Bone

by Ainsley Cole

  She reached out, touching his hand. “Bones…?”

  Her vision was going black, her stomach churning. Her hand dropped to the roof of the car. Consciousness slipped from her, the sound of the turret firing loud overhead.

  * * *

  “Bones?” His hearing rang, Wolf’s voice was loud in his head. “Bones!”

  His face felt full, his neck pinched, and he reached up, unclasping the helmet. It dropped to the roof of the Humvee.

  “Abigail?” He turned his head, looking over at the woman. She lay on the roof of the Humvee, curled into a tiny ball, arm out to the side. Her seatbelt was hanging. It had snapped. “Abigail!”

  She stirred, groaning in pain. He moved, trying to unclip his seatbelt as the Humvee door wrenched open.

  Wolf was half in the vehicle. “Bones!”

  “Get Abigail!”

  “Baz is getting her.”

  Bones turned his head, seeing Bastian taking the groggy woman from the vehicle with care. Wolf’s voice was grinding in his ear. “Come on, unclip yourself.”

  “I can’t. It’s stuck.” He tried to wiggle it, and Wolf climbed into the car, laying down under him.

  “Hold still.” His hand moved, his flick knife coming out and he started to hack at the belt.

  “You know I’m going to fall on you, right?”

  “I’m not cutting through all the way, dumbass,” Wolf said, stopping. He shuffled out of the way. “Your fat ass will make it—”

  The belt snapped, and Bones fell with a heavy thud—on his head.

  “Fuck!” He grabbed his skull, trying to make the pain stop. He rolled to the side as Wolf shuffled out of the car and Bones did the same.

  The Humvee was on its roof in the dirt, the jeep of the militia not too far off… in flames.

  “Reaper lit them up,” Wolf said, grabbing his arm to steady him, as Bones tried to take stock of the situation. There were holes in their security now. The gates were flung open. Broken by their Humvee. The militia knew where they were. Wolf was grabbing his arm, turning him, trying to get his attention. “Braedon.”

  He looked at the man, seeing the concern in his features, but his concern was for the doctor. “Where’s Abigail?”

  “In the med bay.”

  Bones pushed past Wolf, striding toward the labs, ignoring the calls of his friend.

  Pushing open the doors, he walked in, heading past Andrew and Chris. Their wide-eyed looks pissed him off. Why the fuck did he have to babysit pussies? Abigail had bigger balls than them.

  Walking into the med bay, he stopped. Abigail was shirtless. Her breasts almost spilling from her bra, plump and—

  “Bones!”

  He blinked, looking at Apollo. His hands were covered in blood-soaked gloves, a stitch needle between his fingers. “Hand me that bandage.”

  He turned, picking up the gauze and walked over to Apollo. He handed him the bandage, and the man went behind her back again. Bones looked at Abigail. Her groggy gaze lifted, and he kicked himself for ogling her while she was not in a good way.

  “Are you okay?”

  She blinked, and Apollo came from behind her, pulling off his gloves. “She has a mild concussion and a small laceration to her back. I stitched it up. It could have been a lot worse if the belt had snapped when you were still moving…”

  Bones went around her, looking at the gash on the back of her shoulder. Two neat stitches held it together. It wasn’t huge, but he still berated himself. “Damn it.”

  He had promised himself she wouldn’t get hurt.

  “She needs rest,” Apollo said, taking her and lying her down. He finished dressing her wound and turned to his cart. “I can’t give her any meds. Not when she has a concussion. She’ll have to tough it out for now.”

  “I’ll stay with her.”

  “No, you won’t. You need stitches too.”

  “Huh?”

  Apollo lifted his hand, touching Bones’ forehead, and pain radiated from his skin. “Ow!”

  “Uh huh.” The medic turned to the woman lying on the bed. He picked up a blanket and laid it over her. “I’m going to go sew your hero up. If you need us, we’ll be in the next room, okay?”

  She nodded, smiling the best she could, and all Bones wanted to do was kiss her.

  Apollo gripped his arm, dragging him to the other room, making him sit on the bed. “Right, let’s get you sorted.”

