Deadly Promises

by Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Gage scanned the area for threats as he joined her beside the trees. He'd never met a woman who was so bullheaded.

  "I need you back in the truck while I look around."

  She turned to face him. "It was here. Right near this weird boulder. I saw a black SUV sticking out from these trees. You saw it, too." Her eyes looked slightly wild now as she glanced around in the dimness. "Am I going crazy here? Is this the Bermuda Triangle?"

  "No." Gage wasn't sure what it was. But he had a hunch the explanation was frighteningly simple.

  Giving up on getting her back in the pickup, he pulled her closer to the big rock. "Stay here. And be quiet a second."

  She fell silent, and Gage took a full minute to absorb his surroundings. To their west was a low mesa. Less than a mile south, the river. The valley rose gently to their north until it butted up against the limestone cliffs that marked the southwest boundary of the dig site.

  Gage looked west, where the sun had disappeared behind the mesa. Night was falling faster than usual because of the cloud cover, and in ten minutes it would be nearly impossible to see.

  "Stay here," he repeated, squeezing Kelsey's shoulder to reinforce the command. Then he moved off toward the boulder.

  The rain had stopped, but the air felt saturated, and he knew it was going to be one of those on-again off-again storm nights. Thunder rumbled low to the north, as if echoing his thoughts. Wind rustled through the scrub brush. An animal snarled in the distance, but he heard not a single sound that resembled a motor.

  His eyes had adjusted, and he could still see somewhat, despite the coming darkness. He walked all the way around the rock, looking for any sign of Dylan or his SUV, half expecting to stumble over the guy's bullet-riddled body. He circled the clump of trees. He even pulled out a penlight and combed the ground around them.

  Fresh tire tracks, leading back toward the highway. But no Dylan.

  Gage stood there, running through scenarios. Dylan could have been out here changing a tire, then left, just as they'd been coming to his rescue. But, if so, why hadn't they passed him on his way back to camp?

  The kid could have heard them coming and been afraid for some reason and driven away. Maybe he'd been injured by someone or something and had just now made it back to his vehicle.

  He could be dead, and someone could have taken his SUV.

  Gage made his way back to Kelsey, letting his flashlight beam trail over the ground.

  "Gage," she hissed. "Come look at this."

  And that's when he spotted it.

  Camouflage netting tossed carelessly over some bushes. Only it wasn't careless at all. And suddenly everything fit together--the traffic, the shootings, the disappearing vehicles. He crouched down and lifted a corner of the netting, revealing a small metal grate.

  "Gage, you have to--oh!"

  He whirled around. "Kelsey?"

  She didn't answer.

  Seven

  Kelsey blinked up at the blackness. She couldn't see. She couldn't breathe. She tried to sit up but it felt like sandbags were piled on top of her chest.

  "Kelsey, answer me, damn it! Where are you?"

  She opened her mouth to talk but all that came out was a strangled cough.

  "Kelsey?"

  His voice was moving farther away, and she summoned every ounce of strength to turn onto her side and push herself up on an elbow. "Here," she wheezed.

  He was beside her in a heartbeat. His hands were all over her--her arms, her legs, her face.

  "Are you okay? Did you break anything?"

  "I hit my... solar plexus... knocked the wind out." She was getting her breath back but she still couldn't see, and she clung to Gage's arms. A flashlight blinked on.

  "Is anything broken?" He shined the light in her face and she squinted. "You fell about ten feet."

  "I'm fine." She experimented, moving her legs, her arms. "My coccyx hurts a little, but--"

  "Your what?"

  "My tailbone. I'm fine otherwise."

  The light blinked off, and his quiet laughter surrounded her. At some point he'd put his arms around her, and she leaned into him now, absorbing his heat as she tried to catch her breath.

  "Guess you're all right if you still know your anatomy." He eased her away. "Can you stand up, you think?"

  He helped her to her feet. She felt unsteady so she held onto his arm.

  She glanced around. The air felt cool and damp, but she still couldn't see anything. "What is this hole?"

  "Not a hole. A tunnel."

  She blinked into the darkness and turned around. There seemed to be more light behind her, a very faint glow.

  "A tunnel," she repeated. "You mean like a mine shaft? I saw an opening. It's probably a mercury mine."

  "It's not. Maybe it was at one time but that's not what it is now. It's a border tunnel." The light flashed on again, and he directed it over the walls around them.

  "Oh, my gosh," she murmured.

  The passageway was wide and tall. They both could have stretched their arms out and not touched the sides. And unlike the mine shaft near the dig site, these walls were made of cinder blocks.

  "They have these between San Diego and Tijuana," Gage said. "But I've never heard of any in the middle of nowhere like this. And I've never heard of any this big."

  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."

&n
bsp; "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 unerring 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.