“Julia?” He suppressed the wave of panic gnawing at the edge of his voice.
She raised her hands. “Stop. I need to think. There’s too much happening right now.” She jabbed a finger at the door behind him. “I’m freaking scared Chittrix are going to come storming down that corridor at any moment. I don’t have unlimited time. Neither does this scraggy community we’re living in. We’re hanging on by our fingernails. The Sweeper is a priority. It needs to be done now. Did you see how scared everyone was in the communications room this afternoon? They were petrified.”
Julia shook her head, and her tone dropped an octave, forcing him to strain to hear her final words. “I don’t know if there’s room in my life for us right now.”
He waited for her to say something else, anything to soften her words. But she didn’t, and they faced each other for an interminable moment.
She picked up a tiny screwdriver and began scratching at a screw that was completely locked tight. “We had a deal, didn’t we? That deal kept us safe. It meant I could work, and you could go out there and do what you needed to do without me falling apart, scared to death you wouldn’t come back.”
He swallowed the thick lump in the back of his throat. “Julia. Things change. I’ve changed.” He still hadn’t said what he’d come here to say and it skated on the tip of his tongue.
He took her hand. “I think I—"
“I can’t do this.” She jerked her hand away abruptly, knocking a cup of abandoned tea off the desk. She held her hands up in a placating gesture. “I’m sorry.” She fumbled behind the computer for a box of tissues and began mopping up the spill, dabbing ineffectively at the splashed equipment, her hands clumsy and awkward.
Sawyer rubbed the rigid muscles in his neck. “I haven’t even finished my sentence.” His voice was edgy, on a sharp rim between anger and affection. He glanced away, composing himself. She wasn’t going to push him away so easily.
He covered her hands with his. They were small and delicate, like tiny birds. With his thumb and forefinger, he could easily encircle the delicate bones of her wrist. He ran his thumb across the soft skin, feeling her pulse beat. When he looked at her, he noticed the dark circles under her eyes for the first time.
“Why are you trying to mess things up?” Her voice cracked.
“I’m not messing anything up,” he replied, his throat constricting. “What we have, it’s not real, Julia, and there isn’t time for that anymore. We have to stop fooling around and pretending we don’t care.” He looked her straight in the eye. Jesus, if she didn’t just bore to the very center of him with those brown eyes of hers. “I care. I care about you.”
She shrugged. “If what we have isn’t real, then all the more reason to put it out of its miserable existence.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. What was she talking about? “Are you even listening to me? I’m not talking about ending our relationship. I want more.” He stopped, unable to continue.
Her eyes were bright and feverish. She tore her gaze from him, blinking hard.
Shit, he hadn’t come here to upset her. He wanted to make her happy, for fuck’s sake.
He spoke in a low voice. “You don’t mean that. I know you don’t. What’s your plan? Never feel anything for anyone? That’s not you, Julia. I know you’re not that cold.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand. I just can’t do this anymore. What we had worked for a while, but it was never going to last. I’ve been an idiot. I let myself be distracted. Now, I have to get things back on track. I have to focus.”
“No.” He gripped her trembling hands. “What we need now is to take care of each other. That’s why we’re hanging on and fighting.”
Her expression tightened. “Don’t tell me what I need. You’re describing a pipe dream. Something we were peddled in movies before all of this.” She gestured at the worn military room. “Now the fight against the Chittrix must take precedence over everything, and for me, that includes you. I’m sorry.” She wrested her hands from his and retreated behind her desk, refusing to look at him, her attention fixed to the floor.
Sawyer rubbed the back of his neck, air hissing through his teeth as he released a long, slow breath. “You’re so fucked up, Julia, and what’s worse, you don’t even know it.”
Her head snapped up. “I don’t need you to look after me. I can take care of myself. I’m good at it. I’ve been doing it for years.” Her voice lowered. “You’ve had plenty of other women. Like Beth. There will be more after me too.”
“I don’t want anyone else and why are you bringing up Beth?”
