The Animal Under The Fur

by E. J. Mellow

  I punch him in the arm.

  “There she is.” He grins while rubbing his bicep.

  “We have to get this back into the lake.”

  Carter frowns down at the crates. “And we just got dry.”

  “I’ll do it. It’s not as heavy once it’s in the water.” I move to take off my shirt, but he stops me.

  “No, no. I will. Lord knows we can’t have you getting wet again.”

  “And what the hell does that mean?” I cross my arms over my chest as he bends to scoop the bags into the crate. “I don’t mind getting wet.”

  “Jesus, 3.” His features pinch in an odd mixture of pain and amusement. “Just…don’t say anything else.”

  “But—”

  “No.” He holds up a hand. “Trust me. We’ll be able to get through this if you don’t talk anymore.”

  “Screw you.” I stomp back to my bag, and even though his voice is low, still hear his quick response.

  “Promise?”

  Normally I’d ignore such a comment, but now as I watch Carter strip off his clothes, once again baring his broad shoulders and tan skin, to slip back into the water, that one little question sends a new twister of confusion through me.

  It waves like a staked flag in the sand, and I’m not sure when or why I’ve begun to take notice.

  But I have.

  38

  Carter

  SIERRA MADRES MOUNTAINS, MEXICO: 1826 HOURS

  They never come back.

  It’s been three days, and besides the two of us, no other humans make their appearance at the lake. 3 and I are both frustrated from gaining no new intel, sore from sleeping on the ground, and impatient for a standing shower and decent meal. Well, at least I am impatient for those things. 3 has a knack for not complaining about anything unless it has to do with me. It’s both a blessing and a curse that our time is almost up to head back to town. A curse because so far we have nothing to show for it besides a drug drop point, and a blessing because despite our usual barbed banter, an almost dizzying heated thickness has seeped into our time together since that strange moment out on the lake, and I’m desperate to escape it.

  I’ve always been attracted to 3. I’ll never deny that, and I don’t think any man could. Her body is the epitome of perfection, and as she stood there, soaked, luscious, and firm after stepping out of the lake, I nearly collapsed on the spot. Taking in her full breasts, flat stomach, and long legs, my attraction went from an unrealistic fantasy and harmless way to nag her to a painful desire to consume. Now I can hardly look at her, watch her tie her apricot hair into a braid or catch a glimpse of her toned form slipping from the water after a wash, without feeling a deep ache in my chest and…much lower regions. I’ve been telling myself that I’ve been in the jungle too long, that it’s because she’s the only woman I’ve been around lately and my usual…frequency of release has been put on hold since this assignment, but even I can hear the desperate lie in these thoughts. The truth is the longer I spend with 3, the more I reluctantly see how similar we are, and in what we differ, I only find myself appreciating her more for.

  There’s no denying Akoni’s statement of her being fiercely loyal. In rare breaks of her carefully walled persona, she lets slip details of her life back in Chicago, specifically about what seems to be her one and only friend, Ceci. If 3 were ever to admit she had a family, Ceci would be there front and center, and I’m more than curious to meet the girl who has allowed a lone wolf like 3 to form such an attachment.

  In quick snippets of us eating our miniscule breakfasts of dried fruit, nuts, and protein bars, I also learn 3’s not a morning person, coming awake when the sun begins to set. As if the bright light of day offends her in some way and only in the warm orange haze of the afternoon can she truly relax into the talents she was born with. I learn she has a weakness for Scrabble, that she would drink orange juice over water if she could, that the only pet she’s ever had was a goldfish that lived for twelve years and whose memory she’ll never replace with another, and that she has thirty-two scars on her body, none of which she’ll explain, but from the few she showed, I found myself desperately wanting to trace them with the tips of my fingers.

  These rare moments of openness are like seeing a shooting star in the sky, quick, mesmerizing, and as soon as it’s gone, I remain awake for hours, eyes fixed, unblinking, into the darkness, desperate to catch another. This is when 3 becomes Nashville, when the genetically heightened K-Op becomes human, a girl with the same emotions and secret desire for connecting to another soul as I have. And just like me, as soon as she realizes she’s let them rise to the surface, have them peek through the safely hidden depths of uncaring, she’s quick to push them down, to drown them in the depths from which they came. After this she goes from a light switch of warm and bright to cold and closed off. I never press her when this happens though, allowing her to turn away, and forgive her curt gruffness that follows. Because not only do I understand such a reaction, but I’m just as scared that I may have opened up about something. For despite me being more alert with her near, I also have never felt more relaxed. A dangerous combination.

  So as we currently distance ourselves from the lake, finally deciding to leave what became our temporary home to check what remaining locales we can in our final days in the jungle, I make a point to jog the last few miles before breaking camp. When we run we can’t talk, and when we can’t talk there’s no threat of me sharing or learning more about the woman in front of me, who’s unknowingly resurrecting a man I had buried a long time ago, left to decay and disappear.

  “This looks good.” 3 slows as we approach a small shallow alcove in a rocky wall. She sniffs the air at the entrance of the cave. “There were some foxes using it, but they’re long gone.”

  “As long as there’s none of their scat that I’ll end up laying on, I’m fine with it.”

