He switched off the light and began guiding her toward the dimly lit end, which must be the way out. She’d thought it was dark outside, but this was an entirely different level of blackness.
“This is huge,” she said. “Big enough to drive a truck through.”
“From the smell of it someone has.”
She sniffed the air and realized how else this place was different from the mine shaft. Instead of guano, she smelled gasoline fumes.
Gage halted.
“What?”
“Someone’s coming.”
She heard it then, the faint rumble of a truck. It was coming from the direction of the glow. From outside.
“Where do we go?” she yelped.
“Don’t panic.” And then he was towing her into the blackness, deeper into the tunnel.
She resisted. “But we don’t know what’s in there.”
He pulled her against the wall and moved faster. “I’m feeling for a door. A turn. Anything where we can duck out of sight.”
The rumble grew louder until it was nearly a roar. They were running now, and her foot caught on something as she struggled to keep up.
“Come on.”
“I’m coming.” Her heart galloped. Her legs burned. She moved as fast as she could but the noise was closing in. He hooked an arm around her waist and practically lifted her off her feet as they surged forward. The noise was like a freight train bearing down on them.
“Gage!”
Lights illuminated the far side of the tunnel as the truck rounded a bend. In an instant, they’d be lit up by headlights and mowed down. Suddenly her arm jerked sideways and she was smashed against a wall, Gage’s body pressed against her.
“Don’t move,” he yelled into her ear.
He’d found some kind of nook, and she was flattened against the back of it as the engine noise reverberated all around, making even the walls shake. Kelsey held her breath as the tunnel brightened and the noise became deafening.
And then it receded. Just like that, it was fading away, along with the light.
Gage eased back a fraction and Kelsey let out a breath. She was still clinging to him, gripping his T-shirt in her fists. Something hard dug into her neck and her back.
“You okay?”
“Uh-huh.” She managed to let go of him.
“That was close,” he said, and the utter calm in his voice sounded unnatural. Her feet were frozen in place. Her heart hammered.
“Come on.” He took her hand and tugged. “Let’s get out of here before it happens again.”
Numbly, she took a step forward and pushed off the wall. She paused for a second and turned around but it was too dark to see what she’d felt.
“There could be more, Kels. We need to move it.”
“Wait.” She curled her fingers around something straight and wooden. She pulled her other hand free and groped around. “I think I found a ladder.”
Gage pushed up the grate and moved it aside, then swiped away the camo netting. He climbed out of the hole and reached a hand down for Kelsey.
“Careful. That last rung is a bigger stretch.”
She hoisted herself up onto the ground and brushed the hair from her eyes.
Gage glanced around, on alert for even the slightest noise. Whatever traffic was moving through here, he didn’t want Kelsey anywhere near it.
He stood up and pulled her to her feet. It was dark out but not as dark as in the tunnel, and he was able to get his bearings from the shadow of the ridge to the west of them. They were southeast of the big boulder. He still hadn’t laid eyes on the supposed “mine” entrance, but he guessed it was tucked into the nearby canyon wall.
“What is this, some sort of ventilation hole?”
Gage replaced the grate and the netting. “Air. People. Guess anything can move through it.”
He took her arm and led her toward the spot where he’d parked the pickup. He chose his steps carefully, wanting to avoid another uncovered hole. Beside him, she was limping slightly, and he knew her fall had been worse than she’d admitted.
“You think Dylan found this place?”
He heard the dread in her voice. But as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t candy coat it for her. “Yes.”
The word hung over them as they trekked back to the boulder. “I found something interesting, too, while I was looking for you. There was a big delivery truck parked near the entrance to the tunnel.”
“Did anyone see you?”
“Don’t know. The truck was empty but there might have been a security cam.”
“How do you know it was empty?”
“Cargo door was up. No one in the cab.” Gage stopped and looked around. A few more paces and he stopped again. He studied the shadows. He consulted the compass on his watch. He pulled out his penlight and beamed it around uselessly.
“Well, fuck me.”
Kelsey moved closer. “What now?”
“They stole my truck.”
She halted beside him. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m completely serious.”
Gage did a three-sixty but it was no use. He knew where he’d parked the damn thing. They’d fucking boosted his pickup.
He took a few steps toward the boulder and the hair on the back of his neck stood up.
“This has to be a mistake. Maybe—”
“Shh!” He jerked her down beside him as he pulled out his SIG.
“What?”
“Quiet.” He eased close to her, until his mouth was nearly touching her ear. “Two men, about fifty yards east of us. Walking this way.”
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
He hauled Kelsey behind the nearest boulder, then whirled in the direction of the gunfire. A muzzle flashed, maybe eighty yards south.
Two shooters directly south. And two men approaching from the east, probably armed.
Another staccato of bullets, and Kelsey yelped beside him.
“Oh, my God, Gage!” She crouched in a tight little ball against the rock.
He rested his arms on top of the boulder and peered over it. Another muzzle flash, about fifty yards out.
“Why don’t you shoot back?”
“That’ll give away our location,” he said. “Their aim’s all over the place. I don’t think they know where we are.”