Julia pressed her lips together and crossed her arms. “Nothing. Forget it. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
She stalked to the door and wrenched it open. Impulsively, he cupped her cheek, but she flinched from his touch, and he released his hand as if scalded.
“Just go,” she said. “You’re expecting things from me that I can’t give you. I have to focus on my research.”
His mouth was dry as he drew on the last vestiges of his reasoning skills. “We’re going back to find these fucking Chittrix in a few hours, and I wanted to be honest with you. I hoped…I thought you might feel the same but…” His shoulders sagged. Her face was unwavering. She wasn’t going to change her mind.
She shook her head. “It’s for the best. We can still be friends.”
“That’s not what I want Julia.” Because I’ve fallen in love with you. He clenched his hands into fists in his pockets before the tremors betrayed him. He could barely breathe, his chest rigid as he struggled to hold it together.
He spun away before she shut the door in his face, his heart numb as he strode down the corridor without any idea where he was going. Right now, he didn’t care, as long as it was as far away from Dr. Julia Simmons as possible.
31
The Jackal TSV lurched, slamming Julia against her safety harness before her skull ricocheted back against the barely-padded headrest. Hardy cackled from the driver’s seat. Across from her, Anna hung on to her own shoulder restraints with both hands.
“Hardy, quit driving like a moron!” Violet shouted.
A stream of expletives from Hardy shot over the driver’s headrest.
Anna grimaced. “At least we can’t see all the hand gestures from here.”
Above Julia’s head, the Sweeper was firmly strapped to the roof of the TSV. She focused on the long, sleek shape, trying to distract herself from the rollicking drive.
They’d left the Command Base at dawn, the sky still flushed with pink hope. Julia had piled into the Jackal with Hardy, Violet, Anna, and Bailey, one of Darr’s men. Sawyer rode in the larger Coyote TSV with Garrick, Darr, Foster, and Sandford, another recruit from the scavenger ranks.
The two vehicles were tracking each other into and across London to a rendezvous point a mile from Crossness. There they would go their separate ways, one team to the north and one to the south, but there was safety in traveling together for as much of the route as possible.
Julia was glad she didn’t have to see Darr’s face, but it was debatable if Bailey was an improvement. He was ex-army, a mechanic, he’d said as he wedged his expansive form into the narrow bucket seats of the Jackal. Julia had attempted to pry further information from him in the first hour of the journey. If she was going to put her life on the line with the man, she wanted to know more about him. But apart from an obsession with engines, she’d run into a brick wall. If he had a personality, he kept it well hidden. Finally, he’d run out of admiring expletives to describe the TSV and slumped asleep, his head bobbing with the jolting of the vehicle.
Violet was busy beside him, her hands a flow of motion, checking and rechecking the pulse rifle in her lap. Her lips moved in a silent litany above her ceaseless fingers. She shook her head in amazement at the lolling scavenger. “Please, tell me I get to kick him awake when we get there.”
A smile tugged at the corner of Julia’s mouth in reply. She looked out the
narrow window slit at the ragged green-gold remnants of autumn, grateful there was still beauty in all the destruction. She focused back inside the utilitarian vehicle, back to her Sweeper. Her stomach was queasy with nausea and she needed to concentrate.
Anna followed Julia’s eyes to the restrained Sweeper above them. She grinned. “I knew you could do it.”
Julia returned a half-smile. She was elated she’d slotted the final pieces of the puzzle together. She’d worked through the night, anything to distract herself from thoughts of Sawyer. Her insides were torn up thinking about him, the hurt and pain on his face scored into her memory.
She was completely bewildered. How had she managed to make her life so complicated? And wrong. Everything around her was amiss, and the only thing that had changed was Sawyer. When did that happen?
He’d said he wanted more.
No one had ever said that to her before. She’d never let any man get that close. She’d always moved them on as soon as they started looking a bit misty-eyed. She hadn’t even seen it coming with Sawyer. He’d completely blindsided her. Probably because she’d been too wrapped up in herself. Was that because she felt the same? She pushed the thought away. Crap.
