I couldn’t stop my hands from curling into fists at my side. The familiar and intimate way she talked about the man I was going to have to walk away from burned like acid and fire.
“Are you trying to tell me you’re the woman who appreciates those qualities in him?” I didn’t want to sound snippy and jealous, but I did.
She shook her head and lifted the pale fall of her hair so that she could tuck it into the collar of her shirt. “Those are the qualities that make it impossible for the two of us to spend more than a few hours together without one of us wanting to strangle the other. Cy’s a rock, or maybe he’s more like a goddamn boulder since he’s so big. So am I. I’m just as hard as he is and can be just as immovable. All we do is knock against one another until one of us ends up with a headache. Out of bed, that isn’t any fun and wastes both our time.”
I hated that she had so much history with Cy, that she didn’t have to rush through her time with him.
“If he’s a rock what does that make me?” I wasn’t easy and malleable enough to be the stream that coursed around the jagged rocks that broke through the surface. I wasn’t soft enough to wear the rough edges of stone away after a lifetime of gentle pressure.
She stopped so suddenly, that I almost ran into her back. I stumbled and put out a hand to keep myself from falling as she turned to face me. She let her jade colored eyes rove over me, and when they finally met mine there was a spark of humor in the jeweled depths.
“Well, Sunshine,” her lips twitched when she tossed out the cutesy pet name Cy had stuck me with. “I’d say you’re the only thing on earth that can warm stone up. You’re the sun and the shine. You’re the warmth that chases out the chill all the way to the middle. If rock gets hot enough it can explode.”
I cocked my head to the side and exhaled a long breath. I didn’t want to like this woman, mostly because she had the ability to pick Cy’s dick out of a lineup and I selfishly wanted to be the only one with that ability. But her honesty and her quirky way of looking at things tugged at me and made me feel like I could trust her. She didn’t seem to have any artifice or even like she was in the slightest bit concerned with the impression she made. What you saw was what you got with Officer McKenna and I appreciated that she wasn’t interested in having a pissing contest over the man we both had spent naked time with.
“Are you speaking from experience?” Cy said she didn’t talk about where she went or what brought her back home, so I wondered if her sunny day had clouded over.
Her teasing expression closed off and the glint went out of her emerald gaze. Her mouth, which was the perfect shade of carnation pink without a drop of lipstick, twitched into a frown that changed her lovely face into something harsh and almost ugly. “Even rock can break if you find the weak point and hit it hard enough. It’s even easier to chisel off pieces if you know what you’re doing.”
She turned back around indicating the conversation was done before I could tell her I had had pieces chiseled off by a skilled manipulator myself. A few days ago I didn’t want to show any kind of weakness, refused to be vulnerable and open to anyone witnessing the struggle I was having, pulling my tattered shield back in place. This unexpected adventure had shown me that it wasn’t a weakness to hurt or to let other people know you were hurting.
The craggy rock formation was suddenly jutting up out of the earth in front of us, appearing far taller and sheerer than I was anticipating. My instinctive fear of heights made me balk and had sweat breaking out under the brim of the hat on my head. My hands were shaking as we rounded the formation. Ten put her hands on the rough stone and hefted herself up a few feet off the ground.
“Just step where I step, and move slow. It’s only fifteen feet or so to the top, but that’s far enough off the ground to hurt if you slip and fall back down.”
I rotated my stiff shoulder and sent up a silent prayer to whatever god kept an eye on the working men and women of this untamed land and started to follow the blonde up the rocks. She made it look like a piece of cake, even though she had a rifle strapped to her back and was still wearing her knapsack loaded down with supplies.
It wasn’t easy.
This was no leisurely afternoon rock climbing trip. There were no harnesses, no helmets and gloves. There was no Cy at the bottom encouraging me and telling me that he had me and wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me. The rocks cut into my palms and scraped across my fingertips. I ripped most of my fingernails off, to the point that they were bleeding, and my injured shoulder protested loudly every time I had to swing that arm over my head and dangle by the very tips of my fingers, as I scrambled to find a foothold. My heart was in my throat the entire time and I don’t think I took a single breath the entire twenty minutes it took me to inch my way up to the top of the outcropping. When I got to the crest, Ten immediately yanked me down to my stomach which rubbed my knees against the rock surface and ripped holes in my jeans. I was wheezing like an asthmatic which had Ten slapping a hand over my mouth as she jerked her head to the side.
“They built their camp a few hundred yards north of where the clearing is. They kept it in the trees so you can’t see the tents from overhead. They must know we use aerial imaging for search and rescue missions and to scout hotspots in fire season. There’s no way anyone would see the camp from the air.” She breathed the words in my ear so quietly I had to strain to hear them. She asked if I was good and only let go of my mouth when I nodded.
She rolled to her stomach so that we were stretched out side by side and put the radio to her lips.
“We have a visual on the camp. It’s approximately two hundred yards north of the clearing, back up in the trees. I can see at least four big military tents and they have a whole bunch of all-terrain vehicles parked around the camp. I don’t see anyone and can’t tell what tent they might have our people in, but this is no small operation.”
