by Meli Raine
“Duff,” she whispers.
Sudden movement up ahead leads to leaves fluttering on our right as a gaggle of Boy Scouts run past us, one at a time, forcing us to move over to the left off the path. They’re clearly in competition, the boy in front pelting at a crazy speed down a thirty-degree incline. Lily watches, laughing even harder. A beleaguered parent brings up the end of the pack. I count seven kids huffing. The mom looks at us and gives us an indulgent smile.
“If only we could bottle that energy,” she says, pointing ahead, taking a swig out of a stainless-steel water bottle. “You going to the summit?” she asks, stopping, plainly looking for an excuse to take a break.
“Yes,” Lily says.
“Not sure,” I say at the same time, wanting to hedge my bets. Giving people as little information as possible is standard operating procedure for me. I can’t break it, not even with Lily in my arms.
“Rain clouds are bad up there,” the woman says, catching Lily’s eyes. “Lots of us are leaving.”
Lily just smiles back.
I could get used to this. I could get used to the feel of her skin beneath my fingertips. I could get used to the sound of her laughter as we walk outside, bathed in nature, with hours to do absolutely nothing. I could get used to breathing and having no meaning beyond existing with her. I could get used to the privilege of imagining a future. I could even get used to a world without vigilance.
The opposite of control is love. Lily is showing me that.
The Boy Scout leader passes us reluctantly, moving quickly, calling ahead to her charges to slow down, to wait, to be safe. Lily turns and wraps her arm around my waist, the gesture casual, but also questioning. I confirm what she’s asking by doing the same, moving my arm up to her shoulders, the height difference from the incline making it more comfortable.
Letting her into my sphere of influence is one thing.
Letting her into my physical space for a purpose not solely connected to keeping her alive is another.
For the next two miles, according to my GPS, we just walk. Muscles have memory, but they also have flexibility. They move into the unknown, mapping the territory with oxygen, with reflex, with constant agility. Our proprioceptive sense of the world forces us to be like a gyroscope. We are aware of every part of our body as it exists on various planes, moving with a melodic grace that requires attention, but it’s the absence of focus that allows the beauty to come in.
Bodies can do extraordinary things in that space of the unexpected.
But it’s that empty space we create to allow for the unknown that Lily is carving out inside me.
It’s entirely on me to let it happen.
“Left or right?” she calls back as we hit a fork in the path.
I shrug. “You’re the one in charge. You pick.”
She playfully hits my shoulder. “Duff! Come on. Don’t make me decide everything.”
“Burdened by choice,” I joke, and peel us off to the right. The path is wider this way, and there is more light coming in from the treetops. At the end of a long, open section, the path narrows and moves up sharply. We bend forward at the hips as we climb up, feet setting carefully on solid rock after solid rock, climbing like we’re walking on a ladder that has rungs on either side of a straight pole.
It’s hard work, but it’s good work, the kind that makes your muscles burn from achievement. Her bare calves are in front of my face, the muscles twitching and curving with exertion. Beauty is before my eyes, a restless but certain motion that is mesmerizing.
The sound of my breath in my ears develops a cadence, a uniform drumbeat that takes over. We climb, and we climb, and we climb, until the trees thin out and the path levels off. Lily can't go fast, but what she lacks in speed she makes up for in slow, steady forward motion.
Which is her character.
We stop. To the right is a steep cliff, thick rock jumbled with scrub. There are few trees down that side. It’s glacier-like, as if someone stood in the sky and used an ax, chopping over and over again to create a divot hundreds of feet into the ground.
Lily stares out over the ledge. It’s a good three hundred feet away, so plenty of safe space. “We are nothing, aren’t we?” she says quietly. “It takes coming out here to realize it.” A sad smile plays with her lips. “I nearly died two years ago because of some random event. Some random man shooting me. Wrong place, wrong time. An insignificant blip.”
“Not just any man,” I correct her. “Romeo.” And you're anything but insignificant, I think.
“Yes, Romeo. But in a larger sense, a fellow being sent out to do something evil. They just picked the wrong person.”
“It was an accident.”
“It was an accident that I was shot, sure. But in some ways, it was an accident that I’m alive.”
“It’s a damn miracle you’re alive,” I choke out, hating her words.
Hating them because she’s right.
“What if, Duff? What if you hadn’t been there fast enough to stop the blood loss from the bullet? What if the doctors in the ER hadn’t done everything right? What if there hadn’t been a benefactor like Jane to pay for everything you could possibly imagine? What if my mother hadn’t been so aggressive about my care? What if Romeo had come to my room and decided to use a pillow to smother me? What if that spider that he planted had actually bitten me? What if—”
I silence her with a kiss. All the randomness, the feeling of being a speck of dust in the galaxy, of being unable to control destiny, fades with her in my arms. Her soft mouth moves against mine, warm, wet tongue so good, so right. As the sky darkens and wind begins to threaten a storm, I kiss her until she feels important. Significant.
Mine.
“This is going to end badly, isn't it?” she says against my mouth.
“What?”
She titters. “Not this. Not us. Whatever us is. I mean the whole situation with Romeo. He works for the president, for God's sake. It'll be my word against his.”
