by Amelia Jade
“I concur,” he said bluntly. “But that still doesn’t answer why you came to us now.”
“If they invade here, what further use will they have for me? Or my brother? Either way, they’re going to kill him. And if they get Cloud Lake back under their control, they’ll probably kill me too.”
“That’s a rather astute observation,” he remarked. “Unfortunate in its likely accuracy, but very thoroughly true through.”
Mia blushed. “I read a lot of spy and thriller books,” she confessed. “This seems like a situation taken straight from one of them.”
Garrin made sure not to smile at her comment. They were, after all, discussing her brother and his possible death.
“Well, we’ll ensure you’re safe of course,” he said. “But I suspect that they’ve left someone nearby to keep an eye on you.”
“I thought you got all the Fenris shifters?” she said, sounding panicked.
“All of the ones we know about,” he said. “But despite its overall small size, Cloud Lake has plenty of places to hide other shifters. Especially if they simply stay indoors and watch, and never go outside or confront our patrols. I suspect we’ll be ferreting them out for some time to come, unfortunately.”
Mia seemed to tense up. “Could they know I’ve come here already?”
Garrin knew where she was going with that line of thought. If the enemy knew she’d come to him for help, they could have sent word back already to hurt, or possibly kill her brother.
“I doubt it. They would have had to follow you all the way to here to know that. It’s possible, even likely that they have watchers here, but I doubt all of them know you by face.”
“I wore a hat and scarf to help hide my face too,” she admitted.
Garrin nodded. “Good. Wear it when you leave, but at some point, take it off and don’t wear it in your neighborhood. That’ll help confuse things as well.”
He carefully didn’t mention to Mia that he would be ensuring that teams swept the area to eliminate any threats.
Or that those teams would be headed by him.
“So what do we do now?” Mia asked.
“Now you go home. Eat, get some sleep, stuff like that. We’ll talk again tomorrow. I have an idea though.”
“I have to come here again? Isn’t that going to increase the risks of them finding out?” she asked, cringing outwardly at the idea.
“No. We’re going to start interviewing all of the people who had relatives taken. We’ll make it known, so that it seems only natural that someone would come to visit you.”
She nodded. “Okay. But only if it’s you.”
He raised his eyebrows. That had been his plan all along, but he’d not expected her to come out and ask for him.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he told her, not wanting to promise anything just yet.
Don’t lie. You’ll move heaven and earth to be the one to visit her.
It was true, but being in the Green Bearets had also instilled him with a strong sense of duty, and there were times when that had conflicted with his personal desires. If something came up that he couldn’t avoid, Garrin would have to do his job. The lives of his men depended on it.
“I just go home now?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yes. There’s nothing more that can be done today, and I need to start organizing things on my end to figure out how best to use this against Fenris.”
Mia looked a little unsure of herself, but she got up and allowed him to escort her from the motel.
“You’re sure I’m safe?” she queried one last time as they paused at the top of the stairs that led down to the sidewalk.
“Nobody is going to harm you,” he said. “I promise.”
She frowned, but took him at his word, pulling on her hat and wrapping the scarf around her face before heading off.
Garrin watched her go, waiting until she turned the corner before he dashed off in pursuit, following her at a discreet distance. Night was falling rapidly now, and the shadows were thickening everywhere as he trailed her across the city.
He grinned as he realized she was taking a roundabout route, designed to confuse anyone who might be following her.
Like him.
She even went into several stores, and bought something at one of them, lending even more credence to her cover.
Clever girl. She must really be taking those spy books to heart.
At last they entered the residential area that she’d said she lived in. Garrin dropped even farther back. No longer was he watching Mia; he knew where she would be going. Now his eyes glittered as they surveyed the houses around him.
Come on…come on…c’mon…
Ah. There.
He had it. Three houses down and across the street from her. Lights off everywhere, mailbox full of junk mail, and all the curtains closed except one. That one was halfway closed, but not pulled tight. Garrin settled down behind another car and watched the windows.
Sure enough, as Mia walked up to her house, he saw the open curtain move, and fingers pulled it slightly more open. It was too dark for him to make out a face, but it was obvious they’d been watching. Waiting.
Garrin smiled and waited until Mia had gone inside, the curtain falling back into place. Then, with a quick glance around to ensure he hadn’t missed anyone else, he darted across the street and headed into the backyard of the house two lots down.
The six-foot wooden gate didn’t pose an issue. He paused to glance over it, ensuring there wasn’t anything there. Then he took two steps back, ran forward, and with a strong flex of his knees, threw himself up and over.
His booted foot landed in something squishy that wasn’t grass, and with a grimace he tried to wipe it clean on the fence.
Almost immediately a dog started barking from elsewhere in the backyard.
“Shit,” he cursed, and this time he hopped the next fence without looking into the backyard next door to his target.
His feet cleared the fence a split second before a massive, foaming Doberman slammed into it, teeth snapping at him, paws scrabbling along the fence as it barked at him.