  Bones kept his gaze on Abigail, their eyes meeting, and they stared at each other. Adrenaline was still pumping through his veins, and the longer she looked at him, the more he wanted her. She looked vulnerable… He wanted to protect her with every single fiber of his being. Wrap himself around her like a cocoon and keep her safe.

  Apollo stepped in front of him, fresh gloves on, gauze in hand and he gripped his head, making him tilt it down. “Well, you’re going to have another scar to remind you of this fucked-up country.”

  “I have yet to come out of any country without a scar,” Bones replied. He moved his head to the side, looking over to Abigail. She was resting, eyes closed. Apollo grabbed his head, moving it back to where it had been.

  “She’s going to be fine, Braedon.”

  “Is she?”

  “Yes. Her pupils are reacting to light. The laceration isn’t that bad. Only needed two stitches. She has no internal injuries.” Apollo cleaned the wound on Bones’ head, making him hiss. “You’re both fucking lucky you only came out of it with a couple scratches.”

  Bones gritted his teeth as Apollo pinched the skin of his forehead together and started to sew. He didn’t mind needles. What he didn’t like, though, was the fact the militia had been so hostile to them.

  Usually, they tried to scare off foreign aid of any kind or steal their supplies to sell to the communities at a higher rate.

  This time, they had straight-out attacked.

  “Reaper and Queenie have gone to check over the flipped jeep. The one that didn’t burst into flames. They might be able to gather intelligence on who it is.”

  “I know damn well who it is. There’s only one fucker out here who would attack like that,” Bones muttered, thinking back to the dark flag which was fluttering from behind the lead car.

  “It won’t be him, Brae. He’s dead.”

  “Is he?”

  “You slit his throat.” Bones gritted his teeth, his jaw aching as Apollo tied off the last stitch. “No way someone would have survived that. Not out here.”

  “Wouldn’t have thought Reaper could survive a bloody IRA bomb either, but look at him go.”

  Apollo stepped back, rolling his eyes as he took off his gloves and dumped them in the bin. Bones’ gaze slipped to Abigail. She was still asleep. “Joshua had the best medical help he could get. Ungato didn’t. The middle of the Kenyan wilderness; your eighteen-inch hunting knife across his jugular. That's what he had. Ungato bled out.”

  Bones lifted his gaze to his friend. A man who had been through thick and thin with him, since they had both come to the same adoptive family as kids. This man, his brother, was trying to be rational, but his mind wasn’t having a bar of it. “Then why is it, Baz, when I imagine what happened, of all the possibilities, his name keeps popping up?”

  “It’s because you still can’t get over what happened.” Apollo turned, picking up a syringe marked Tetanus booster. He turned back to Bones, pushing it into his bicep. “What Ungato did to you, your mind is still trying to process it. PTSD plain and simple. You’ve been through this with the counselors. You’ve talked about it to length, and now the only thing you can do is find some sort of coping mechanism.”

  Apollo turned away from him, cleaning up, before he left the room, going back to Abigail. He watched as he checked her, making sure her pupils were reacting, that the wound was not seeping.

  Bones had found his coping mechanism a long time ago.

  Women.

  Fuck them and forget. That was his motto. See how many women it would take for him to forget his demons. B
ut every time he took a woman to his bed, the demons would come out to play.

  They would beg him to be rough, to make the women suffer as he had.

  Frowning, his gaze settled on Abigail’s face. She was dirty and bruised. But in his eyes, she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. And he wondered, would his demons play nice with her?

  * * *

  “You should be resting.”

  Abigail turned to Bastian, seeing the blond staring at her. “I can’t. I have these samples to work on.”

  “Abigail, you took a damn hard hit to your head. You should be sleeping.”

  She sighed, turning to Apollo. “I can’t. I must get this done. I must get it figured out. Bones was almost killed today because I wanted to go and play in a pit of rotting bodies.”

  “No.” He walked over to her, taking the samples and placing them on the bench. “You both almost got killed because of the militia. Not because of something you did or wanted to do.”