“You're going to be open? Finally tell someone other than us?”
“I have to. I can't keep lying to Mom and Dad. To my family. It's exhausting.”
“You're not afraid anymore?”
“Of course I'm afraid. I'm terrified. But now that you, Jane, Silas, and Drew know, the cat's out of the bag. Might as well tell the police.”
“I think that's smart. Just not yet.”
Her hand goes over my heart. Our eyes meet. Wind whips her hair in a horizontal line across her face, covering her nose.
“Lily, listen–there's something you need to know.”
“There's a lot I need to know,” she says, laughing.
“This is about the poisonous spider.”
“What about it?”
“I found out some new information. These spiders were connected to El Brujo. The drug kingpin.”
“What?”
“He owned enormous flower farms in Colombia. He used shipments to the U.S. to hide drugs. The spiders were in them. And a handful of spider deaths are loosely connected to him.”
“How?”
“Looks like he, ah...” Damn. How do I tell her this?
“He what?”
“He put a few spiders in a cage with his victims and let the spiders bite them.”
“WHAT? I thought he was the guy who cut women's arms and legs off for sick fun.”
“That, too.”
“How do you kill a spider when you don't have a foot to... oh.” Stepping back, she moves out of our warm embrace.
Way to kill the mood.
“How do you know this?” she asks.
“I have sources.”
“The darknet?”
“Something like that.”
“You're being vague.”
“Have to.”
“You must hold a lot of really horrific information inside that head of yours.” She stands on tiptoes and brushes her fingertips along my scalp.
I sigh. “More than you can imagine
.”
“You sound like you carry the weight of the world between your ears.”
“Some days it feels like that.”
“Feels? Are you going to talk about feelings, Duff? I thought you didn't have those.”
“I do now.”
This time, the kiss is raw, hard, unyielding, and Lily gives it right back.
A rumble of thunder in the distance makes us separate. She squints over the long horizon, eyes taking in the brewing storm.
Lily pulls out her phone. “Cliché, I know,” she says with a self-deprecating tone. “But it's so beautiful.”
So are you, I think but don't say.
Frowning, she makes a little sound at her phone. “Huh. No signal. We're really way out here, aren't we?”
I look around, pinpricks of unease making my hands twitch. My fingers curl into fists. “Yeah. We are. Where'd all the other people on the trail go?”
“Must have gone left when we went right.” As she plays with her phone, I listen. Carefully.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
I still don't like it.
“We need to stick to the trail,” I call out to her as she moves closer to the edge of the cliff. Although she's still at least two hundred feet from the edge, my nerves jangle, senses shifting into overdrive.
Something is wrong.
Chapter 26
Racing towards her, I act like a shield, but against what? It’s like protecting her from the wind. The smoky clouds. The leaves that sway in the breeze. I can't keep Lily safe from a predator I can't see.
Even I don't have that kind of power.
“What is wrong?”
“I don't like this.”
“Don't like nature?” Standing on tiptoe, she kisses my cheek. “Let's take a selfie,” she whispers.
“What?”
“A selfie. You know. Where you point the camera towards yourself and–”
“I know what a selfie is. Why do you want one?”
“To have a picture of us together.”
“There are plenty of those out there,” I grunt.
“What? Where?” She brightens.
“In your file.”
“My file? I have a–oh. Right.” Her face darkens. “That's not the kind of photo I mean.”
“There are plenty of them with us together,” I say, my mind a database flipping through all of the video and surveillance-camera footage that makes up tens of thousands of gigs on a server somewhere. Every image is searchable. Every image is meticulously documented. We are being surveilled here, which means every time I touch her, I could be giving Romeo more leverage.
“Come here,” she says, waving me closer. I put my head next to hers and scowl. “That’s not a selfie, Duff,” she chides.
I grin.
“Now you look like Pennywise the clown without makeup.”
I grin wider.
“Duff!”
“What?” I say, eyes on the camera.
“I want a picture of us together.”
“This is a picture of us together,” I say through my smiling, closed teeth.
“A real one.”
She sounds a little hurt, which makes me feel bad.
“Then you have to call me Sean. I only give real smiles when you use my real name.”
She starts clicking photos just as I turn away, hearing the sounds of footsteps crunching on forest debris. Two people are moving across the path between the trees and the brush. To my relief, it’s Ralph and Justin. But they’re coming at us from the woods and not up from the trail. Maybe one of them had to take a leak. Maybe both.
My system stands down, the need for vigilance less. This is why we have backup.
“Hey,” Ralph says, not smiling. “What’s going on?”
“We’re taking a selfie,” Lily says, turning towards them. She holds the camera aloft. “You want to join us?”
For a split second, the two guys share a look. It’s microscopic. Lily doesn’t notice it. Lily’s not supposed to notice it. The spot at the base of my neck tingles again. Every breath I take is slow and ponderous at the same time that blood rushes quickly to my hands, my feet, my lips, my cheeks.
We've been set up.
Holy shit.
