Broken Arrow (Guarded Secrets Series Book 5)

by Sara Schoen

  I put my hand on her shoulder to let her know I understood, but also to remind her we couldn’t talk about this out in the open. “I know what you mean, but it will work out. There’s a plan in the works and we will get everything back up and running in no time.” I smiled, hoping to give her a little comfort, but I knew my vague words were only empty promises at this point.

  Her mouth pulled into a tight line and shifted to move her hands around to hold herself a little tighter. “I just want this over with. I want to feel safe again.”

  “I don’t think safety was ever a reality in this job. There’s always someone waiting to toss us into the fire.”

  “Now they’re in the crosshairs and I’m not letting them get away with this.” She growled under her breath before motioning for me to follow her. “I came to get you so you could come see the newest batch of agents who returned today. They are in rough condition still, but someone may know something about Fire Fox.”

  “I also need to find information on what happened to Valkyrie,” I stated, following her. “Do you know anything about her?”

  “I don’t, but you may want to check with Spit Fire. She said she with Valkyrie for a period of time during the fight. She would be a good place to start.” Camo led me expertly through the hallways toward the main drop off medical patients. They were being brought from various hospitals by helicopter and very few by small plane if we had a lot of agents in one location, which gave Maverick and the other pilots a lot to do. At least they were busy, we were just biding our time while a double agent tried to maintain cover. “Why are you looking for Valkyrie?”

  “Raider wants me to find out what happened to her.”

  “Raider? As in our Raider?” I nodded, but didn’t reply. There isn’t another Raider. “I didn’t know he cared about anyone but himself. I wonder what makes Valkyrie so special.”

  A small smile spread across my lips at her joke. “Maybe he’s drawn to her spontaneous personality, but it’s probably the way she fights. I have a feeling she fought tooth and nail. I wouldn’t want to go up against her; she’d kill me in five seconds flat.”

  “Maybe she beat him in a fight and he fell in love at that instant.” Camo nudged me playfully.

  I laughed, one of the first real laughs I’ve had since Washington. “If that was the case, maybe him being so rude to me all these years was because he was secretly in love with me.”

  She cackled, quickly covering her mouth in an attempt to muffle it. “I doubt it. He just hates you because you’re better than him. There’s no other feelings there except hate.”

  “Oh, come on, I think there’s something else there.”

  She laughed harder, letting out a short snort as we neared the dropped off. “Oh yeah, I forgot to add animosity, bitterness, anger, annoyance, and his ‘I’m better than everyone’ complex coming through loud and clear when he talks to you. Frankly, I’m amazed you could have a decent conversation with him. I’ve never heard more than ‘get out of my way’ and ‘leave it to the professional, Rookie’ when he’s with me. To hear that he remotely cares about another agent is shocking.”

  “Maybe she’ll change him for the better.”

  We both walked into the transportation hub laughing, attracting a lot of attention from those in the room. I would have felt bad for laughing while they were in so much pain, but as I took in their expressions they seemed more relieved to hear us laughing instead of offended. Their eyes lit up as we passed and brought a little life back to their expressions.

  “I figured you’d be here, Night Stripe,” KC’s voice called from a plane in the back of the room. I couldn’t help but silently pray none of the injured had flown with him as I waved at him, he had a reputation of less than pleasant flights, even Spit Fire complained and she usually slept on flights.

  “Of course, she would be,” Maverick stated, annoyance lacing his words as he stepped out of the small multi-purpose room they had available between flights. “She’s hoping Fire Fox is somewhere in this mess. I can’t blame her either. We are still missing a lot of people. I hate this. I want to go back and find them.”

  “You know we can’t do that, Mav.” An older agent, who went by Huey, placed a hand on Maverick’s shoulder. “We have our orders, and unlike agents we don’t get a freebie to do what we want. We are needed here for the agents we can help, not the ones we aren’t even sure are still alive. I know it’s hard, but we have to help as many as we can before we can go searching for more.”

