A Night of Redemption (The Redemption Saga Book 5)

by Kristen Banet

  “Okay.” Vincent nodded once and went back to it. “Sawyer, if you want to get in there before us, you need to take off.”

  “I know,” she murmured. “I wanted you alone for a moment.” There was something bugging her just a little. She had thought about it earlier in the day, but had waited for a good moment. She wasn’t willing to wait until after this raid, though. She had a strange feeling. She didn’t like the jungle. Then again, none of them did, not really, not after the last time they were in one.

  “Okay. I’ll come talk to you. Guys, review your parts.” Vincent walked to her, and they ducked further behind the SUV. Not too far from the team, but far enough where they could talk privately. “What’s wrong?”

  “Where is he?” she asked softly.

  “If I knew, I would tell you,” Vincent answered, frowning. “You know I would.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Five months ago - hell, six or seven - he wanted my head and was willing to do anything to get it. Where is he?”

  She watched Vincent realize what she meant. Axel hadn’t come after her or the team yet, even though they had defeated him once before. She hadn’t realized how strange it was, not fully, until after the first raid. It felt like they were the only ones fighting the war. Where was Axel?

  “He doesn’t do revenge, for one. It’s not his MO.” Vincent sighed. “Not like he did with you…”

  “Exactly. This is me we’re talking about. So where is he?” She felt like she was asking for trouble, but the question was beginning to eat at her. Why hadn’t he come after her? It would have made this so much easier.

  “Axel doesn’t make the same mistakes twice, Sawyer. He’s not going to come back after you like that. Not this time. For one, when he tried last time, you were just running from him, hiding. You were willing to exist in the same world as him and he didn’t find that acceptable. Then he came after you and in the process, the team…then he lost.” Vincent ran a hand through his curls. “I’ve thought about it too. I knew he wouldn’t play that game again. Not the vendetta. Sawyer, what’s more dangerous? An Axel that wants you to die, consequences be damned, or one that will do anything to win, including ignore you?”

  She let her jaw drop. Ignore her? “He wouldn’t ignore me.”

  “He ignored me for years and it won him the game. He stayed ten steps ahead, and he was winning and I was falling behind until he got sloppy. That tactic wins him this. We’ll run ourselves into the ground and if we never catch up, he wins. He won’t be stupid again.” Vincent took a deep breath. “You know that.”

  “I just figured when he realized we were on the case and actually working on it, he would take the challenge. He would react and come after us.”

  “He doesn’t even know where we are. Think about it, Sawyer. He was out for roughly a month before we even found out and he never tried to kill you. He played other people to try. Hell, his connection to what happened in New York is vague at best. He’s playing this very smart and very privately. He’s not going to be in the same room with us until he has to be, and then it’s going to be his last ditch effort.”

  “And we’re hoping this drives him to it.” Yeah, she remembered that was the idea behind all of this. But she wanted to hunt him. She wanted Axel. She wanted to envision his face and know he was the target, not his pawns. She had, somewhere deep, hoped he came after her again like he once had. “So we’re playing against a…”

  “A ghost,” Vincent finished, nodding. “He’s not going to show himself or his hand. I know my brother, Sawyer, and so do you. Did you really think he would come out fighting like he had in Atlanta when that lost him the war for a moment?”

  “No,” she agreed softly. “No, I think I knew, but…”

  “But sometimes it’s good for someone else to say it. What did you tell me? One step at a time?”

  “Yeah,” she chuckled darkly.

  “Well, that’s chess too. One move at a time, and all the while, you try to predict the next move and the one after that.”

  “And then suddenly you know the different ways the game can go and you can be ten steps ahead.”

  “We’re flying blind, in a sense, since he’s gone to ground and is leading from who knows where, but so is he. He has no idea what we have in our pocket either.”

  “Missy. Yeah. I’ll head out now. Thanks for talking to me.” She touched his shoulder and he grabbed her wrist, pulling her closer before she could walk away.

  “Be safe,” he whispered. “And keep those comms on.”

  “I will.” She kissed him in return, the mask making it feel strange. She walked away before he could hold her longer. She waved at the guys as she passed them. She had to make up ground. IMAS was already rolling up - she could hear them in the distance - and she needed to disappear into the dark jungle.

  It was easy to slide into the darkness, focusing on the direction she needed to go. Deep out there was a compound where thousands of weapons were being stockpiled and sold to different groups, fueling wars all over the continent. Africa was never the most stable place, and it only gave Axel a breeding ground of funds to use. This would cut him off at the knees in another area.

  Another step forward to her goal of taking him down forever, wherever he was.

  She could hear the trickling of the rain, feel the humidity, and, even in the night, the heat. It was so reminiscent of her time in the jungles of South America. Fuck, if she never saw another damned jungle, it would be too soon. Sure, the Congo and the Amazon were very different places, but to Sawyer, a jungle was still a jungle, and they all sucked.

  Unless she had Quinn with her. For a moment, she let her mind wander to the idea of waterfalls and a small village where she and the feral Magi found something neither of them expected. A connection fulfilled, hearts full of love. Like she had found it with her entire team. Her family.