  “But it might improve your smell.” 3 slides me a side smile.

  I merely grunt and drop my pack, trying to ignore the way her rare playfulness warms my skin. The first time I saw her smile genuinely, I forgot to breathe for a moment, it was that radiant, and I’ve done my best to suppress the desire to make her grin like that every second of the day.

  Rifling through my bag, I choose between eating an energy bar, an energy bar, oh, and an energy bar! “God.” I throw them all back into my pack. “I can’t wait to binge on all the food when we get to town.”

  “There’s a decent-sized river a half mile that way.” 3 nods west. “I can see if I can grab us fish instead of this hamster food.”

  “Really?” I’m a bit dubious at her generosity.

  “You’re not the only one sick of eating these things,” she says. “I was going to find something else tonight anyway and it’ll only be a little inconvenient to get something for you too.”

  “Well, only if it’s little…” I cut her a wry glance.

  “I’ll be back in about an hour.” She unstraps her bag and pulls out a small switchblade, holstering it to her thigh. “You won’t be scared out here alone, right?”

  “With you gone, it’ll practically be warm and cozy.”

  She gives me one long sardonic glare before turning and sprinting into the tall yawning trees, the streak of her red hair the last thing I make out before the slowly approaching night swallows her whole.

  I keep from moaning in ecstasy as I bite into the tenderly cooked trout 3 caught. Two more rest skewered through the center over a low fire, which special kindle—thanks to SI6 and COA scientists—burns dim and produces no smoke, saving us from easy detection.

  “Do you like the seasoning?” I ask 3, who sits on a small rock on the other side of the flames. She’s in a black long-sleeved thermal and pants, no doubt fighting against the slight nip that’s crept into our night. Her braided hair glows golden against the fire while the rest of her is hugged in the inky blackness of the surrounding forest.

  “It’s okay.” She shrugs, using her knife to pop a sliver o
f meat into her mouth.

  “Okay?” My eyes widen in offense. It took me a good twenty minutes of scouring the jungle to find the right plants to take our meal from camping to glamping. “I don’t believe you. I was conceived in a spice shop, so I think I know a thing or two about adding flavor.”

  She chokes on her swallow. “You were not.”

  “I was.”

  Her gaze narrows. “How?”

  “Well, it happens when a man puts his pe—”

  “Carter.” She throws a fish bone at me, which I easily dodge. “You know what I’m asking.”

  “When it comes to this particular topic, I can never be too sure.”

  “Never mind.” She goes back to carving out her fish, now a little too aggressively.

  “It was my grandmother’s,” I say. “My mother’s mother. When my parents would visit, they would take over her afternoon shift until close. I guess being around all those smells is a natural aphrodisiac or something.”

  “And your parents actually told you this?” she asks with a frown. “Where they…”

  “Bumped uglies?”

  “Had sex.” She cuts me a glare.

  “Yeah, they did.”

  “But why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Would they tell you this?”

  “Um…I don’t know. Because it’s funny?”

  The fire snaps softly between us as her attention moves to it, her eyes fogging over with some thought.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Nothing.”

  “No, what is it?” I sit up from leaning against my log.

  “I guess I just…didn’t know they could be like that.”

  “Who?”

  Blue eyes find mine. “Parents.”

  It’s like someone reaches in and knocks my heart loose. There it is again, another shooting star, and my throat burns from holding back a swallow, desperate to figure out how to keep this 3, this Nashville, with me a little longer.

  “Parents can be like a lot of things,” I find myself saying, surprised I’m even able to talk about this, a subject I swore to never discuss or bring myself to think about again. But seeing the hesitant curiosity in 3’s gaze, the hidden yearning to understand, leaves me with little strength in stopping. Something about this woman has me reacting in ways I can’t predict. Even when a part of me is warning that this might be another one of her games, another ploy to prove just how malleable and easily manipulated humans, specifically men, are, I still can’t help myself.

  “And yours?” She tilts her head. “What were they like?”

  I take in a deep breath, feeling an odd pressure in my gut. Do I do it? Do I say what I’ve locked away for so long? Is she worth it? Is she sincere? She certainly looks it, her eyes penetrating as they gaze at me over the flames, her features soft without their usual scowl. Is this the price of learning more about her? A piece of my soul for a piece of hers? At least from what little scraps we each have left.

  She shakes her head, her demeanor rapidly changing. “Never mind. Forget I asked.”

  “No,” I find myself saying. “It’s okay.” Which is odd, since it certainly wasn’t before. Running a hand through my hair, I lay my fish over our makeshift grate and search for the words I’ve tried to remove from my memory. I barely have time to brace myself from the acute pain that floods in when I find them.

  “My parents…” My voice comes out rough. “Were good people. Understanding and funny. My dad especially, you couldn’t leave a conversation with him without having laughed at least once. My mom was quieter but saw everything. I don’t think my brother and I got away with a single lie growing up.” I smile, staring into the flames. “She patiently listened to whatever tale we wove after getting caught doing something we weren’t supposed to, never showing her frustration or anger, just stared like she knew exactly what we were hiding and letting us word vomit until we cracked under the pressure and confessed everything. She would’ve been an amazing interrogator.” I feel something in my chest thaw at the same moment it prickles in sorrow.

