He was a total blind spot, in the dark and in my mind. We couldn’t even hear him unless he wanted us to. He very well could have the upper hand here.
The heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach grew just as my spine was completely engulfed. He was about to make his move and whatever he’d finally decided upon, wouldn’t end well for us. We needed to move.
“New is always fun. You see, it’s the challenge I love.”
The frigid tightness around my spine clinched, hard, right before my stomach heaved.
I rose, and as my hand lifted on the back of his vest, he stood too. I grabbed his belt and yanked in the direction I was planning on going, then let go, and jumped to the right. I knew he’d drop into a left roll and I heard him hit the ground just as a shot fired into the darkness.
The muzzle flash was slim to none, but the echo of the shot rang loudly in my ears as icy tightness up my back eased just enough to let me know he was undecided about what to do. It hadn’t worked, so he was rethinking his strategy.
My heart raced as my ears continued to ring and I had to resist the urge to shake my head or stick my fingers in my ears and wiggle them around. But as per protocol, I stood stock still, didn’t so much as move a muscle, and consciously waited for Sutton to find me; purposely expecting his touch so it didn’t startle me.
Don’t jump. Don’t jump. Don’t jump. The chant in my head didn’t help. My mouth was dry and nausea roiled my stomach. I hated this. We’d never quite been in this position, and I wasn’t a fan.
A large palm landed on my hip and my heart stuttered in my chest before it completely skipped a beat as his back pressed up against mine.
I slowly drew in a quiet breath, trying to calm it down, and covered his hand with mine.
His fingers dug into my hip, gripping it hard as we stood there, waiting.
Sharp pain sliced through my stomach and I had just enough time to dig my nails into the back of his hand and raise my gun before a flashlight clicked on and lit up the wall I was facing. As I spun around, another shot rang out.
Sutton grunted as his body flinched, and his anger flared into a shock of surprise.
“Hey!” Yelling bought me the half second I needed to clear Sutton’s arm. His eyes widened in surprise as I aimed for his chest and squeezed the trigger. Once. Twice. His body jerked with each hit and on the second shot, his gun fell from his hand.
The pain in my stomach disappeared as he stood there staring at me, outrage clear on his face as he brought his hands to his chest.
“What are you?” he demanded, blood spewing from his lips, then fell, coughing, into a heap on the ground. His grip on the flashlight finally gave, and it rolled away, lighting up the darkness of the cave around us as it went.
“FBI,” I answered and Sutton snorted from beside me.
“How bad?” I kept my gun trained on the prone body still coughing and dug my flashlight out.
“Shoulder.”
I flicked it on and ran it over Hicks. He’d stopped moving but my skin still burned so I eased my way over to him.
“Don’t touch that son of a bitch.”
“I hadn’t planned on it.” I wasn’t stupid.
His gun laid about a foot from his hand, and just as I’d thought earlier, sported a nice little flash suppressor. I kicked it away and stared down at him.
Would he survive this? Heal? I needed to know what he was; if there were more like him. More people that I couldn’t sense out there. And if I couldn’t sense them, is that how they were getting away? Why the other teams couldn’t find anything?
My body didn’t tell me I was wrong, and that’s all I needed to know.
I bent down closer and the urge to tear my skin away, scratch by scratch, overwhelmed me.
“I said don’t touch him!” Sutton bellowed from behind me.
I rolled my eyes at his overbearing outburst. I stepped back to appease him, aimed right between Hicks eyes, and pulled the trigger. Fuck that.
The burn dissipated, and the world shifted around me. Hick’s lifeless body morphed into two and shimmered as it wavered before me, then merged becoming one again.
Shit. I shook off the usual momentary dizziness that came with the prophetic warnings. By pulling that trigger I’d started a chain of events we had no way of knowing the repercussions of.
“You alright?” He was worried again.
“Um, yeah. I think,” I said sarcastically.
“Care to elaborate?”
Nope! Sure didn’t. I shrugged, then turned around in the beam of his flashlight and jerked my thumb around behind me. “ST needs to come do something with that.”
“I sent them the location before we came down.”
“Really? Do you have no faith in me anymore?”
He shined his light in my face. “You? Yes. Your ability to not shoot people? None, whatsoever.”
Jerk. I didn’t shoot plenty of people. Like him, for instance.
Okay, once. But that was with a tranq dart and for his own benefit. I had no regrets.
I started towards him and flipped him off. “Get that out of my eyes and let me see your arm.”
He bent forward in my direction and pushed his right shoulder toward me.
I stuck my finger into the hole in the shirt, peeled the wet sticky material away from his arm, then pulled. The sleeve gave way and ripped halfway down to his elbow.
I held the light between my teeth and wiped away as much of the blood as I could. His skin was splotchy and red around the small hole and it quickly filled again before I could see how deep the wound was. I wiped my hand down my stomach and pressed my fingers back around the wound, swiped it quickly, then manipulated the area around it, trying to at least feel for the bullet.
Pain emanated from him right before a low growl rumbled from his chest and I looked up.
His eyebrows were furrowed, jaw clenched, teeth bared.
“What?” I asked around the light.
