Honoring Lena

by Sara Blackard

  No.

  She closed her eyes and swallowed hard.

  “Maybe.” Tears burned hot behind her lids. “Yes. I can’t risk my world shattering again.”

  She wanted to snatch the barely audible words back and stuff them where they should’ve stayed. She didn’t though. Not now. Maybe never.

  Twenty-Four

  Marshall paced the living room of the house Paxton’s team had secured. The wood flooring of the rundown farmhouse creaked and groaned like it protested the abuse. The sound magnified the agony twisting in his spirit. The torture of not knowing how Carter was. The grief from Lena’s evisceration of his heart.

  He stopped in front of the grimy window and stared out into the darkness. How had he been stupid enough to open his heart again? It should relieve him that she was leaving before he gave her everything left within him. He wasn’t.

  What he wanted to do was drag her into a private spot in the crumbling house and beg her to stay with him and Carter.

  He didn’t.

  Every second she spent coordinating with Paxton’s team, every moment she ignored Marshall existed, layered more doubt that he could convince her to reconsider. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out Amara’s note and twisted the folded page in his hand. First Amara, then Carter, and now Lena, all pulled away from him by a group more shifting mist than something tangible. Could he ever hope to find happiness again if everything he loved got snatched away? How could he continue moving forward when all he wanted was gone?

  No. He closed his eyes and balled the note in his hand. Carter wasn’t lost to Marshall, not yet. When he got his son back, he’d turn all his efforts on doubling his business’s output. These terrorists had already compromised his family’s beliefs when they threatened Amara. He wouldn’t allow evil to win again.

  Bjørn stepped up next to Marshall, his hands shoved into his front pockets. His relaxed shoulders were the exact opposite of Marshall’s. His muscles were bunched so tight, he doubted they’d ever loosen. Gunnar filled the space on Marshall’s other side. Great. Marshall clenched his jaw to keep his mouth shut. He wasn’t up for a Rebel pep talk at the moment.

  “You doing okay?” Bjørn spoke without taking his eyes off the window.

  Marshall snorted a laugh that held no humor.

  “Right. Stupid question.” Bjørn shifted and lowered his head.

  “We’ll get Carter back.” Gunnar cracked his knuckles, his confident voice not easing any of Marshall’s fears. “We’ve done missions like this one, hundreds of times. With our element of surprise, they won’t be able to react.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but nothing with this group goes as planned.” The words were bitter on Marshall’s tongue.

  Lena hollered something to Rafe about the Eyes Beyond gadget. Marshall turned his head to find her, but stopped himself with a scrunch of his shoulders and a twisting of his neck. He’d do better staring into the black night than torturing himself with watching her. The darkness suited his mood.

  “Do you think she’ll actually join Paxton’s team?” Marshall hated the despair that saturated his voice.

  “I don’t know,” Bjørn said with a shrug. “You’ll have to convince her not to.”

  Marshall didn’t think that would work. Bjørn nudged Marshall’s shoulder and stomped off to join the others. If Lena wanted to leave, Marshall would honor her wishes. Would the memory of her ever cool in his veins, or would every thought scorch hot with the pain of losing her?

  “I know things look bleak right now.” Gunnar turned and leaned a shoulder on the window, his gaze penetrating deep into Marshall. “I promise you, we will get our boy back. I’m not stretching the truth when I say this team behind you is the best. Trust them. Don’t let hope shrivel away.” He shrugged and tipped the side of his mouth up in a smile. “Besides, I’m not about to let anything happen to my future nephew, not when he’s already wheedled his way into my heart.”

  Marshall rubbed his neck, trying to let Gunnar’s words wash over him. “You heard Lena. I wouldn’t bank on Carter and I being at the next Rebel family reunion.”

  “She’s scared and doesn’t know how to handle it.” Gunnar lifted his hands in resignation. “We Rebels might like to challenge life’s norms, pushing past barriers to find adventure, but put us in an emotional crisis where our heart is at risk?” Gunnar’s eyes lost focus like he stared into the past. He blinked and shook his head. “We tend to bolt like a startled moose, all clumsy and wide-eyed.”