Anna squeezed Julia’s knee and gave her an affectionate smile. Julia rested her hand on top of Anna’s, comforted by the touch.
“You gonna tell me what’s going on?” Anna tipped her helmet visor up out the way so she could properly eyeball her friend.
“Quit looking at me like that.”
Anna was not in the market for being dissuaded. “Julia. You’ve had a face like a cat’s bum all day. I’d like to know why before we go out there and plant all these bombs. What gives?”
Julia shook her head. If she started talking now, she might not be able to stop.
“What’s he done?”
“Who?”
“Now you’re just being annoying.” Anna pinned her with an exasperated stare.
Words piled up, emotion thickening and obscuring Julia’s throat. “We split up,” she finally muttered.
“You split up?” Anna failed to keep the disbelief from her voice.
“Keep your voice down.” Julia jerked a thumb in the direction of the cab. The last thing she needed was Hardy regaling this to Sawyer later. “It was too much. He was getting all serious. It was distracting me from my research.”
“You’re an item with Sawyer?” Violet had perked up.
Julia flushed. “No. I’m too busy.”
“You’re too busy?” Incredulity illuminated Anna’s face.
“Busy concentrating. Acoustic explosive devices don’t just create themselves you know.” Julia waved her hand. “It’s fine. It’s one of those things.” Eventually, I’ll start feeling like a normal human being again. She’d told him she didn’t want him. Now, shaking her way to possible imminent death in an armored tin can, nothing seemed further from the truth.
Anna cocked her head. “You’ve always kept your distance, Julia, I understand that’s your thing. But I honestly thought it was different with him.”
He is different. That’s the problem. “I told him it’s over. It’s done.” She emphasized the finality in her voice, but it was wanting.
“You don’t sound very sure.”
Definitely not. Shit. Julia scratched at a non-existent itch under the neckline of her bio-armor, her face burning.
Anna wasn’t going to be stopped. “You’ve always looked after me. You were like the mother hen of Magdon Down. I don’t know if I would have survived those first few months when the world fell apart without you there. You’re good at being strong for everyone else.” Anna hesitated, searching for the words that Julia didn’t want to hear. “It’s different now. We’re with good people. You can let your guard down a little, take some risks.”
Julia squared her shoulders. If she started talking about what was going on in her head and her heart, she’d never stop. She pointed at the roof of the TSV. “The Sweeper. My research. It’s more important than ever.”
Anna’s blue gaze was unflinching. “It is, but at the cost of everything else?”
Julia tipped back her head. It was time to grow up.
“No,” she agreed, her voice heavy with resignation. Anna always wore her down. It was one of her more annoying characteristics, even when put to good use. “I’m deluded.”
Bailey snorted between the three women, but his eyes remained shut.
Julia took a deep breath, and it all spilled out. “I thought I was doing the right thing, that I needed to focus on the Sweeper, and I was so sure, but then he screwed it up when he told me he couldn’t keep doing what we were doing, and then I told him to go and since he left…”
She ground to a halt, hurt choking her up. How had she gotten herself into such a ridiculous predicament? She rubbed her eyelids with her knuckles. “It was too late by then. I’d told him to go. My life needs a rewind button.” Her lower lip trembled, and she bit it to stop the wobble and halt the tears.
Anna squeezed her knee again. “Have you spoken to him since?”
Julia shook her head. “I might have made the worst mistake of my life. I told him it was over. I said I didn’t want him. After everything I’ve been through, I still managed to epically fuck it up. What if he gets hurt? Or worse?” She lapsed into silence, her brain replaying the cheese and toast he’d made her only a few nights before, his face beaming. “He makes me happy, and I screwed it up. The one good thing in my life, the one decent thing in this crappy living-in-a-bunker-under-the-ground hellhole, and I told him to get lost.” She shuddered, aware of Violet and Anna exchanging glances.
