by Mikayla Lane
“We are a group working to rid them of their influence in the government and around the world. Obviously, we don’t exactly announce that to the world in general. It seems to me, you know what that is like.” Viper said, trying out his hunch to see if he was correct.
With her body half on top of his own, there was no doubt that he was correct. The energy she radiated to him couldn’t lie to him. She pulled quickly away from him, as if knowing she was giving away too much information to him.
Lara stood quickly and turned her back to him for a moment, gathering her thoughts. She was surprised when she heard him stand more easily behind her than he had earlier. It had to be the adrenaline kicking in from the helicopters; she thought. It was a good time to reach their destination.
Grabbing his arm again, she set them off at a faster pace and hoped they could make it to the cave before the rush wore off both of them. Thankfully, her shoulder was numb, but without the vicious pain to keep her awake, it was becoming increasingly difficult to continue. She needed to rest.
Fifty-two minutes and two more helicopters later, they finally reached the cave. Lara breathed a sigh of relief as she deposited Viper on a rocky shelf around thirty feet inside.
“Wait here. I need to make sure we have no innocent furries that we’re scaring.” Lara whispered in his ear, hoping not to startle him in the dark.
The man was like a rock. Most people would be freaked out to have been led into a dark hole and left alone, but he seemed to trust her every move and word. It… unnerved her.
Moving further into the deep cave Lara noticed that the only thing there that evening was a small family of possums. The nonchalant look told Lara that they would all be safe and happy if she and Viper stayed where she had left him.
She saw no reason to frighten the animals if she and Viper would be just as safe closer to the opening as they would be farther back near the animals.
Making her way through the dark to Viper, she popped a light stick from her pack and activated it. Looking around through the eerie yellow glow of the stick, she was thankful when she saw that not much had changed since the last time she had been in here.
Moving behind Viper, Lara pushed a few slabs of rock out of the way and pulled a pack out of the space inside. Laying it beside Viper, she began pulling items out of it and laying it on the rock beside him.
“Here’s some water and an MRE. I’ll get you patched up, and we’ll make you some food.” Lara said, handing him the water and silver pouch. She quickly pulled her hand back when she felt the electricity snapping at her the moment they touched.
She stared for a moment at his green eyes, the yellow glow of the light stick making them appear to swirl with black. His stare made her feel naked, vulnerable in a way she hadn’t felt since John.
Pulling her gaze away was harder than she expected, and she almost applauded herself when she did.
“Thank you.” Viper said, once she broke the connection and started going through the backpack again.
“So, tell me about these people you work for. Are they government?” Lara asked before putting the antiseptic on the cut on his forearm and began cleaning the wound.
Viper sucked in a breath at the burning pain in his arm. He wasn’t sure what was worse, her attempts to clean it or her ability to avoid actually touching him while she did it. He greatly preferred her touch while they spoke, he could read her energy as clearly as the words she wouldn’t speak.
He had learned a lot from her in the hours that she had led them here. Much more than she would have ever willingly told him, he was sure. Which meant it was more imperative than ever that he speak to his brother.
“We are not associated with any government. The… terrorists have infected them all. You could call us a ragtag group of those who are aware of what is happening, and trying to stop it. How did you come across them? Most people don’t even realize they are there.” Viper said evenly, watching as she ducked her head and looked away from him as she finished wrapping his arm.
“Let’s see your leg.” Lara said, stealing a glance at his face. She waited until he moved his leg onto the rock and let him push the pant leg up and over the gash in the side of his calf.
“We…” Lara began before clearing her throat and continuing again. “My best friend and I encountered them overseas. Unfortunately, they also encountered us. He didn’t make it. How many of them have infiltrated our government? How many of you are there?”
Viper almost smiled at the excitement he could feel pouring off of her when she asked if there were more of him. She was a fighter; he had no doubt of that.
“There are thousands of us, working all over. You have information on them don’t you? That’s why you’re out here… hiding, isn’t it?” Viper asked, watching her reactions carefully as she tended to the cut on his calf.
Lara stole another glance at the man, before pressing a little too hard on his cut. She ducked her head as he sucked in a breath through his teeth.
“Where is your base? Who is your leader? What was your mission here?” Lara asked, squeezing the antibiotic pack onto his cut.
“You are full of questions, but not so forthcoming in your own answers. I can understand your hesitance to trust. What I have seen alone has made me just as distrustful of your people…” Viper began but was cut off by Lara.
“Wait. What do you mean by ‘my’ people?” Lara asked studying his face.
Viper felt like smacking himself for his stupid mistake. She was very intelligent; he thought. Most people wouldn’t have picked up on that little detail or would have overlooked it. He would have to be more careful with his words until he knew what the hell was going on.
“The military.” Viper said, nodding at her uniform and hoping Lara would accept his excuse. He withstood her penetrating stare until she finally looked back at his leg with a slight nod.
His initial assessment was correct, her own team, commanders or both had betrayed her. He wanted to learn more, but the exhaustion hit him so quickly he swayed before she caught him.