I squinted in the direction she was looking and couldn’t hold back a gasp as I saw not only the mini tent city hidden away from prying eyes, but also a familiar looking horse tied up near one of the tents. Now, there was no doubt that these people had Emrys and Sutton.
“That horse is the one Em was riding when we split up.” I tried to keep my voice quiet but I was shaking so hard it came out choppy and louder than I intended.
Ten gave me a look and then spoke back into the radio. “We have confirmation that the horse the woman who was with Sutton Warner was riding is tied up at the compound. Tell Cy to check that tent where the horses are first when he gets to the camp.”
“Roger, ranger.” Webb’s voice crackled back at us, tense and tight. “Give us fifteen and then set the flares off. We need as many of them as possible out of the tents if we want any chance of getting our people out.”
Her face was set in hard line of concentration. “We’ll do what we can from up here.”
The radio came to life once more and there was no missing the taunting humor in Webb’s tone, even through the static that popped and crackled over the top of it. “Just make sure you’re aiming at the bad guys and not at me when I go in and fuck shit up.”
She swore under her breath and put the radio aside so she could dig the flare gun out of her backpack. She handed it to me and asked, “Was he like this the entire trip?”
I gave an awkward half shrug and tried to find a comfortable spot on the rock to fire the flares from.
“Not really. Neither he nor Grady said much because they were lying about why they were on the trail. Webb thinks the guys in charge of the growing operation might have something to do with his older brother’s disappearance. He’s been a little off since they ambushed us and put a bullet through him. He’s not the kind of guy I would want coming after me with revenge on his mind.” And it had little to do with the fact the young man had spent time in jail. There was something about him, something a little unhinged and reckless, that let me know he was the kind of man who didn’t give a single thought to consequences or risks.
; “He thinks that one of the bodies we pulled out of the river might belong to his brother?” She sounded stunned and a little bit sad when she asked the question.
“He does. We didn’t know about the body until right before the ambush. He convinced Grady to come on the trail ride thinking his brother was missing. You can’t really blame him for being slightly unpredictable. Not to mention all the blood he’s lost over the last twenty-four hours.”
She made a quiet noise in her throat, situated her rifle in front of her, and started fiddling with the scope on the top of it. She seemed incredibly capable and steady while I, by contrast, felt like I was going to throw up or pass out as the minutes ticked by. I’d never been so stressed out or afraid in my life. It made all the bad things I was always worried about happening seem trivial and stupid. I understood what a real catastrophe was now, and that there was no way to prevent chaos when outside factors were involved. The only way to live a life that was controlled and secure was to have no life at all . . . exactly what I had been doing before Cyrus Warner and his wild, wild west blew it to smithereens.
Ten’s elbow tapped mine and I heard her exhale long and low. “I have a bead on Cy and the older guy. They’re on the back side of the forest about twenty feet from the tent where the horse is. I hope the horse doesn’t catch a whiff of Cy and throw up a racket. That’s a sure fire way to give their location away.” She lowered her index finger to the trigger of the long rifle and breathed out again. “I’m going to count to three. On three, light the sky up.”
I nodded silently and settled in next to her. I didn’t need to aim or brace for recoil. I simply had to pull the trigger several times while the bright discharge shot into the air and exploded in a fall of fire.
We both stopped breathing as she whispered, “One.”
I closed my eyes and said every prayer I could remember and a couple I made up as she uttered, “Two.”
I peeled my lids back open and focused on the camp where my best friend was suffering through nightmares I could only imagine, as every single muscle in my body tensed waiting for the final number. My nerves felt like they were electric and charged with the tension coursing through me.
Ten’s lips twitched, barely, as the number three floated toward me on a puff of air.
I pulled the trigger and set the sky in front of us on fire. Since it was daytime, the explosion and pop as the chemicals ignited weren’t as brilliant as they could have been, but the noise echoed and bounced loudly off of every surface of the mountain. It rolled through the valley as a boom shook loud and clear through the trees. It was loud enough it felt like the ground should be moving and vibrating with the noise.
It didn’t take long for the racket to have the desired effect. Soon bodies were pouring out of the tents. Men of all shapes and sizes and in various states of dress rushed into the clearing, eyes pointed upward as they tried to locate the unseen threat. All of them were armed and they all looked furious at being rattled away from their typical activities.
“Shit. There’s a lot of them.” The words slipped out unchecked, but I could tell by the way Ten’s shoulder’s tensed that she agreed with my assessment.
“Cy’s at the back of the tent. It looks like he’s trying to cut his way through the fabric.”
I watched as the men at the camp started wandering around with their eyes on the sky, waiting for another blast. They were restless and anxious so it was no surprise when several random shots were fired at nothing, and nowhere near where we were hidden.
“Fuck. It’s not the right tent. They’re moving on to the next one. I hope no one sees them.”
I couldn’t imagine how anyone could miss someone as big as Cy was, but I kept my fingers crossed that he was moving like smoke and ash through the camp.