Another rat-tat-tat-tat.
Gage cursed. He needed to get her out of here before these assholes got them pinned down. If it were just him or him with his teammates, they’d wait these guys out and pick them off, one by one. But he wasn’t willing to put Kelsey in the middle of a firefight.
“Get your—”
“I got it.”
He glanced down and saw that she was, indeed, clutching her weapon. Good girl. He took her arm with his left hand. “There’s a ravine just west of us. On three, we’re going to sprint for it. Try not to make a lot of noise, okay?”
She made a little squeak of agreement.
“One . . . two . . .”
Ping! A shot ricocheted off the rock near his head.
“Three!” he said and they made a dash.
Eight
Kelsey stumbled over the rocks, not knowing if her next breath would be her last. Her right hand hurt from gripping her pistol. Her left hand hurt from gripping Gage’s belt. And her ankle was pretty much on fire.
“Where are we going?” she asked and heard the quiver in her voice. They’d hiked a long time without a word. It had seemed like hours, but maybe it had been only minutes. That last burst of machine-gun fire—so close it had made her ears ring—had wiped out even the slightest capacity to think.
Gage halted and gripped her arm.
“What?” she whispered.
“Listen,” he said in a voice she could barely hear.
She listened. She heard nothing. Just like she saw nothing. She had no inkling of anything around her, with the exception of Gage. He was a giant, rock-hard presence beside her. And somehow, miraculously, he seemed to have an unerrin
g sense of where they were going.
“What do you hear?” she whispered.
“Nothing. That’s good.” He pressed her hand against his waist, making sure her fingers were still hooked around his belt. “Let’s keep going. I’m pretty sure we’ve lost them.”
They moved forward again, and Kelsey tried to breathe. She willed her heart to slow down.
The ground beneath her feet grew steeper. The air felt lighter. A breeze stirred. She still couldn’t see but she knew somehow that they were coming out of the ravine.
“Where are we going?”
“West, around the mesa.”
“But isn’t the camp northeast?”
“I don’t want to go back the way we came. We’ll skirt the mesa, then go straight north, then cut east as soon as I’m sure our tail’s clear.”
Kelsey’s mind reeled. Walking around the mesa could take hours, and that was in daylight. The thought of hiking so far in the pitch-dark, over this treacherous landscape, seemed impossible.
But Gage said they needed to do it, so they’d do it. He was the SEAL. She was the lab rat who’d gotten caught up in some horrible game of cat and mouse, and she was by no means confident she was going to make it out alive. At least not without help.
“How’s the ankle?”
“Fine.” How had he known about that? She hadn’t uttered a word of complaint.
“You need me to carry you?”
Yeah, right. “It’s fine,” she said. “I don’t think you could, anyway. I’m not exactly a featherweight.”
“Doesn’t matter. If it starts to hurt I’ll carry you.”
“It’s fine,” she said. They were running for their lives from armed thugs, and yet that tiny insult made her eyes sting with tears.
She was definitely losing it. She needed to get a grip on her emotions. With every painful step, she told herself to just keep moving, to just keep up with him. Forget about everything else and just get back to safety.
“Interesting place for a tunnel,” Gage said. “Not a major urban area within a hundred miles.”
“Maybe that’s the point.”
“Interesting tunnel, too.”
“How do you mean?”
He glanced back at her over his shoulder. “It’s clean.”
She scoffed at him. It had smelled like car exhaust. And if her knees and palms were any indication, the place was filthy. “By what standard?”
“By illegal border tunnel standards. I’ve done some ridealongs with Border Protection in San Diego. The tunnels there are tagged up with graffiti, littered with trash, crowded with warring gang factions.”
She waited for him to make his point.
“This one was different. Quiet, clean, hidden. Almost like it’s privately controlled, probably even guarded. I don’t think it’s any accident those guys walked up on us.”
“You think they heard us pull up?”
“That or they could have a surveillance system. Anyway, it explains some of the violence going on around here. This route is probably controlled by a cartel that doesn’t want outsiders around.”
Gage stopped and stood still for a few moments. She’d learned to get quiet when he did this. “I’m pretty sure we’ve lost them.”
“Okay.” She wanted to feel relieved, yet she sensed a “but” coming.
“But we can assume they have night-vision goggles,” he added. “So it’s possible they could spot us, even if we don’t see them.”
Her blood chilled at the thought. “Why do you think they have night-vision goggles?”
“I heard a vehicle, earlier, but there weren’t any headlights, which means they were driving blind again. That’s how you do it.”
“And you know this because . . . ?”
“I’ve done it, running desert patrol. You mark the roof of your vehicle with glint tape so friendly planes don’t mistake you for the enemy. Then you kill the lights and go.”
Of course. Simple as a trip to the minimart.
Kelsey glanced around at the inky blackness, then edged closer to Gage. The warmth of his body was the only comforting thing in her universe right now. That and her Ruger. But the gun wasn’t really that comforting because she couldn’t see worth a damn and her hands were shaking. She tucked it back into her holster, where at least she wouldn’t accidentally shoot herself or Gage.