“I thought you guys were behind us,” I say, keeping my voice low. My hand moves up the side of my body, resting at my hip. I look like a guy who’s taking a break. This is more than a chess game. If I’m wrong, then I’m just an over-reactive freak with a trigger-happy complex. If I’m right, no one’s going to know about it because I’ll be dead.
Lily notices the change in me, even if she’s oblivious to the signals Ralph and Justin are putting out.
“We just thought we’d catch up to you.” Justin gives Lily a dazzling smile. He’s a charmer. Lots of guys in security are. If you’re the type to sleep with women in order to get information out of them, you can go far in this field. Justin’s one of those. He moves close to Lily, his gait one of practiced sensuality. “It’s beautiful up here, isn’t it?” he says.
I pay attention to the pattern of their body language. Both move behind us, separate from each other at opposite ends of an imaginary horseshoe that Lily and I are in the center of, with the open section facing towards the cliff.
“Did Gentian and Foster tell you to come here?” I ask. “To come here close to us? You have some message to deliver?”
Justin pulls his phone out of his front pants pocket and laughs. “No signal up here. Can’t communicate with home base.”
“Yeah, I noticed that, too,” Lily says, completely oblivious. “My phone doesn’t work, either.”
“It’s so remote up here,” Ralph says. “It’s just man vs. nature, isn’t it?”
“You sound like English class,” Lily says. “Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Man.”
“Right. Man vs. Man,” I say under my breath.
She stiffens. That was my goal. Now she gets it.
Instinct makes her move closer to me. I can see her pulse jump, a vein in her neck doing a dance of terror. No part of me thought I would be in this position today, but here I am. Calculations begin, a complex algorithm involving my gun, Lily, me, Justin, Ralph, and the chances of getting out of this alive.
I can’t predict.
There’s no probability formula that gives me odds that are even remotely testable. I do know this: I’m about to fight for Lily’s life.
But if I don’t save mine, too, she hasn’t got a chance.
“We're good,” I tell them. “You can resume your positions.”
“New positions. Change of orders.” The sky rumbles. Justin looks out at the clouds and grins. “Rain. Perfect.”
Ralph catches his eye. I know what they're thinking.
Rain washes away evidence. My blood.
Lily's blood.
“Change of orders?” innocent Lily asks, breaking my train of thought.
Ralph grins.
Justin doesn't.
He's the one who makes the first move, the gun pointed at me. “We're doing this the easy way,” he says as Lily gasps, the sound turning into a high shriek.
“What are you doing?” she shouts at him.
“Ask Duff.” A self-satisfied huff accompanies the answer, his tongue rolling in his cheek as his face loses all expression.
Her questions buy me time, precious seconds I need to figure out what they're planning. If I were them, what would I do?
“Aren't you two cute?” Ralph says to her, moving closer. “Lovers on a hike. How sweet. Such a shame you were taking a selfie and didn't pay attention to the cliff.” He snatches the phone out of Lily's hand and scrolls through the photos. Holding the screen up to Justin, he sneers. “Perfect. She just took one.” He looks at me. “You definitely shouldn't look to the right when you smile, Duff. Your left side is your best.”
“I'll keep that in mind next time I model for Victoria's Secret.”
Lily gapes at me.
But Ralph's taunting makes me reali
ze what they're doing. Gives me insight.
Gives me an opening.
They're on orders not to shoot. No one wants a bullet in our bodies. This is planned to look like an accident. They might have to pick us up and throw us off that cliff, but they aren't going to shoot us.
Which means there's a chance.
But hell if I know how to find it.
“Stateless, huh?” I blurt out to Ralph, who flinches. Cold, dead eyes meet mine as he recovers.
Hit a nerve.
Survival instinct kicks in. I've killed before. Plenty of times. In battle, or to defend myself or a client. Going into that headspace is like flipping off a long row of circuit breakers until all you're left with is night-vision goggles.
Except instead of lights, you shut off emotion.
You have to. Panic gets you killed. Emotions are great when your life isn't being threatened.
When you're about to be terminated by a predator, they're a liability.
Justin moves towards Lily, making me spread my arms, blocking him.
“It's two on two, Duff, and one of you isn’t a challenge. We can do it easy or hard.”
“Or not at all.”
“Too late.”
“Too late for you and Justin, you mean.”
“Duff!” Lily wheezes, her voice gone, terror turning her vocal cords into a pressure cooker. “Help!”
I'm trying, I think as Ralph lunges, the two of them going after her. Double teaming makes sense. They know I'll fight them off, and right now, they risk falling off the ledge if they divide and conquer.
I go for my gun, but the damn water vest has shifted just enough during the hike to block the holster. As Ralph roughly pushes Lily, knocking into her knees and spilling her to the ground, Justin shoves his hands under her armpits hard enough for her to scream.
I pancake the pile of them.
My vest squirts water everywhere as I splay and flatten them, Lily making screamy-squeaky noises, the guys grunting and working to move and gain leverage. An elbow. A calf. Anything with thick hair gets my fingernails. I bite the thick flesh of Ralph's bicep, making him elbow me in the nose. Doesn't break it, but blinds me for a second. The vest presses against me until a muffled pop is followed by a rush of water that covers Justin's head.