  Abigail’s bottom lip trembled, and he tilted her chin, making her look at him. “Don’t push yourself too hard. It’s going to come back and bite you.”

  Nodding, she watched as he stepped back, leaving her in the room on her own.

  Apollo was right. She couldn’t blame herself for what happened. The militia would have known they were there long before the incident kicked off. But the idea that Bones and herself had almost lost their lives still burned inside her.

  Turning to the samples, she sat down on the stool. She started to look over them, trying to figure out what was going on. She wanted to get them the hell out of here before someone lost their life.

  * * *

  “So, we searched the jeep.”

  Reaper dropped a couple guns and ammo clips to the table. Along with some radios and a leaf of paper. Bones picked the paper up, opening it and scanned the message.

  5 men military team.

  3 civilians.

  C.H. Reeves

  Medical supplies and weaponry.

  Bones blinked, putting the paper down, looking to his men. “Who the fuck is C.H. Reeves?”

  Wolf and Apollo shrugged. Queenie lifted his phone, typing away on it. He stopped, leaning back in his chair, his eyebrows furrowing together. “Carlos Henry Reeves. Born 15th September 1953, New Jersey. Known arms dealer, based out of Morocco. Sells arms to Al-Qaeda, The Taliban and various African militia.”

  “Great.” Bones pushed his hand through his hair, chewing his bottom lip. “What the fuck has this got to do with us?”

  “Hang on.” Queenie frowned, his perfect eyebrows scrunching together. “Oh, fuck.”

  “What?”

  He turned his phone, showing Bones the screen. She was younger, her hair lighter, her face a little rounder, but he knew those eyes from anywhere. They haunted his dreams and his dirty fantasies.

  He turned his head, looking to the labs. The scar on the side of his face itched. As it did when something beyond his control occurred.

  “Abigail Anne Baker, born 18 April 1993, estranged and only daughter of C.H. Reeves.”

  Bones’ stomach lurched as the table fell silent. He looked at Queenie, the man’s amber colored eyes widening. “Bones, Dr. Baker is the daughter of an arms dealer.”

  * * *

  Nothing was growing. Nothing was fermenting. It was starting to drive Abigail insane, and she leaned back, looking at the samples. Each of them swabbed, cut down and mashed. They were now sitting in the fluid, waiting for the spectrometer.

  She had a dull ache starting behind her eyes. Apollo could be right. She should take it easy. “No, I can do this.”

  Picking up the tray, she moved to the machine, putting the vials into the slots and turned it on. She walked back to the microscope and sat down on the stool, staring through the lens at the tissue samples. They were degraded, but housed the same characteristics as the flesh from the kid.

  Chris had been a little worried when she had asked if she could take a small tissue sample, but he had let her in the end.

  Picking up another vial, she moved it, looking at the sample under the microscope as the door opened.

  * * *

  “Who’s C.H. Reeves?”

  Abigail’s hands stopped for a second. They continued with the samples from the village, and she shrugged. “Who?”

  Bones sucked his tongue over his teeth. Holding the sheet of paper in his hand, he walked over to her and sat on the stool next to her. Gripping her knee, he turned her to him, and she blinked in surprise, the vials open in her hands.

  “Bones! You could get this on you and—”

  “Who is C.H. Reeves?”

  Her jaw clenched, and she tried to turn back to the microscope. “I don’t know who you’re—”

  Bones gripped her stool, holding it still. He leaned forward, staring into her beautiful eyes. “How about we play a game? I ask the questions, and you don’t fucking lie to me.”

  Her bottom lip trembled, and he held up the piece of paper, showing the man’s name on it. “This was in one of the jeeps, along with weapons and radios. They knew we were here. And they seem mighty interested in this Reeves guy. And guess what? Queenie did some digging because he’s good like that.”

  His hand dipped into the back pocket of his fatigues, pulling out Queenie’s phone, with her picture on it. He held it up. Her gaze shifted to it, and her face paled.

  “So how about we try it again? Who is C.H. Reeves?”