  “Doesn’t mean I want to be here and leaving others out there alone.” His eyes found mine and without any words I knew Fire Fox still hadn’t been found. My heart dropped to my stomach and I felt tears prickling at the corners of my eyes. I fought them as best as I could, but they still stung my eyes. Fire Fox wouldn’t want me to cry, but I couldn’t stand not knowing what happened to him. Seeker hadn’t known anything after they got separated in the fight. Fire Fox had been alone; he hadn’t even gotten the chance to see Sandstorm again. He would have been thrilled to see him, just as he had been when I first showed up to the agency. “I’m sorry, Night Stripe. Maybe he’ll be in the next batch. I had a few people fly over the base on the way over there and they said it’s been cleaned up by whoever Sharp Shooter sent out. We have all the dead agents and he’s not one of them, so there’s a good chance he’s alive somewhere.”

  “Or dead in the woods surrounding the compound...”

  Maverick cast a soft frown in my direction before pulling me into a hug. “You can’t think like that. We’ll find him. I promise you that even if I have to go out there and look for him myself. He’ll come back here, alive.”

  I nodded before pulling out of the hug with a soft smile. “Thank you, Maverick. I appreciate that.” I waited for him to nod so I know he heard me before I continued. “I’m also looking for information on Valkyrie. Have you seen her?”

  “Yeah actually, she’s somewhere in here. She was just picked up, but she’s still in pretty bad shape,” he said as he scanned the room. He turned around a few times, trying to get a better angle around some of the planes, until he pointed. “She’s over there. Just take it easy on her. Like I said, she’s in rough shape. I personally don’t think she should be out of the hospital yet, but I don’t get much say in the matter, so what do I know?”

  Camo pulled me away before Maverick could rant and hold us hostage for another hour. She followed his vague directions until we found Valkyrie, laying out on a stretcher with nurses surrounding her. She was still in her clothes from the fight, blood soaked into the material on her pants and shirt. She looked like she had been through Hell and back and then went for a return visit. No wonder Raider was worried; this girl had taken one hell of a beating. There’s no way to know how long she’d be out of duty, but from the amount of blood she had lost, her injuries were extensive and would keep her out for a couple of months.

  “She’s still in a lot of pain. Her surgeries were successful, she’s been stitched up, and just needs some rest now. She’s got a long road ahead of her,” the nurse, who I didn’t know, said as Camo and I walked toward them. “I’m going to ask that you let her sleep instead of asking her questions. Even when she wakes up I expect you to leave her alone. The stress wouldn’t be good for her.” She raised an eyebrow, knowing my reputation to push for answers and challenging me to go against her orders.

  “Don’t worry, Rose. Night Stripe is just here to check on her for a friend of ours,” Camo said with a sweet tone, which seemed to calm Rose. “We’re just glad she’s alive and here.”

  Rose smiled at Camo, but glared at me before she left to join her small team, who were looking over the other agents who had arrived. Camo laughed as I leaned on Valkyrie’s stretcher, resting my hands behind me to support myself. I didn’t even waste the energy to roll my eyes. I’d just wait for her and her team to leave if I had to. They couldn’t be here all the time.

  “She hates you. She knows you harass everyone for answers.” Camo laug
hed, holding her stomach.

  I was about to respond when I suddenly felt a hand grasp onto my wrist. I turned to see Valkyrie’s olive eyes focused on me. Her mouth twitched like she wanted to speak, but was in too much pain. A small tear escaped and trailed down the side of her face, whether from pain or frustration I couldn’t tell. I’d just have to wait it out until she found the strength to communicate.

  “Relax, Valkyrie. Take your time, I’m not going anywhere. That nurse would have to drag me away, and honestly, I’d like to see her try.”

  She forced a smile and a small cough of a laugh. “Me too,” she choked out. Her voice sounded harsh, like every word scrapped at the lining of her throat and made it nearly impossible to talk. “She’ll put me under again if she knows I’m awake though. I have been trying to get in touch with you since I woke up in the hospital. They won’t let me talk to anyone and I can’t trust anyone else.”