They trudged on through the darkness. He moved with confidence, as if he knew exactly which way to go, even though it was black as tar. Kelsey didn’t talk. She didn’t complain. She didn’t say one word about the terror swamping her, but she knew Gage sensed it. He kept touching her hand, as if to reassure her, while he guided her every step.
She wouldn’t think about it.
She wouldn’t think about Dylan, her student. A young man she should have been responsible for.
She wouldn’t think about Gage, who’d been shot at and had his truck stolen while trying to protect her.
And she wouldn’t think about the memories those gunshots had triggered, memories she worked hard to keep locked away. She wouldn’t think about the panic churning inside her, and how even now—probably an hour since the last sputter of gunfire—she still couldn’t stop shaking.
Gage would understand, probably. He’d been in a war zone. But her nerves were raw, and her fear was choking. She couldn’t talk about it now. All she could do was walk and hold on to him and hope that they’d make it out of this.
A brief flash, then a rumble of thunder. Kelsey glanced up at the sky. Not a star in sight. No moon either. At sunset, the clouds had been thick and ominous. She knew if their current luck held, at any moment the sky would open up.
Another flash of lightning, and then it did.
Kelsey was soaked to the skin and limping, and Gage’s last offer to carry her had been met with a snarl. The woman was stubborn, and two hours of hiking through the rain on an injured ankle hadn’t dampened her resolve.
He stopped to look around and she bumped into him. He checked his watch and, in the dim green glow of the dial, he glimpsed her face. She looked wet and ragged and in dire need of a hot shower. Plus, she was shivering, probably less from the rain than the still fresh fear of being chased by men with machine guns.
“I’m going to carry you now. No arguments.”
Without waiting for a response, he gripped her waist and scooped her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.
As expected she went ballistic.
“Stop it!” She pounded on his back. “Stop it right now! I can walk, damn it!”
“We’re going up a hill,” he said, carefully balancing his load as he made his way up the steep terrain.
“Put me down!”
“Quit squirming unless you want both of us to fall off this mountain.”
She went still, thank God, and Gage adjusted her weight. He felt the backs of her knees under his hands, and her breasts pressing into his back was making it seriously hard for him to concentrate.
Finally they reached the top of the steep incline. A few more steps and they were under the protective shelter of a rock overhang.
Gage set her on her feet and her shoulders quivered.
“You okay?” he asked.
A shudder moved through her and he heard her teeth rattle.
“Here, you’re freezing.” He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against his chest. Even soggy and cold, she felt incredible, and he tried not to focus on her body as he shared his heat with her.
“This is so stupid,” she muttered. “It’s probably seventy degrees out.” Her arms went around his waist.
“We’re wet. And you’re in shock. Getting shot at can do that to you.”
“Does it happen to you?” She tilted her head back and he could feel her breath on his neck.
“I’m used to it.”
“I thought I was used to it, too, but maybe I need more practice.”
He took her by the shoulders and eased her away from him. “When have you ever been shot at be
fore tonight?”
A quiet sigh. “In northern Iraq.”
“That’s one of the most dangerous places on the planet. What the hell were you doing there?”
She drifted closer and her arms went back around him. “Excavating mass graves. Not everyone was glad for us to be there. We ended up needing an armed guard just to get our work done.” She rested her forehead against his chest. “I still have nightmares.”
She shuddered again and his grip tightened instinctively. His few objective brain cells were screaming for him to let go of her, but she felt too good. And she smelled too good. And the realization that she wanted this kind of comfort from him was a perverse turn-on. This was the one woman he could not have, and yet he’d never wanted anyone more. What the hell was wrong with him?
She tipped her head back. “Where are we?” she whispered.
“At the petroglyphs.”
She pulled away and glanced around. “I didn’t realize we were so close to camp. Why’d we stop? Let’s just go.”
He pulled her behind a rock before switching on his flashlight. No sense broadcasting their whereabouts with a lantern. “I want to look at this ankle.” He shrugged out of his rucksack and crouched at her feet. “What’d you do, sprain it?”
“Cut it, going through that hole. Then landed on it wrong.”
He shined his flashlight on her leg and pushed her sock down.
“Ouch!”
“Sorry.” The swelling wasn’t bad. The sock was saturated with blood, though, and he gently pulled it away from her skin. He reached into his pack for a water bottle and doused the cut. It was about three inches long but not too deep.
“We need to get this cleaned up back at the lodge,” he said.
“Do you have any alcohol in your pack? Maybe some hand sanitizer?”
“I’ve got some Super Glue for emergencies,” he said. “But a butterfly bandage should do it for something this shallow. You had a tetanus shot recently?”
She didn’t answer. He shined the flashlight up at her and he saw she was gazing down at him with the strangest expression.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she whispered. “Nothing, I just . . .” She lifted her hand and combed her fingers into his hair and the jolt of lust nearly knocked him over. He switched off the flashlight and rose to his feet. Another hand in his hair, then his heart gave a kick as her cool fingers curled against his scalp.
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