  He clapped his hand on Marshall’s shoulder. Marshall was tempted to shake the man off, but Gunnar squeezed harder. Lena’s leaving was all by her choice. Marshall knew how stubborn she was. He couldn’t change her mind, not once she’d made it up.

  Sosimo hollered for Gunnar, and he strode away, leaving Marshall more confused than before. Could he risk letting the dream of Lena in? He didn’t want to spend life yearning for her if he didn’t.

  “Time to go.” Zeke’s voice boomed into the room.

  Marshall swallowed down the bile that rose up his throat. No time to think about the what-ifs now. Rescuing Carter was all that mattered. He had to keep his focus. He’d groused enough to get them to let him wait in the van, helping out over the com if he could. Could he actually stay in there when the time came? He wasn’t sure, but he couldn’t wait in this depressing house. His gaze caught on Lena’s as he turned to go to the van. Did her eyes hold sadness or worry? She bobbed a curt nod at him, then stomped out the door. A chill raced down his spine, and he rolled his neck to dispel it. He’d trust the team to get Carter free like Gunnar had said, but Marshall didn’t have the strength at the moment to hope beyond that.

  Twenty-Five

  Lena flexed her fingers next to her side and darted her gaze down the street toward where they’d parked the van with Marshall inside. What a fruitless act since it was zero dark thirty and pitch black, and she couldn’t see the vehicle. A breeze blew through the tall grass meadow where they waited to breach the warehouse. It lifted her ponytail and cooled her sweaty neck. If only it would cool her nerves as well.

  Why did Marshall have to insist on coming with? Why couldn’t he have stayed with Paxton’s team where it was safe? Sure, they had approached the parking lot in such a way that anyone watching wouldn’t have seen them, and, even though it made her stomach knot, the surveillance post was the perfect spot for him. With his military analyst background and knowledge of the warehouse layout, it would keep him involved but also out of harm’s way.

  Paxton’s team had decked the van out with surveillance cameras, so Marshall would know if anyone approached. It wasn’t like he was inept at weapons. He’d handled the Sig Zeke had given him with ease and familiarity. They all wore June’s Supersuits, even Marshall, but they still had vulnerabilities like, say, a bullet to the head. Lena closed her eyes and breathed out the image of Marshall getting shot out of her mind, only to have Ethan’s dead body replace Marshall’s.

  Tingling started in her chest and spread through her limbs. She wanted to rush back to the van, grab Marshall, run away, and hide forever. She wanted time to speed up so they could get this over with. She wanted … she didn’t know what she wanted. She snorted softly. When had she started lying to herself? She knew exactly what she wanted, to hold and love the Rand men for the rest of her life, however long that ended up being.

  “We’re in.” Rafe’s almost inaudible words came over the com and sent a wave of nausea through her.

  She swallowed the burning down, slid her Eyes Beyond on, and fell in line behind Bjørn. On silent feet, she rushed through the door and split away from her brother, heading down the opposite hall. They would continue to divide into smaller teams as they methodically searched the building’s few offices and storage closets, ending up in the warehouse’s large production room.

  Praying they found Carter in some office somewhere with only a guard or two seemed too hopeful, but she did it anyway. Then someone could retreat to safety with Carter whi
le the team took down the terrorists.

  “Clear.” Sosimo’s voice came through the com.

  Lena peeked around the corridor, found it empty, and motioned for Jake to go ahead. He rushed down the hall to the manager’s office at the end. As she followed, she scanned with the Eyes Beyond through the walls for any heat source on the other side.

  Zeke grunted, then his voice echoed Sosimo’s from their point on the other side of the building. “Clear here too.”

  Lena’s pulse drummed in her ears, drowning out all other sounds. Please let Carter be in here. Please, she begged as Jake reached for the office door’s handle and looked at her. She adjusted her grip on her assault rifle and gave him a nod. With coordinated moves, he opened the door, and she swooshed into an empty room. Her heart sank at the last hope of getting Carter out without him being in the middle of the confrontation. She moved farther into the room to make sure she wasn’t missing anything, but the space held nothing.