  “What do you mean, Valkyrie?” An icy cold raced down my spine. My body chilled, instantly becoming covered in goosebumps. More bad news. It just keeps piling up. “Why can’t you trust anyone? What happened?”

  Her eyes turned dark, as if they were haunted by whatever she had seen. “I saw Seeker attack Fire Fox during the battle. Fire Fox is really hurt, and I don’t know what Seeker was thinking. I can’t trust anyone because I don’t want anyone to know what I saw and they come after me, but something’s not right.”

  “Did you see Fire Fox? Is he alive?” I asked, leaning in closer to her. Her voice had lost its force, becoming hoarse the longer she talked. Maybe her pain was too much and she needed to rest like Rose said.

  “He was taken by one of the medical transports, I think the one right before mine, but I don’t know.” She shook her head. Tears started streaming down her face in frustration. “I don’t know where he went or if he’s still alive. I stayed with him after Seeker raced off, but he wasn’t doing well. His breath had been shallow and he lost a lot of blood.” She glanced down to her legs and up her torso. “Though, I may be the winner of who lost the most. I heard I was on the brink of death from blood loss.”

  I glanced at Camo, who appeared to be in shock. Her mouth hung open slightly, her eyes wide, and her breathing slowly moving toward hyperventilation. I touched Valkyrie’s hand gently and smiled. “You can guarantee that I’m going to figure out what happened, and if he’s responsible then I’ll deal with him as I would anyone else. For now, you should rest and heal. Don’t tell anyone else what you told me, not even Raider.”

  She nodded, not bothering to ask how I knew to mention Raider. “I won’t. Just do me a favor. Make sure Fire Fox is alive and if you can’t kill Seeker, make sure he knows not to mess with our agents anymore.”

  “I’ll figure it out. Get some rest now.”

  I left Valkyrie as the nurse came back to check on her, pulling Camo with me as we exited the room. We couldn’t talk about it in there, too many agents, too many pilots and nurses who liked to gossip, and too many people looking for someone to blame. If Seeker was behind this, I wanted to deal with him myself, not start a well-deserved witch hunt. If he was a traitor, I’d end him, but I had to be sure before anyone else went after him.

  Chapter 3

  Camo and I sprinted to Sharp Shooter’s office, which usually would have attracted attention, but with so few able body agents to see us we made it there without any questions. We hadn’t spoken to each other since leaving the transport hanger. It had taken Camo some time to get over the initial shock and I didn’t want anyone to overhear Valkyrie’s claim. I didn’t want to believe it, I couldn’t believe it, Seeker had been here for years. He loved CIRA, he protected other agents and fought alongside them, he had been the Fire Fox’s friend, which gave him access to my history and almost everything else in the file. I didn’t want to believe he betrayed CIRA, that he betrayed Fire Fox and our team, but if there was even a chance he was a mole I didn’t want anyone telling him he was under suspicion. We had to figure out the truth, and we had to do it soon.

  “I don’t believe it,” Camo stated as we reached Sharp Shooter’s office and knocked. “There’s no way, right?”

  “Don’t talk about it. Not here. We will figure it out one way or another.”

  When Sharp Shooter didn’t answer the door after the second knock I pushed the door open and entered. He wouldn’t be in his office, but at least then Camo and I had a safe place to talk. Well, we could have except Demon was sitting in one of the chairs around the table with Sandstorm and Renegade on the other side. They glanced up when we entered, each taking in something different. Renegade would see my rigid posture and wonder what happened, Sandstorm would see my annoyance, and Demon would see my anger. Though, Demon would never make the connection to the cause of it this time.

  He wasn’t at the briefing, we can’t talk trust him again until we’re sure he’s not the mole…and with the information in the files, he very well could be.

  “What’s up, Night Stripe?” Renegade questioned, leaning on his elbows to look around Sandstorm to see me better.

  I could see the knowing gleam in his eye. He knew something was wrong, he wanted to know what and he wanted to know now. “Nothing. I just needed Sharp Shooter because Maverick wanted to talk to him about the next flight to pick up agents.”