“Hey! Give me a second to get something ready for you. Can you stay here on your own?” Lara asked, staring at him as if to judge his strength.
As soon as he nodded, Lara wasted no time in heading farther back into the cave. Moments later, she returned with a bulky rolled-up grey item. Viper watched with rapidly dwindling energy as she flung it out in front of her and laid it down on the ground in front of him.
“Come here.” Lara said holding out her hand to him. Viper didn’t hesitate to take it and grabbed her tightly. Both of them jerked back slightly at the rush of energy that hit them. Lara tried to pull her hand from Viper’s, but he held it too tightly.
Lara started to panic, trying to pull her hand from Viper’s as he stood, his unfocused green gaze staring at her as if he could see into her soul. As soon as Viper felt her fear, he pulled away from her and immediately swayed, the loss of her energy hitting him quickly.
Lara didn’t want to touch the strange man again, but she also couldn’t let him fall. Grabbing the front of his charred and ripped shirt, she pushed him to the ground and helped adjust him onto the sleeping bag she’d grabbed from her stash in the cave.
Lara was thankful that the strange adrenaline rush she got when she touched him only affected her if she touched his bare skin. It didn’t seem to bother her if she just touched his clothes and limited her contact.
“I’m sorry. I just need a few hours to rest.” Viper apologized as she pushed him back until he was lying flat on the ground on the sleeping bag.
He struggled to focus on her as she stood back up and chuckled at him. “It’s understandable; you're pretty beaten up. I’m actually impressed that you made it this far without collapsing sooner. Just get some rest. We can’t leave until tomorrow anyway.”
Viper closed his eyes and listened as she moved quietly around the cave for a few minutes. He knew when she extinguished the strange yellow light and heard her move towards the cav
e opening.
When she didn’t move for several minutes, Viper knew that was where she would stay while he rested. She would keep watch to make sure he was safe. He knew without a doubt that she would keep her word.
Because Viper knew her. Maybe not the woman she was, but he knew her soul as well as he knew his own, and he knew he needed to heal as quickly as he could in order to get her to safety, to Dread and Ratoka.
Because she shouldn’t exist. She shouldn’t be here. He needed to find out, not only how the hell this was possible, but what the hell he was supposed to do with her now.
Chapter Three
Lara waited until she heard the deep, even breathing of the strange man before opening the bag she’d carried with her to the cave entrance.
Pulling out the leather knife sheath, she carefully placed it between her teeth and bit down, testing its strength. Satisfied with the give in the leather, she kept it in her mouth as she opened the bottle of alcohol with her right hand and set it aside.
Lara unbuttoned her shirt and sucked in a deep breath as she moved the material off her shoulder. Grabbing the bottle of alcohol, she quickly poured it over both sides of her shoulder before she could change her mind.
She silently gasped for air as the burning pain slammed into her senses, causing her hand to shake so hard she dropped the bottle on the floor of the cave.
Lara bit down hard on the leather sheath as she struggled to fight the black spots filling her vision and the scream that threatened to explode from her throat. She fought to take slow, deep breaths and shuddered slightly when the pain finally eased enough for her to continue.
She made quick work of bandaging both sides as best as she could with one hand before stashing everything back into the small bag and buttoning her shirt again.
Holding the bottle of water between her legs, Lara opened it with her right hand and set the cap aside. She popped open two of the packs of pain reliever and downed them at one time along with half the bottle of water. She’d take some antibiotics once she got to the cabin, she thought.
She was lucky. Very lucky. The bullet not only went through; it hadn’t broken any bones that she could tell. Lara squeezed her left hand into a loose fist and winced at the pain that shot up her arm. She could use it if she had to, she thought, but it wouldn’t be fun.
Leaning her head back against the rocky wall, she closed her eyes for a minute. She was exhausted. More so than she normally would be, even with the extra activity and change in destination. Shaking her head, Lara listened to the sounds of the forest.
She could tell by the subtle sounds that they were alone and hadn’t been found. Yet. The quick response of those choppers told her that whoever Viper was they wanted him pretty badly and had no intention of giving up on finding him anytime soon.
However, she was having a hard time taking the leap that he was one of those people, like John, who was truly a good person. Honestly, trying to help make the world a better place and do the right thing. People like that were rare in this world.
Lara didn’t have the kind of luck that would drop someone like that in her lap. Someone she could trust enough to give the tapes to, to help her find the people who killed John.
She couldn’t deny that she felt something for Viper. An instant connection like she had felt when she had met John. Only it had felt so much more intense and deeper than what she had felt with John. Then again, she thought, maybe she was finally cracking up. It would explain Viper’s disappearing bruises and injuries.
There was no way, in the rising moonlight, as close as she was, that she had misjudged the extent of the injuries on his face. His jaw had been swollen to the size of a tennis ball. His left eye was almost swelled shut. And there was a bruise that had traveled from his chiseled jaw to his temple.