  He already knew who it was and what her relationship was, but he had to hear it from her perfect lips.

  Her eyes watered, bottom lip trembling further and she lifted her gaze to his.

  Bones had never been any good at comforting crying women. He knew, with his anger right now, even though she was like a drug to him, this time wouldn’t be any different. “Abigail.”

  “He’s…” She turned her head, putting the samples on the bench. She turned back to him, her hands fidgeting with the hem of her lab coat. “He’s my father.”

  Bones had hoped it was a mistake. That this stunning woman in front of him had nothing to do with someone in the arms trade.

  But there it was, from her own mouth.

  Standing, he knocked over the stool, making her jump. “When the fuck were you going to tell me?”

  Abigail blinked, her lips pursing as she looked up at him. “I didn’t think it was important.”

  “Not important? We have a fucking mob of militia out there who know you’re his daughter! You know what that means? It means that this mission is over. Terminated.” He turned, stalking to the door.

  “Major Roberts!” Her voice was curt, and he clenched his jaw, turning to her, his left eye ticking. “We are not leaving until this mission is over and we know what’s killing these people!”

  He tilted his head to the side and started to walk back to her. “Are you sure it’s wise to piss me off? You want to stay because a couple of people are dying? What about your own damned life? The lives of Chris and Andrew? The lives of my men!”

  She jumped as his voice boomed and she stood, squaring up to him. “I don’t fucking care! I was sent here to do a job. Find out what is causing the deaths and provide a report. I don’t know what’s happening, or what it is, so we don’t leave. Do you want the world to know your company is incompetent? That they couldn’t finish out a mission because some local militia scared them? I thought you were supposed to be more professional than that?”

  Her words stung, and he stepped forward again, his face mere inches from hers. And as much as right now he would love to shake the shit out of her, he also wanted to kiss her. It took a lot to stand up to him. He was a bear in comparison to her. “Tell me you have nothing to do with him.”

  She blinked, closing her mouth. “What? Of course I don’t have anything to do with him. I haven’t seen him since he left me and my mother when I was five. I happen to have his blood running through my veins. That's all.”

  Bones could feel a headache coming on. He stepp
ed back, looking at the samples she had left on the bench. He had to figure out something. Something which would get the mission done quicker and them the hell out of Kenya. “How long will it take to get this figured out?”

  Abigail turned her head to the microscope. “Two days. I should be able to run the tests and figure out its compounds by then, and we will have the reports to show the company.”

  Two days…

  Bones pursed his lips, fighting with his mind. He didn’t know if they had two days.

  Chapter Five

  Abigail paced the lab. She was waiting on the spectrometer to finish. It still had close to fifteen minutes.

  Her mind wandered back to Bones.

  He’d found out about Carlos.

  Her father. She didn’t even deem him worthy enough to call him Dad. He’d abandoned her and her mother when she was little. Running off to Spain with his mistress.

  It had devastated her mother—she’d only lived another three years. Her depression had sapped her health.

  Abigail had gone to live with her uncle. A man of science who had shown her the ways of pathology. She'd loved it and hadn’t looked back.

  Bones had seemed so concerned about her involvement with Carlos. When she told him she hadn’t seen him since she was little, he had relaxed. At least he knew she didn’t have any ties with him, other than her DNA.

  The spectrometer beeped at her, and she blinked, crossing to it as it started to print out the reading. She bounced on her heels, waiting for the ink to finish its job. As it spat out the sheet, she grabbed it, turning.

  “Chemical compounds…huh?” She blinked, lifting her gaze to the microscope. She crossed to it, bringing the slides of blood to the screen and she looked down the lens at it again. “Toxins?”

  Staring at the blood, she could see how thin it was, how the cells were almost breaking. Lifting her head, she looked at the sheet of paper again. Turning to her laptop, she typed in the chemical compounds which seemed the highest on the scale.

  “Dispholidus typus?” Bringing up another page, she typed in the name, frowning at the result. “You have to be kidding me.”

  Printing the page, she grabbed both, running through the clinic and out into the sun. She had to find Bones.