“Down boy,” he said in mid-air, but he kept his bear contained.
A simple growl would have sufficed to silence the other animal, but it likely would have alerted his target as well. His bear wasn’t exactly quiet…
Garrin landed on the other side with a loud snap and the sounds of breaking plastic.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he muttered, looking down at where his two massive feet had slammed clear through the bottom of a faded white plastic lounge chair.
Extricating himself from the remnants of the chair, he crept across the yard without further incident. Like his ego needed any other detriment to it that night. He was never going to tell the boys about this one.
Some things were just better left unsaid, especially if he didn’t want them brought up at the next poker night. Or ever, if he was lucky.
The next house was still dark, and all the windows were covered in drapes. Whoever was inside clearly wanted to ensure that nobody realized he was there. Garrin wondered what the neighbors thought was going on. An extra long vacation perhaps? It didn’t surprise him that Fenris still had watched in town. Watching was easy, but they couldn’t move about anymore, not without risking getting caught. The town was too heavily infested with Cadians now, and the citizens were on the lookout for any shifters without the proper uniforms.
But watching from a darkened house would be easy enough to go undetected.
Either way, it didn’t matter. He had to do this, and do it quietly. The first challenge was getting inside the house without alerting the shifter inside.
The second, and far harder, was eliminating the watcher. Silently. That, of course, was the whole point of this exercise. To do this without alerting Mia. Garrin doubted there were any other Fenris-friendly people nearby. If he wanted to he could just rip the front door off its hinges, stroll inside, and break the other shifter’s neck
. It would be a fairly simple exercise for him, all things considered.
No, it was doing it without Mia finding out that he had followed her—that she had been watched this entire time—which was the hard part.
First things first, he thought, clearing the last fence and sidling up to the side of the house, where he couldn’t be seen by a casual glance outside.
Get inside.
Moving stealthily, he reached the back sliding door that led outside onto a stone deck. It was, of course, locked. The unfortunate thing about sliding doors was there was no way to unlock it from outside. If it were a knob, he could conceivably have crushed the door handle with his strength and then pulled it open. Not perfectly silent, but close enough.
Now he had to try another way. The windows. The three along the rear of the house were all closed and locked from the inside as well, thwarting his attempts.
But the first one he tried along the side wall was unlocked, and slid up easily. It was a tight, tight fit for someone of his size, but Garrin wormed his way in head-first, his feet coming in last and allowing him to roll forward and onto his feet.
“Well, wasn’t that the most graceful thing I’ve seen in a long time,” a voice said from the darkness to his left.
Are you kidding me?!
Had he just entered into the same room the shifter was in?
“Stand up. Slowly,” the voice said, and Garrin heard the distinct sound of a gun being cocked, warning him.
“A gun?” he snorted, doing as he was told. “You can’t seriously think a handgun—”
The weapon fired and Garrin jerked as a four-inch-long dart appeared in the front of his boot. It failed to penetrate the steel toe, but it sat there quivering for several long seconds, a warning to him.
“No sudden movements now, okay?” the other shifted taunted, his voice dripping with scorn.
Garrin cursed himself. He’d been such an idiot, thinking that he could get the drop on the other shifter.
“What gave me away?” he asked.
“The dog barking. Whatever you broke next door. The attempt at the door and then the windows. I heard it all. Not very stealthy of you.”
Garrin rolled his eyes. All of that because he’d scraped his foot on the fence to clear off dog shit. Just perfect.
“Who are you?” the voice asked.
“Who do you think?” he replied.
“Don’t get smart with me. You can’t get to me before I pull the trigger, we both know that.”
Garrin knew he was right. He had to do something to change that. To even the odds. Somehow.
He spread his hands wide, turning a fraction of the way as he did, trying to make it seem casual. “My name is Garrin. I’m one of the Green Bearets, but you already know that.”
The voice snorted. “You’re more than just one of them. Unless you stole a high-ranking officer’s shirt. But I don’t think you did. Only an officer who hadn’t been out in the field in a long time would think that their approach had been stealthy, that they might still be able to sneak up on me after all that commotion.”
Garrin’s cheeks burned at the accuracy of the statement. He had been overconfident.
No, he’d been worse than that. He’d been arrogant. Placing his own skills far above those of his opponent, with absolutely no knowledge of who he was up against.
The Fenris shifter clearly wasn’t a rank amateur, nor was he above using weapons. Usually shifters settled things between themselves with only their natural abilities. It was an unspoken thing of pride and honor, combined with a general disdain for technology.
But the true professionals out there didn’t hesitate to use technology to give them a leg up. They were more concerned with achieving the mission at hand, not the pride of themselves or their homeland.
Which meant…
“You’re a mercenary,” he said suddenly.
“How astute…Colonel Richter.”
Garrin’s blood ran like ice as the other shifter called him by name. Whoever this man was, he was very knowledgeable of the Green Bearets.
“I see you’ve done your homework, though I can’t fathom that you actually had any inkling that I might come by for a visit.”