In the light of the glow stick, his facial injuries didn’t even need tending. The swellings of his eye and jaw were almost completely gone. The small cuts that had been scattered around his face, and neck were now nothing more than specks of dried blood that she had easily wiped away.
Even the cut on his forearm had closed dramatically since she had first seen it in the clearing. No one could heal that fast. She had either seriously misjudged his injuries, or she was losing her mind.
Either option was unappealing to her. If she was losing her skills to judge something so simple, she wouldn’t make it long out here. If she was crazy, then she would end up in a VA run psych ward, if she went back. Either way she would end up dead. Dying out here, alone, was a better plan, she thought, and felt more dignified.
She’d think about it once she got the intriguing stranger somewhere safe, like she promised him. If she wasn’t losing her skills, she would bet that if he was telling the truth, then his people would be coming for him. All she would have to do is keep him alive long enough for his people to find them.
The problem would be setting up a system of clues for his people, but not for the enemy. She had a feeling Viper would be able to come up with something unique that would only speak to his people if they saw it. Lara made up her mind that she would have him leave the clues for them to follow when he woke up.
As long as she could keep them away from the cabin, she could easily disappear into the forest when his people came for him and head to the cabin when they were gone. She wasn’t going to take any chances that the cabin would be discovered. By anyone, if she could help it. She was under no delusions that she could trust the beautiful stranger. Or anyone else for that matter.
Lara pulled her rifle across her lap and stretched out her legs, trying to get more comfortable. Leaning her head back against the wall again, she thought back to the clearing, hoping that she’d remember a clue as to who he was. And why she felt so… strangely, around him.
She’d been shocked to see the men in the clearing and thought they were there for her at first. Then she saw him. He was staring defiantly at the asshole who had hit him. His green eyes had flashed with fierce determination, and Lara had felt like the years of loneliness had disappeared the moment she saw his eyes.
Lara hadn’t cared if he was good or bad at the time, all she knew was she had to save him. She had recognized the men who held him. They were all surprisingly similar in appearance to the ones she, and John had encountered overseas. Similar builds, height, jaw lines…… the only variations seemed to be eye and hair color. Even the hairstyle was the same severe military cut.
The most important detail she had seen, had been the same shoulder sleeve insignia that the ones in Afghanistan had worn. It was an insignia that she and John had never seen before, denoting a unit none of them had ever heard of and couldn’t find any information on.
John had asked around and was told the same thing everyone else who asked had been told. That they were a specialized unit on a separate mission and were using their location as a base of operations. They were to be ignored and forgotten.
Those men in the clearing with Viper were wearing that same badge. Even if her instincts and soul hadn’t screamed at her to try to save Viper, the fact that those men were of the same unit that killed John was enough of a reason to eliminate them in her mind. She had probably saved dozens of men and women just like John by doing so, she thought, giving herself a mental pat on the back.
Viper was nothing like those men, and it had nothing to do with the fact that he was so much like John in so many ways. She guessed his height to be around six-foot six and weighed at least three hundred pounds. Most of which was solid muscle, from what she could tell by the size of his arms and the way he filled out his uniform.
John had been big like that, and he’d shown just as much attitude as Viper had. Before they had executed him, she thought sadly. But there was something else about him. Something that called to her in a way she had never felt before.
Lara smiled wryly. It would figure that she would finally find a man intriguing, at her age, and her shelf life had already hit the expiration date. She always had bad timing; she tho
ught.
While they hiked to the cave, Lara noted the coordinates of the clearing where she had found Viper. Pulling out a map, she cross checked the location with where she heard two loud blasts earlier that morning.
She had assumed, at the time that it was the quarry doing their weekly blasting a few days early. If she had been paying more attention, she would have realized that the blasts were not normal, and they hadn’t come from the direction of the quarry at all.
Lara mentally kicked herself for being so stupid. If she hadn’t been so distracted she might have been able to make it to the wreckage. There may have been innocent people that could have been saved.
Lara fought the memories that came rushing at her. It felt so real that she could swear she could even smell the acrid smoke of the burning vehicle, see John laying half out of the window, flat on his back.
He had been trying to slide out of the flipped Humvee when the men had walked up to him and without blinking an eye, they had shot him in the head. Two shots to the head and her brother was gone. Then she’d blacked out.
She came to four days later in a small village. An isolated tribe had found her and pulled her from the wreckage. If she hadn’t been trapped inside, hidden under one of the seats, she would have been killed with John.
Lara fought back the tears that had begun to fall silently down her cheeks. Using her sleeve, she wiped furiously at her face until it started to sting from the pressure she was using. She had to pull herself together, or it would be Viper next, and she wasn’t going to let him die.
Taking several deep breaths, she tried clearing her mind. She turned her focus outward, like she had when she was a child, allowing her senses to soar around her.
Lara breathed deeply, the scents outside of the cave engulfing her. She easily imagined herself wandering among the trees and wild flowers that grew outside, passing silently among the various night creatures that hunted and crept along the forest floor and in the skies above.