“You’re going to speak to him, aren’t you? You can’t say all this and then not tell him.”
“Anna, I don’t know how to speak to him, or how to fix it.”
“You’ll find a way.”
“He won’t listen.”
“He’s just being an idiot,” interrupted Violet.
Anna fired her a warning glare. Then she turned her attention back to Julia.
“Make him. Second chances are thin on the ground.”
The vehicle lurched, and Julia shot out a hand to stop her head from hitting her rifle.
“Guys,” Hardy shouted. “Wake that lazy bastard up. We’re at the rendezvous point.”
The time for talking was done.
Julia squinted as she climbed out the TSV. The autumn sun hung low and fat on the horizon. The light was subdued, a dusky purple haze breaking through the clouds and giving the abandoned landscape a surreal atmosphere. She took a deep breath, savoring the scent of rain and decaying leaves. She had always loved this time of year, and the circumstances of today did not diminish her enjoyment of the season. If anything, they enhanced it. Seize the day and all that shit she thought as her boots sank into soft clay mud. Shame she hadn’t thought about that last night. Fuck.
Garrick ran through the plan one final time, constantly interrupted by Foster who hopped from foot to foot as his excitement built. As usual, he was the only member of the team who appeared oblivious to the danger. Julia was sure he’d missed the gene for fear when he’d been conceived.
Based on the information provided by Darr, they planned to make a two-pronged attack on the Chittrix nest. They’d effectively cut off any escape routes and plant Foster’s explosives. Destruction of the nest would be down to old-school TNT, Foster’s explosive of choice for underwater detonation. The handheld Sweeper would be primarily for self-defense. It sounded so simple.
Sawyer knelt across from Julia, one set of scratched knuckles resting on the dirt as Garrick spoke. He studiously avoided eye contact, looking anywhere but at her.
Darr rocked back on his heels close by. His shoulder had been patched up by Edwards and was hidden under a grey armored vest. He shot a sharp look at Sawyer. “Let’s not end up dead.”
Sawyer grunted and muttered under his breath. “Chance would be a fine thing.”
Garrick’s gaze flicked between the two me
n. Assessing. He straightened his legs and stood. “We’re rejigging teams.”
“What?” Panic flashed across Sawyer’s normally calm face.
Garrick ignored him. “Sawyer, I want you in the Jackal with Hardy and the others. Violet, you take his place. Let’s swap shooter for shooter and keep things equal.” He paused, waiting for any dissent but everyone remained silent. Even Darr was quiet, picking at the earth with a blunt stick.
Julia worried her lip between her teeth. Sawyer was on her team now.
“Darr?” Garrick asked.
Darr tossed the stick on the ground, waiting a long second before answering. “Let’s get this done.”
32
Suffocating dampness enveloped Sawyer as he descended into the sewers after Julia and Anna. The air was thick and cloying in his nostrils, rank with scent of rotting vegetable matter and another more acidic overtone he attributed to the hidden alien presence below.
“If I never see a sewer again, it will be too soon,” he complained, following the bobbing light of Hardy’s headlamp. Ahead of Hardy was Bailey. Neither he nor Hardy trusted the man to take the rear, and Hardy had insisted that Anna and Julia walked in the middle. No one had argued with Hardy’s knitted brows and ‘don’t shit with me expression’ as he’d outlined the team order.
Bailey prattled as they walked. The man didn’t have an off button. It was only a matter of time before Hardy gave him a warning punch in the mouth to shut the hell up. Sawyer looked forward to that. It might take his mind off all the other crap running through his head right now.
He tapped at the headset connected to his helmet. It crackled intermittently but provided contact with Garrick’s team approaching from the south. He wasn’t sure how long the radio would hold out as they descended further into the labyrinthine maze of tunnels, even though the two teams were moving toward each other. Sawyer calculated that they had about an hour of walking before each group was positioned for planting the charges to seal off and destroy the Chittrix nest.
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