  “You were happy,” 3 says, and I glance up, trying to see if there’s any teasing in her eyes, anything to show that she’s laughing at me, but there’s not, only a weird confusion, like she’s trying to picture the past I’m painting but coming up short.

  And this is when I fully realize just how different her upbringing was from mine, from most, and though I know she doesn’t want my pity, I can’t help feeling just that—sad. How different would she have been if her parents stayed in her life?

  I barely hold in a dry laugh, realizing how pointless such a question is. It’s the same as asking how different I’d be if mine stayed. The answer’s inconsequential because they didn’t.

  Happy.

  Was I?

  “Yes,” I say. “I was.”

  “And now?”

  “Now…now I’m here.”

  She nods. This she understands, agrees with. All we ever have is the present. The past and future are nothing but intangible stretches in time. One we can’t change. The other we can’t touch.

  “Carter.” 3’s soft voice brings my attention back to her, and I take in the way her body sits rigid, her eyes boring into mine like she’s trying to speak straight into my mind.

  “Yes?” I ask gruffly, feeling a mix of every emotion in this suddenly tense moment.

  “Don’t move, but we have an audience.”

  My cells jump in awareness, a ripple of gooseflesh as I barrel back to reality.

  Who? Where?

  “Five men, armed, approaching quickly on foot from half a click away.” She answers my silent question while cutting out one last piece of meat before placing her fish down. She chews slowly as she cleans her blade. “They’ve just split up to surround us.”

  My fingers inch to Minnie strapped to my thigh, screwing on her silencer. “And they’re definitely a problem?”

  As if to answer my question, I hear a light echo of a gun’s safety being switched off.

  I sigh. “And we didn’t even get to have dessert.”

  “Who says it didn’t just arrive?” Her mouth curves viciously.

  Goddamn if she’s not smoking hot right now.

  “There’s two at my six o’clock, aren’t there?” I ask, sensing the telltale twinge in the air of approaching company.

  She nods. “And three at mine. From the sounds of it, they have rifles. When you move, go left and low.”

  “Just tell me when.” I grip my gun in one hand while twirling my newly removed dagger in the other.

  3’s gaze grows out of focus like it does anytime she taps into her senses. She becomes something else in these moments, more animal than human, and I can’t help feeling terrified and in awe watching her.

  The forest grows quiet, as if it too knows what’s coming, before 3’s blue eyes collide with mine. I catch them dilate with a hunter’s pleasure as she whispers “when,” and like a gust of wind blowing out a flame, we both vanish into the dark.

  The bullets whiz past my jacket as I dash behind a tree, placing my night vision goggles firmly in place before taking in the forest now painted in hues of green. The two men were closer than I thought, and I barely made out their location before I dove for cover. They each carry a SBR tactical rifle with suppressor, a gun popularly used for hog hunting, and I don’t know if I should be offended or amused to be considered similar prey. Not far off there’s a gurgle of a man’s scream before it’s silenced—3.

  With my heart pounding, I block out all noise except the close treading of feet to my left.

  Gotcha.

  Swiveling around, I get two clean shots straight into one man’s forehead fifty yards away, his body dropping before his companion lets rain more bullets in my direction. Wood splinters near my cheek as I duck back behind the tree before sprinting to another location, finding a thick, moss-covered boulder. Sweeping my gaze over the surrounding forest, I catch sight of a dark spot in the distance. Another one of our
friends has his back to me, crouched in the brush. He carries a different gun from the rest, small, but with his hand covering its length, I can’t make out the model. I watch as he prepares to stand and shoot in the direction 3 must be. Raising Minnie, I’m about to take him out, when a splash of night passes over my sights. To anyone else it would appear like nothing more than a starlit shadow, but because I know what to look for, I see it.

  I see her.

  Ever so slightly she appears and disappears on her approach to the man, slipping from tree, to rock, to bush, the jungle’s huntress, its ghost. And before he even has a second to realize what’s upon him, I watch her turn from black liquid and mist to solid as she rises behind him, and the poor soul of the man goes from his to hers before the slice of her blade to his neck sets it free.

  In a blink she’s gone, the only evidence of her existence the corpse left in her wake, and my heart ricochets in my ears.

  Dear God she’s exquisite.

  “There’s only one man left,” 3 says beside me, and I barely contain jumping out of my skin and giving away our location.

  “Jesus,” I hiss. “Give a guy a little warning before you slither up next to him.”

  She looks the opposite of sorry as she leans against the boulder. Wisps of her hair have come loose from her braid, and the softness juxtaposes against her sharp features as her breaths come out labored, but more in excited bursts than from any real exhaustion.

  “We should keep him alive for questioning,” I say.

  She nods, and before 3 can pull another vanishing act, I tug her back.

  “This one’s mine,” I say. “You’ve had more than your share of fun tonight.”

  Her eyes spark silver with her night vision. “Fine.” There’s a slight lilt to her lips. “But don’t say I never gave you anything.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.” I cut her a smile before peering over our rock and dashing into the jungle.