  “Clear.” She swallowed down the lump in her throat and turned to the door.

  “Copy. Phase two.” Zeke’s low mumble steeled her nerves.

  The main warehouse had three entrances from within the building. Marshall had explained that while the smaller equipment had been moved, the room still held shelving, bigger machines they hadn’t needed at the other facility, and a row of cubicles by the front entrance behind a divider. A large open area that had contained the packing area was positioned near the middle of everything. While Sosimo and Gunnar cleared the cubicles, the rest of the team were to work along the far edges of the room until they cleared the shelving and machines surrounding the open space.

  Lena scanned through the wall as she and Jake approached their point of entry. When nothing registered, she reached for the handle and slowly opened the door for Jake to peek inside. When he nodded, she pulled it the rest of the way open and followed him into the room.

  Light permeated through the shelving from the open space, making her squint through the special eye gear. She slipped the Eyes Beyond to the top of her helmet and took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly to ease her nerves. The murmur of voices and a high-pitched cackling sound filled the otherwise tomb-like silence. The smell of dust and disuse tickled her nose, and she wrinkled it to keep from sneezing.

  Jake signaled one way, so she went the other, following the shelving to weave toward the light. How did they not have guards set up? Were they that confident Marshall would do what they said that they’d only leave a handful of people? Or was it a trap—funneling everyone to one location? She stumbled and leaned against a shelf.

  Scanning high and low, she searched for anything they may have missed. The darkness shifted in the rafters and a faint shimmer flashed before it disappeared to black. Her hands shook as she yanked the Eyes Beyond back over her eyes. A heat signature shifted brightly in the dark ceiling. She darted her gaze over the rest of the rafters, finding two more people stationed on guard.

  “Three assailants in the rafters,” Lena whispered into the com.

  Marshall cursed low, his harsh breath vibrating through the earbud. “There are two ladders to the catwalks. Northeast and southwest corners.”

  “On it.” Jake came back, and Lena watched his shadow dart past the shelves toward the corner.

  “I’ve got this one.” Bjørn echoed Jake from the team’s vantage point on the opposite side of the room.

  Lena took one last scan with the Eyes Beyond into the dark corners of the building. Her hands slicked with sweat, and she angrily rubbed them on her jeans. This mission held too much importance, too much of her heart, to screw it up with nerves. She ignored the anxiety muddling her mind and looked back up to where the men hid in the rafters. How could she approach the open area without getting in their line of sight?

  She turned back the way she’d come. Could she use the large equipment Marshall said was still there to hide her? Slow and quiet. She repeated her instructions in her head until her heart no longer threatened to choke her.

  “In place.” Zeke’s voice ratcheted her pulse right back up.

  Lena didn’t allow his words to force her to rush and make a mistake.

  “Here too,” Gunnar replied.

  Lena rolled her eyes. Of course, she was behind, but getting to her point without being seen was more important than speed. She’d just have to tell them to hold their horses.

  “I’m almo—”

  Gunfire exploded the silence into chaos.

  “Contact.” Sosimo’s tight voice pushed her to move faster.

  Brightness filled the warehouse as the overhead lights sprung on. She slipped behind a large machine bolted in place. The scrape of a foot across the floor behind her caused her to dodge. Pain exploded through her injured shoulder, almost buckling her knees. She followed her body’s reaction and bent low, spinning on the balls of her feet in a crouch.

  Her attacker’s arm skimmed the top of her helmet, knocking off the Eyes Beyond she’d pushed there. Lunging at the man, she rammed her assault rifle into his groin. She cut off his high-pitched, airy squeal by crashing the butt of her rifle to his temple.

  Quickly bending to him, she yanked zip ties from her pocket, secured his hands and feet behind him, and shoved him under the machinery. She inhaled deeply to slow her breathing and rolled her aching shoulder as she scanned behind her for any other attackers. Seeing none, she continued toward the commotion.

  “Jake? Bjørn?” Zeke grunted.

  “Two down,” Jake answered.