“A little finesse, maybe?” he asked sarcastically.
I let go of his bicep and freed my mouth. “I am finessing. If you’re going to whine, I can just stick my finger in the hole?”
His palm landed on my forehead, and he pushed me back with the heel of his hand. “Get away from me.”
“Whatever. Just do what you need to do so we can get out of here.”
I turned away and started walking down the tunnel. “You still have to go to the hospital though.”
“Not if you keep going in that direction I don’t.”
I kept going but called back, “Yes you do. I can’t dig that one out, bonehead.” Then it clicked. I spun around and shined my light on him. He was bent over Hick’s digging in his pockets? “What?”
He flicked his light toward the opposite direction and motioned with his arm. “Exits that way, genius.”
Dammit. I stomped back towards him. I purposely didn’t look at the body on the ground as I passed them both and kept going.
“Did you have to shoot him in the fucking head?”
“Yup.”
“You know how much paperwork that is!” he said exasperated as he caught up and fell in step beside me.
“That’s why you make the big bucks, ‘boss man’.” I grinned and clapped him on the shoulder.
“You realize you make more money than me, right?”
“Still not doing your paperwork, big guy.” It surprised me though. He was the head of our department, in charge of all special teams, and had to put up with me. I’d have thought they’d at least paid him more for that last one. I wasn’t exactly Mrs. Congeniality here.
Our lights bounced between the ground and the walls as I led the way back. The ceiling, walls and ground were nothing but stone. I didn’t know much about caves but that wasn’t natural, was it? I’d never understood the appeal of spelunking, but Mason loved it and used to come back dirty as hell whenever he’d gone. This wasn’t dirty.
The smooth surfaces looked like something you’d see underwa
ter, the rough edges worn away by currents, time, and nature. I could see it being kind of beautiful; if you liked creepy shit like that.
We made it to the opening, and I glanced at the tunnel to the left as I swung right and kept going. When his light didn’t join mine, I stopped and turned around.
Sutton stood in the mouth of the middle tunnel, looking down it.
“What are you doing?”
“We need to know what’s down there,” he said, looking back once then started walking into it.
“No, ‘we’ don’t.” I jogged back over to him. “Weee aren’t equipped to handle whatever is down there. Let it wait for special teams.”
“I’m just going to look, stay here.”
Stay here? At those words, my stomach pitched and let me know that was just as equally a bad idea. If he went down there, there was a good chance he wouldn’t be coming back. I didn’t like those odds.
“I don’t think you understand.” I pulled back on his arm. “I said no, I meant no.”
“No, you don’t understand.” He bent his head down and rested his forehead against mine. “There’s something down there that can kill you, I can’t just leave knowing that.”
He pulled back, kissed my forehead, and took off down the tunnel without another word.
The pain sharpened and memories of the last time he’d ignored a warning from my sixes surfaced. Fucking saint and savior. He was going to get himself killed.
I took off after him.
“I know you’re dense and everything, but I thought the meaning of the word ‘no’ was an easy one,” I said as I caught up.
He spun around and hit me with his light, blinding me. “You’re not coming, get back out there!”
“Oh, I’m aware I’m not going down there,” I said, raising my hand up to shield my eyes. “Neither are you though.”
He sighed heavily. “I’m just going to look. I’ll be back in a minute. Go.” He dismissed me and started walking away again.
I blinked a few times to acclimate back to the darkness, then just stared as he walked away. This mother fucker. The last time I’d panicked and completely lost my shit. This time? I’d shoot his ass on purpose.
I raised my gun and brought my flashlight up underneath it to the other side. My wrists and the backs of each hand pressed against each other and maintained the pressure while I pointed it right at his left ass cheek. “I will shoot you in the ass, again, before I let you get yourself killed.”
He froze mid-step and apprehension sparked to life inside him. “Vaughn…”
“Dead fucking serious, big guy.”
He slowly put his foot back down evenly with the other and looked back over his shoulder. When he saw my service weapon, his eyebrows went up and the apprehension morphed into outrage. “You wouldn’t fucking dare.”
“Try me.” I bit the inside of my cheek in an effort not to laugh at how close his eyebrows had gotten to his hairline.
“That’s not your tranq gun, Vaughn.”
“I’m aware of that too. See, my theory is, that if I tranq you, you’ll just drop.” I shrugged. “Doesn’t really help my situation. On the other hand, you can in-fact, sashay that sweet ass of yours right on out of here with a hole in it. Up to you.”
He knew I wasn’t bluffing and was just angry now. “Lower your weapon, V.”
“Back up.”
“Vaughn. I’m just walking down—”
“Come on, Sut. Don’t do this.” I cut him off. “You promised...”
His anger faded and his shoulders fell as regret and sadness warred within him at the reminder of the promise he’d made.
“I’m not upset. Or angry. Just turn around and we’ll call it even, okay?”
He laughed derisively but turned around. “Even?”
“Yeah, you almost broke our agreement, and I almost got to shoot you in the ass for it.”
The corner of his lips twitched, and he started back towards me. “If you could sound a little less enthusiastic about it, that’d be great.”