  Even the thought of them reminded her why she was doing all of this. Not the WMC, not even her own redemption, that pardon just out of reach. For them. Always for them. The world wasn’t safe for anyone with Axel Castello able to walk around.

  Maybe this time she would make the world safe. That’s what she wanted. To go home and never fear for their lives like she had always feared before.

  The compound came into view as she continued to push through the vegetation. She pulled her magic over her, watching the world become shades of grey as the cloak made her invisible. She continued closer, careful with every step not to make too much noise. She wanted to sound like any other creature in the jungle, not some human stomping around. That would be IMAS and the team. They would get noticed long before they reached the compound, and they knew it.

  No, she was going to get in completely silent again, while no one knew what was happening.

  She slipped through two guards and dared to sublimate in the dark to get through the chain link fence. Reforming, she cloaked so fast she knew no one would see her. She moved swiftly towards a secondary building, one she knew would be empty. It was the home of the power generator and back up. It would give her a spot to breathe before entering the main building. She snuck inside, saw no one was there and took a deep breath, dropping her cloak for the second so it didn’t drain her magic further. Part one complete.

  “Vin, I’m in,” she whispered, knowing the tiny mic would pick it up. “Going dark.”

  She knew he wouldn’t respond, but she also knew the entire team would be thankful to hear at least that.

  There would be no vents for AC in the building like there had been in California. She had to infiltrate the slow way. A window on the first floor would work. She just needed to pick one that didn’t have too many guards around it or anyone inside.

  She pulled the cloak back over herself. Leonard was using paramilitary, mostly non-Magi like Alfie. Hell, Leonard used even fewer Magi, from her guess. She could feel maybe five through the property as she snuck around. It worked in her favor, since that meant none of them would feel her moving through them unless
she physically touched them. Leonard probably did it so he had less competition in his play to stay on top of the group. Every Magi would be weaker than him.

  She crept over the grounds towards the main building and looked inside a window. There were two guards in the room so she moved on. She didn’t care what they were doing, she wasn’t going to test trying to do a silent takedown unless it was the only option. She stopped at the next window. Three guards. Still no good.

  She didn’t like this. Every window that wasn’t acceptable meant she had to stay cloaked for that minute or more longer. With that and the mask, her magic was slowly bleeding out. She had to keep moving.

  It took five windows to find one she could work with. Only one guard, watching television with an antenna and getting frustrated. She sublimated, sliding in through the crack, and crept up behind the non-Magi as he turned off the television, probably tired of it. Reforming without a cloak on her, she wrapped an arm around his neck, forcing him into a sleeper hold before he even knew what was going on. They were both staring at the television as he struggled, pale and afraid. Not that she blamed him. From the reflection of the TV, she could tell she looked like Death itself. An emotionless obsidian face that held no pity as he went unconscious, and that refused to budge from her task.

  He finally went under, not making nearly as much noise as he could have. She had purposefully spooked him in hopes of getting the shocked silence instead of a fight. She had gotten what she wanted.

  Sawyer lowered him to the ground, propping him up. She didn’t bother to handcuff him or anything. If he was found, he was just napping on the job like an idiot. Someone would be mad at him for this, but still never know she was there.

  Countless times. She knew everything because she had done this countless times. Hunting was her specialty and she was off the leash. It made her feel alive, like it always did. It made her feel powerful, the ability to creep through these men with no one the wiser. No one had any idea she was there, about to turn their lives into hell.

  She slipped out of the small room, cloaking again as she did, and into the empty hallway. Leonard’s office was on the top floor. Easy enough to get to. She moved towards the stairs, careful not to touch any of the non-Magi roaming around. She blinked to the top of the first set of stairs. Then the next, and the one after that. She couldn’t risk creaky stairs in the jungle-beaten building.

  She could feel him clearly now, and even hear him. He was talking to someone, but she didn’t know who. He must be on the phone.

  Right outside his door, she heard something she hadn’t expected.

  “I’ve heightened security, but it seems it didn’t work. She’s here. You don’t mind being on hold, do you, Axel? I’ll take care of this.”

  Shock raced through her, freezing her for a moment. It took half a second too long for her to shake it and get moving.

  She pushed his door open, letting her magic cloak drop. She caught Leonard smiling as he put the phone down. She blinked towards him and ended up by herself behind his desk. Turning quickly, she saw him standing in the doorway. She was still in shock, thinking about the man on the other end of the line, the name on hold on Leonard’s cellphone. She should have gone after him faster, should have thought about his powers.

  “Well, looks like we had similar ideas.” The next instant, his fist connected to her jaw. She just hadn’t been ready for it.

  She hated fighting other people who could fucking blink. She hadn’t expected him to feel her when she got close. Quickly, as he grabbed her, she tried to remember all his powers. Blinking, telekinesis, telepathy. She tried to blink across the office again to shake him but he had contact now and his fist hit her ribs. She tried to hit him back but he stopped her hands with his telekinesis, pushing back on them to slow her attacks down just enough.

  She sublimated to break his hold, and in a second she realized that she had fucked up. Blinking, telepathy, telekinesis, and air manipulation.