  Lena dashed to another piece of machinery and ran to the end of it. She peeked around the edge to the open area that had been set up with a few couches and a dining table. Zeke and Rafe fought hand-to-hand with multiple attackers. Could she take one or two out from here? She shook her head. Not without hitting her men.

  Bullets pinged, and she shifted to see Gunnar and Sosimo in similar positions. Successive firing sprayed Sosimo and the man he fought. Lena tensed as Sosimo jerked and went down. Marshall darted from a shelf to Sosimo’s side, and Lena’s vision tunneled. No, he wasn’t supposed to be here, couldn’t be in the middle of all this.

  “Bjørn, now!” Zeke’s yell startled Lena, causing her to focus.

  A man snuck up behind Marshall with his gun raised. Lena aimed and shot in one smooth motion. The man fell without Marshall even knowing.

  “Last one down.” Bjørn’s ragged voice whooshed her breath right out of her.

  Gunnar finished off his attacker and rushed to Sosimo’s side. Was he already dead? Had the organization left another brokenhearted home? June was due to have her baby soon. What would she do if Sosimo was dead? Lena shook her head, scanned the area behind her, and refocused on how to proceed. As Rafe and Zeke neutralized their assailants, a man stood from the makeshift living area with his back to her.

  “Enough!” His voice boomed through the warehouse, and Lena sucked in a gasp.

  Where did she know that voice from? He yanked Carter from the couch and held the boy in front of him with a gun to Carter’s head. Lena barely controlled the primal urge to dash out and rip the man’s head from his body.

  “Ed?” Marshall stood, his voice thick with disbelief. “What are you doing?”

  Lena’s teeth clenched the inside of her cheek to bite down the anger at the backstabber. Ed Ross had been Marshall’s best friend since college. Marshall trusted Ed enough to have him run the business when they went into hiding. Lena reeled at this betrayal. What must Marshall be feeling?

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Ed’s voice dripped with disdain.

  “No. It’s not. Why are you with these terrorists?” Marshall moved forward with jerky movements, his hands up in surrender.

  “Let’s just say their plans make sense, more so than your insipid attempts at reformation.” Ed’s hatred spewed with each word as Zeke and the team inched forward. “Stop where you are, or I’ll shoot the kid.”

  “Daddy?” Carter whimpered.

  “It’s okay, buddy.” Marshall’s tone
roughened as his eyes narrowed on Ed. “I’m just chatting with Uncle Ed.”

  Ed hadn’t turned around to check his six. She leveled her gun on him. One clean shot to the head and this would be done. Her hands trembled. If she missed, she’d shoot Carter. Could she take Ed by surprise without hurting Carter? Marshall’s step faltered as she came out from behind the machine. She snuck toward Ed, praying with each step that he wouldn’t turn around.

  “Why stay with me, then? Why not just leave?” Marshall continued moving to Ed.

  “My association to you has been beneficial these last three years.” Ed shrugged one shoulder. “Leaving would’ve been counterproductive, especially after you started supporting June and her endeavors. It paid to have someone on the inside, someone who could access her facilities.” He shrugged. “Someone who could compromise the quality of your product to her.”

  “Three years?” Marshall’s hands dropped and his expression widened at Ed’s statement. “Amara …”

  Lena gritted her teeth. Marshall’s best friend couldn’t have been a part of Amara’s murder.

  “Was too easy to manipulate. You too, for that matter.” Ed shook his head and gave a humorless laugh. “She almost ruined everything. Came to me in tears about being blackmailed and how she was going to tell you. I couldn’t let that happen.”

  Pounding banged in Lena’s ears. When she got her hands on this traitorous piece of dirt, she’d make him pay. She slid past furniture, Carter’s quiet sniffles galvanizing her forward. How could she get Ed to point the gun away from Carter’s head?

  “We’re clear from up here.” Jake’s low tone came through the headset and eased down her spine.

  So there was only Ed left to deal with. Her lips twisted into a sneer. Now to just take him down. She didn’t care whether that was dead or alive, though Paxton would flip if she lost him an informant like Ed.

  “You killed Amara?” Marshall’s nostrils flared.