“Oh no. They’re splitting up to search the area.” Ten snatched up the radio and called to Webb. “I don’t know what your plan for distraction is, city boy, but it needs to happen right now. The bad guys are on the move.”
“Copy that. I’m about to make a whole lot of noise.”
“Hurry up. Cy and your agent went into the second tent and haven’t come out yet.” Her words were rushed and I hated that all I could do was lie there next to her, unable to help the guys on the ground.
Ten went rigid next to me and lifted her head up and then put her eye back to the scope. “Two of the guys are headed to the tent that Cy went into. I’m going to have to start firing if he doesn’t get them to stop in the next . . .”
She couldn’t finish the rest of the sentence because the world below us combusted. The dirt bikes and four wheelers parked by the tents exploded in a burst of flying metal and soaring shrapnel. The detonation made the noise and the blast from the flares look like a puny sparkler next to a Fourth of July fireworks show. Webb had done exactly what he promised and made a distraction big enough that there was no way the men at the camp could ignore it. Unfortunately, he’d had to get really close to do it, a fact that had Ten cussing up a storm and suddenly popping off shot after shot as the armed men rushed toward the part of the forest where Webb was running.
Hell broke loose and bullets were flying. I held a hand to my mouth as I watched it all unfold like something out of a pulse-pounding action movie in front of me. The sound of the rifle next to my ear was muffling all the sound from down below, but it couldn’t stop the screaming coming from my soul and the erratic thud of my heart as I caught sight of Cy scampering through the trees with a limp, dark-haired form over his shoulder. He had Em but there was no sign of Grady or Sutton. That couldn’t mean anything good.
“Fuck! Get your head down!” Her hand shot out and slapped the top of my head down and shoved my face into the rock, as tiny bits and pieces suddenly broke off and flew up in our direction. “Get back. Scoot down the other side of the rock. They know I’m shooting from up here and they’re firing back.”
“What about Sutton? Do you see Sutton or Grady?” I scooted on my ass like she told me, but panicked as soon as I could no longer see what was happening down below.
“Too busy trying to keep that damn city slicker from getting full of holes. They’ve got eyes on him and are moving in his direction. He’s purposely pulling them away from the camp but it puts a target right on his back.”
“Not good.”
She snorted. “That’s an understatement, California.”
I was turning back around so I could peek my head over the rise of the rocks to what was going on, but I never got the chance. Before I could get situated, the sound of a man clearing his throat stopped me dead still. Nervously, I looked down and came face to face with a nasty black pistol aimed at my nose and a man dressed head to toe in black, complete with streaks of grease on his face, with his finger on the trigger
This definitely wasn’t part of the plan.
No Surrender, No Retreat
I opened my mouth to scream but I stopped myself from letting out the panicked wail that was working up my throat. I was startled and I was scared but I knew if I made a sound, Ten would come back over the ledge of the rocks with her rifle and this guy might shoot first and ask questions later. He smiled at me, which was terrifying considering the war paint obscuring his features. All I could see was a slash of white against the black, making him look like some kind of disturbing Halloween mask come to life.
He lifted the gun up to his lips and made a shushing noise and indicated he wanted me to slide the rest of the way down the rocks, as quietly as possible. Instinctively, I shook my head in the negative, which made him scowl and point the gun at me again. He used a finger to motion toward himself and I sucked in breath knowing that my options were limited. I could go back up the other side of the rocks but I didn’t want to distract Ten from keeping the entire marauding camp away from Webb while Cyrus got Em and Sutton out. Besides, the other side of the rocks was a straight drop off into nothing, so if the man followed me up and over, there would be nowhere for Ten and me to escape.
With the
memory of Emrys’s blood-chilling screams ringing in my head, I slowly started to inch my way back down the rock face trying to make as little noise as possible. The man below kept the barrel of his gun pointed right at me, which made the descent even more nerve wracking than it already would have been. He watched me, unwaveringly, and that odd grin on his face never faded.
When I was almost halfway down, palms stinging and raw, the back of my jeans shredded from scooting my backside on the rocks, and the insides of my cheeks torn and bloody from chewing on the inside of my cheeks to keep quiet, I made a decision.
I decided that I had to do something . . . anything. I couldn’t hand myself over to this unknown threat after everything everyone else had done to get Em and Sutton out of danger. I was not going to be the reason this mission went twenty steps backwards and I didn’t care what that meant for me, as long as everyone else made it home safe. I wasn’t anywhere close to being a hero, but today, for the people I cared about, I could pretend to be.
Since I was sitting on the rocks and using my hands and feet to slowly inch my way down the rough surface, I was facing outward and happened to be in the perfect position to launch myself forward like a wrestler off the ropes. It meant letting go of my iron grip on every handhold I could find and it meant forgetting how deathly afraid of heights I was. It meant putting the woman who ran from everything that scared her to bed once and for all. It meant fully embracing the woman who could and would put everything on the line, even if it meant losing it all.
Retreat Page 23