  Sandstorm raised an eyebrow momentarily before his eyes turned to slits. He could always tell when I lied, even years as a thief couldn’t change that. His eyes darted to Demon then quickly back to me. Looks like someone figured it out. Somehow, he always knew. It has to be a sibling thing, I thought. “We’ve been waiting for Sharp Shooter for some time. Demon, you mentioned that you knew where he was. Do you think you could find him and let him know he has almost every available agent in his office right now? I’m sure he’d like some of us to be helping with the new fleet of agents coming in soon.”

  Demon’s eyebrows furrowed together in confusion before he nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be right back,” he said, his voice low with an inquisitive tone. He pushed away from the chair and walked past us out of the office. He glanced at me, curiosity gleaming in his eyes, as he entered the wide space Camo and I had created for him. I could see the question lingering in his eyes, but I kept my face expressionless. I motioned for Camo to follow when I moved toward Sandstorm and Renegade.

  I sat in silence across from Renegade and Camo took the seat next to me across from Sandstorm. Both men glanced between each other, wordlessly nodded as if they had come to the same conclusion then turned back to us. We waited for the door to shut and until Demon’s footsteps faded into the distance before Sandstorm spoke up.

  “So, what’s really going on, Night Stripe? Why are you so unwilling to talk with Demon in the room?”

  Because he and Seeker are friends. He doesn’t know there’s a mole in the agency. He could be the mole for all we know. There were several reasons to keep him in the dark, but I kept my thoughts to myself. ”Aren’t we supposed to be careful when it’s not just us? Sharp Shooter told us to keep it quiet except for people who were in the room with us when we gave him all our information.” I leaned back into the chair, gauging Sandstorm’s reaction. He wasn’t buying it and neither was Renegade. “We don’t want any information slipping out we hadn’t intended to.”

  “Yeah, but why Demon? He wouldn’t stop you unless you knew something we didn’t.” Renegade followed my motion before he cracked his back. “Something is going on.” He looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to give in. I would, but there wasn’t a good way to bring this up. Rip it off like a Band-Aid, I reminded myself. “Spill it. What did you hear?”

  I looked down at the table unwilling to meet his or Sandstorm’s gaze. I bit my tongue, thinking if I should bring it up without first telling Sharp Shooter. Once I told them, it was out. The witch hunt would begin and we were already looking at someone incredibly close to the team. I didn’t want it to be someone I knew. It would be better if I didn’t know them...but they knew me. It was only a matter of tim
e before one of our friends was discovered as a double agent. “I heard Seeker attacked Fire Fox and left him to die. I’m not sure why and before you ask, Valkyrie didn’t say, but I can’t think of many reasons to attack a friend unless he’s protecting the cartel members instead. He might have been trying to even the odds when we started winning...”

  Sandstorm scoffed, causing me to look up at him. “We can’t rule out anyone, but the chances of it being Seeker are highly unlikely. He’d know more about you. He’s close to this team. He’d know more about developments in your life. He could have even connected us after Demon recruited you because I knew him and Spit Fire.” He opened his hands out in a ‘it could happen’ gesture. “Spit Fire figured it out. She didn’t know who I was related to, but I saw it when I found her outside the headquarters. She knew I looked familiar and it wasn’t because she knew me before. She knew because I reminded her of someone else. I reminded her of you. That’s why she wasn’t surprised when you flipped out when you saw me. She figured it out, and maybe Seeker figured did too.”

  “I flipped out because you were supposed to be dead and suddenly you’re there again. Who the hell does that to—” An elbow connected abruptly with my side. I turned to Camo, who gave me a pointed look to get me back on track. “Never mind about that. Did you ever work with Seeker or tell him you had family before you came back?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “So how would he connect us? By last names? Maybe, but if he didn’t work with you or know you well, would he know your last name? When I came in here, I went by Ricker. I never showed anyone a photo of you or our family. Without those, he wouldn’t know it was you. Besides, you just said we can’t rule anyone out.”