  She knew that trick. Naseem was just as strong a master of air manipulation.

  “Bad move, Shadow!” Leonard laughed as he pushed magic into her. She tried to reform. She had fucked this up royally.

  Her mind screamed in pain as Leonard began to do the one thing she always avoided so carefully. He was pulling her apart by the atom.

  NO! STOP! HELP! ANYONE! PLEASE!

  Her own screams just echoed back to her in the void of her mind.

  Stupid. She had been thrown while she was being overconfident.

  Idiotic. She had distracted herself with thoughts of the guys instead of running down everything she knew of this guy, preparing herself for every possibility.

  And now she was very possibly going to die without anyone ever knowing. She was going to take Sombra with her.

  She couldn’t die. In the seconds of pain that Leonard had already put her through, a torture that felt like her very soul was being ripped apart, she remembered she absolutely couldn’t die.

  She could work through the pain. She knew she could.

  Pain was nothing.

  A mental deep breath. It meant nothing.

  She had to literally pull herself back together while he was trying to tear her apart.

  She pulled all of her magic to her, every tiny piece, hoping she could pull all of her smoke back to herself. She needed it. She needed all of it.

  She kept ignoring the pain. The debilitating, unreal pain.

  Unreal. She focused on that word. She was just smoke. The pain wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. She wasn’t a body. She had no nerves or flesh. No way to break her bones, not in this form.

  She held onto that belief and it happened. She pushed the pain down.

  She reformed.

  Leonard didn’t miss a beat, slamming her cheek with a fist the moment she was able to open her eyes and truly see again. It shoved her back into a close wall.

  But now she was pissed off. She grabbed his fist on the next swing and threw her head forward, slamming his nose with her forehead. He stumbled back and looked up at her, wiping blood off his face.

  “Well, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Shadow.” It was sarcastic and biting. He wore a dangerous smile, ready for the challenge she was about to give him.

  “Likewise.” She blinked forward, throwing another swing.

  It was on now.

  19

  Quinn

  Quinn watched Sawyer leave, ignoring the men talking around him. He felt her as far as he could. Since it wasn’t his territory, he couldn’t know her exact place as well as he could have at home, back in Georgia. That land had been so flooded with his magic, he had been able to pinpoint her to the inch, as he proved to her time and time again.

  Not out here.

  It worried him more than the California raid. This one was so much like the Amazon and that had him even more pissed off about their entire mission than anything had yet. Here they were, in a place so much like that place, signing up to get hurt again.

  And why?

  To stop a madman that kept hurting his pack. He was so tired of it. He wanted blood. He wanted to shred the rival apart and howl in victory as his pack reigned supreme. He wanted to kill and be vicious.

  It took everything he had to contain it. Since that day with Vincent and the children, he was containing it, barely. But that pain from Vincent had marked him. It had marked him deep enough that he felt the near-constant threat of Axel around every corner. The only thing he had going for him was that others needed him calm. He could be calm. He could hunt when it was time, and it was finally time again to go hunting.

  It brought out something feral in him, like a piece of a man he barely knew anymore. A man he used to be, if he could have even been considered a man at the time. The Druid in the Amazon hadn’t angered him like this, but Axel brought out everything he once was, took him back to times where Quinn had to be vicious to survive.

  And unfortunately for Axel, there were no Druids involved in this, which made Quinn the most powe
rful Magi in the entire situation.

  That made him feel good.

  “Quinn, we’re going to start moving,” Elijah told him as the cowboy patted his shoulder. “How far is she?”

  “Past my range,” he answered. “She’s disappeared into the night.”

  “Of course she has.” Elijah sighed. “She’ll check in with us, don’t worry.”

  “I wasn’t worried.” Sawyer didn’t worry him. No, he had pure confidence in her skills. She was a natural predator. He knew it wasn’t all her time with Axel either. It was the way she carried herself. The stories he heard of her youth even told the same tale. Her time with Axel had only sharpened and honed her skills to a deadly precision.

  But she was so obviously always a predator. He wasn’t worried about her.

  His thoughts were interrupted by an argument unfolding near him. He and Elijah both pivoted as the commanding officer of the IMAS Spec Ops team tried to talk over Vincent. They had been granted an elite team for this particular mission, which was better than the low-ranking grunts from the Amazon.

  But not much better. They were still soldiers, and the team had a bad history with them.

  “Well, Special Agent Castello, I’m saying-”

  “You’ll follow orders or we’ll go without you.” Vincent’s voice cracked like a whip. “I won’t take any damned insubordination from a bunch of soldiers in the jungle. Not again.”

  There was a heavy silence after that. Quinn glanced at Jasper, who was shifting on his feet uncomfortably. Then Zander, who had paled slightly. Elijah’s chest began to rise and fall faster and harder than before. All small signs that the Amazon, from only a few short months ago, had left marks on them they would never escape. He knew the other men were talking to people, doctors, the same type they wanted Sawyer to talk to. For the team, it was natural. Something happened and they worked on making sure it didn’t become a permanent issue.

  “Yes sir,” the soldier finally mumbled, defeated.

  Quinn grinned dangerously. “Good, because I’m not in the mood.”