I sighed in relief and lowered my arms. “That’d take all the fun out of it though, wouldn’t it?” It came out a little more snarky than I’d intended but I didn’t care. I was done with this shit.
I turned on my heel and headed for the exit. My light caught a shadow the size of a full grown man and caught me so off guard, I almost tripped. I hated when he did that shit. Always showing up at the worst times.
He’d been with me as long as I could remember, popping in and out. He only got this close around other people in extreme situations. Guess this qualified?
“You’re pissed,” Sutton asked.
I assumed it was rhetorical and ignored him as he caught up again and we made our way back to the hole.
I caught flashes of my shadow as we went, but Sutton never said anything about it. He never had. And I’d definitely never told him about it.
I’d learned that lesson the hard way long ago.
The hole we’d dropped down from came into view and I shined my light along the walls and ceiling looking for a way up. I’m not sure what I was expecting, a ladder, rope, something?
“Ready?”
“To what exactly? See you sprout wings out of your ass?” I asked and crossed my arms over my chest.
Amusement radiated from him as he tucked his flashlight into his back pocket then held out his arms. “Come here.”
I stayed right where I was and looked between him and the hole. The only way he could get me that high up was by throwing… Oh, hell no! That hole was not that big. “That is not happening.”
He clapped a couple of times excitedly and did grabby fingers in the beam of my light.
“You look like a giant fucking toddler.”
He grinned before he knelt down and motioned me over again. “Quit being pissed and get over here.”
I looked up one more time before I holstered my gun and walked over to him. He couldn’t have honestly been planning to throw me. Could he?
He held his hands out, palms up and fingers locked.
Guess he was. “You’re fucking joking, right?” Please, be joking.
“It’s your only option, woman.”
I tried to find anything other than truth in his words but there was nothing. He was serious.
I put my hand on his shoulder and one foot onto his hands then paused. “No offense, big guy, but you got this, right?” I was angry, but if he said he had it, I believed him.
“I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t, Vaughn.”
I sighed and stepped up with the other foot.
His palms took my weight as if it were nothing, and he lifted.
I wasn’t ready. The shift was just enough to knock me off center and caused my legs to wobble. I bent further down over him and held tighter to his shoulders to steady myself.
A small thread of doubt worked itself amongst the amusement in his mind and it was enough to give me pause.
I lowered myself down and wrapped an arm under his throat, locked it with the other and whispered in his ear, “If you so much as even think you have one doubt about this and throw me anyway, I will give your personal phone number to every fucking woman I see that even remotely looks like a fucking virgin. Do you hear me, James Micheal Sutton? It will be the mother fucking virgin nightmare parade from now on. Am. I. Clear?”
I felt him nod against my chest.
“Say it.”
“Clear,” he choked out.
“Good.” I relaxed my muscles and unlocked my arm, freeing him to draw in a breath.
“Ass,” he choked the insult out on what sounded like a strained laugh. “Check the surface then raise your wards.”
“If you don’t ring that hole…”
“Would you just trust me?”
I growled my response, did what he said, and let him help me back to position. I can’t believe I was letting him do this.
“Lock your body.”
Fuck fuck fuck. I crossed my arms over my chest
and locked every muscle.
“Ready?”
“Fuck you.”
Chapter Six
I yelped in surprise at the suddenness of being launched from a dead stop. I was going to kill him. As the hole grew closer and closer my shoulders tightened and drew in closer to my body. My neck tried to do a disappearing act, and I winced, barely keeping my eyes open as I cleared the opening. That was so close.
I looked down as I peaked and at the sight of the quickly approaching opening flung my arms out and tried to shift my balance. I’d love to say I handled that moment with the practiced grace of training, but that didn’t happen. At all. I ended up windmilling my way down; arms and legs flailing everywhere before common sense kicked in and I forced my muscles to relax and bent my knees. My boots hit down hard as I landed on the balls of my feet and my lower body absorbed most of the impact. I’d landed in a crouch at the edge, one foot half off the ledge.
“Holy shit!” It came out squeakier than I’d ever admit and my heart raced as I squinted from the brightness of the sun and looked around the still deserted rock yard.
I dragged in a shaky breath and straightened up then glared down the hole tempted to leave him down there.
I turned away and headed for the truck to get the rope before the temptation won out. I’d made it about twenty feet when a noise behind me had me pulling my weapon and whirling around.
Hands were gripping the edge of the hole, big hands, fingers digging into the earth. I watched, dumbfounded, as his head appeared followed by his shoulders. The muscles in his arms strained against his shirt as he flattened his hands down and heaved the rest of his bulk up.
There’s no possible way...
He got to his waist, then smirked as he brought his knee up, planted his foot on the ground, and hopped out.
How. The fuck. Had he done that? Two stories up?
“Ready to go?” he asked, dusting himself off as if what I’d just seen was a normal event.
“Gun down, jaw up, sassy pants.”
He flicked my chin as he passed by and left me standing there staring at the hole like an idiot.
“Show off,” I grumbled and turned to follow him out through the side lot. I was glad we didn’t have to cut back through the trees and it didn’t take us long to make it back to the truck.
Trust In Lust Page 6
