t alone.”
“I have been. I’ve been fighting these alien bastards—”
“Please, I want you to take care of yourself. You were always horrible at that.”
Santha gave a hiccupping laugh. “I’m learning. But I’ve had a little help.”
Kareena’s eye flicked over Santha’s shoulder and landed on Cruz. “Who’s he?”