“True,” the unnamed, unseen shifter admitted. “I never could have expected to get this lucky. But now you’ve come and deposited yourself into my tender care. This is just far more entertaining than I could ever have planned for. Thank you for this.”
Garrin’s bear would no longer be silent, and the menacing growl that ripped from his throat filled the room, rattling the pictures on the wall.
“Don’t start with me,” the mercenary said, his voice hard and unyielding. “Now, through the door straight ahead of you.”
Garrin focused on the way out of the room, and a plan coalesced in his mind.
He nodded and began to move slowly, trying to make it look like he was cooperating.
The room exited out into a hallway. The door was propped open, allowing it to be closed off if privacy was desired.
The moment Garrin cleared the doorframe he darted to the right. Just like that he was out of the line of fire. He paused, waiting for his foe to follow him out.
But the merc surprised him once more, and simply hurled himself through the wall.
Drywall, studs, and ventilation duct all cascaded out in front of the other man, impacting Garrin and sending him tumbling backward with surprise.
He snarled and rolled to his feet, closing with his foe before he could extricate the tranquilizer gun from the debris. Garrin snap-kicked, his foot connecting with the shifter’s wrist, and the gun went whirling away into the darkness. A fist came blurring down toward his knee, but Garrin kept spinning out of the way and delivered a roundhouse kick to the face.
The other shifter fell backward, avoiding the brunt of the blow, though his lips still split open from the impact.
“I’m going to kill you for that,” he spat, blood flying from his mouth.
“I highly doubt that,” Garrin said, stalking through the drywall dust, the fine debris coating his skin, turning him into a ghostly apparition as he launched a fury of blows.
The other shifter, dressed entirely in black, blocked or ducked out of the way of most of the blows, but he was sorely pressed onto the defensive. Garrin forced him back into the worst of the debris of the downed wall.
More than once he landed a punch simply because his foe tried to step back and swayed off balance for a split second.
A bruise appeared high on his forehead, and one eye was swelling up as Garrin hit him again, and again.
The enemy shifter swayed again on his feet and one hand shot out to stabilize himself, grabbing an exposed stud.
Garrin moved forward to take advantage of the opening.
Wood snapped and the four-foot-long piece of lumber that had been a stud streaked around to clobber Garrin in the side of the head.
He fell backward and the other shifter leapt at him.
Garrin pulled his legs to his chest, and as his target landed on him, rolled backward and kicked. The shifter yelped and went flying through the air. He bounced once off the ceiling, hit the ground, and then rebounded right out through the big bay window into the front yard, glass shattering everywhere.
Throwing himself to his feet and heading outside, Garrin prepared to finish the job.
“That hurt,” the other shifter said as he rose, blood streaming from a hundred cuts.
“This is gonna hurt a lot more,” Garrin said, holding his hands at his sides as shards of glass crunched underfoot.
“We’ll see,” the other man said and charged wildly.
Garrin stayed calm, and the two met in a collision that sent them to the floor. He’d been ready for that, though, and as the momentum carried his foe onto his back, Garrin whipped his left hand out from behind his back and plunged the foot-long chunk of glass through the other man’s eye and deep into his brain.
The other shifter started to scream, but the nois
e was cut off as he died abruptly with a gurgle.
Garrin wasted no time, picking up the corpse and tossing it over the lip of the window and back inside. He followed behind and hauled the body to the far corner of the house, wincing at the cut in his hand from where he’d gripped the glass.
“So much for quiet and unseen,” Garrin said as lights flicked on in houses around the neighborhood.
This had not gone how he’d planned. Clearly he needed to get out in the field more. What was supposed to be a quiet removal of an enemy asset had turned into a clusterfuck the moment he’d landed on the pile of dog shit.
“This night literally went to shit around me,” he muttered, pulling out his hated cellphone and calling the line to the motel so he could have a team sent over to clean up, deal with the body, and reassure the neighbors that everything was okay.
In the meantime…
He glanced across the street to see Mia standing in the window of her house, looking over the shattered front window. That had to be doing wonders for her sense of security.
“Everything’s fine!” he called as one neighbor poked his head out his front door. “Just got overexcited during an argument and threw something without looking. Broke the window. Nothing serious!”
The man frowned and then waved back and closed the door.
That settled, he turned his attention across the street and headed over to Mia’s house.
***
Mia
The door shook slightly as someone knocked on it.
Someone tall, deliciously muscled, and sporting a close-cropped beard that just made her drool at the way it adorned his face.
Someone she had seen just an hour or more ago.
“What do you want?” she said through the door.
“To make sure you’re okay,” came the response.
“I was fine until you started destroying my neighbor’s house after following me home.”
Mia didn’t know why he’d done it, but the fact that he had unnerved her, and made her not feel like opening the door for him just then. Garrin had clearly known he was going to do that before she left his office, and he hadn’t said a word to her about it. That sort of deliberate omission was not something she cared to stand for.