War Games_Valiant Knox

by Jess Anastasi

  The soldier who’d been pulling at her jacket was ready, but his apprehensive expression as Cam made a move for him probably meant the fight was already lost. The CS soldier started to pull a knife, but Cam kicked out at him, following the initial blow with a knee to the head, then leaving the unconscious man to drop to the floor.

  Rounding, he put himself in between her and the only soldier left standing in the room, the one who’d been giving the orders.

  “No one is touching her.” Cam’s words were low and lethal, with a chilling finality.

  The CS soldier didn’t appear particularly worried about the fact that Cam had put down three of his men, even with the disadvantage of being cuffed. Another door opened, and several more CS soldiers came in, these ones with guns trained on them.

  The soldier in charge took one of the guns off his men and walked over to press the barrel into Cam’s forehead.

  Her heart screamed to a stop, free falling into nothingness and leaving her unable to breathe. The fear over her own fate was nothing compared to the utter terror that swamped her now.

  “Please, don’t hurt him. I’ll do whatever you tell me.” She shifted forward, trying to get the man’s attention.

  “How about I put a bullet in your head and then we do whatever the hell we want with her?” The CS soldier ignored her and pressed the gun harder against Cam’s head, forcing him down to his knees.

  “It’d be a waste to kill me.” Cam sounded more pissed about the gun at his head than afraid.

  “Why? Because you’re a rebel, not a defector? Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “Because I’m UEF,” Cam shot back.

  “No!” She went to take another step forward, but two other soldiers yanked her back.

  “UEF?” The leader finally pulled the gun away from his head.

  “My name is Colonel Cameron McAllister, United Earth Force military. Service number nine-nine-three-zero-six-three-eight-one.”

  Triumph edged into the leader’s expression. “And her?”

  “She doesn’t know anything about my mission.”

  The soldier simply stared at him, and she could see him weighing things up, but she couldn’t tell whether he believed Cam or not.

  “Put her in with the others,” the leader ordered his men without taking his eyes off Cam. “The colonel and I are going to have a little chat.”

  When the soldiers holding her started tugging her toward the door, she resisted.

  “No. Wait!” A new terror had taken hold of her—that she wouldn’t ever see him, again. That they’d torture and kill him. That he was sacrificing himself for nothing, because it probably wouldn’t even save her.

  Except maybe it would. In only a few hours, the rebels were going to attack this facility. If the CS soldiers spent that time focused on Cam, if he strung them out, they might leave her alone. But how was she supposed to live with herself if she quietly let them lead her away, only able to imagine what horrors he was being subjected to so he could protect her?

  “Go with them and don’t say anything,” he ordered, not even bothering to look over at her.

  “No! You can’t—” One of the soldiers smacked her in the ear, nearly sending her to the floor. But they held her up and then dragged her when she didn’t get her feet moving fast enough.

  “Our deal was no one touches her!” Cam had surged to his feet, yelling at the leader. The last thing she saw before the door swung closed was Cam getting pistol-whipped and dropping to the floor like a stone.

  Oh God, what was she going to do? She considered telling them she was UEF as well, but all that would do was land her in the same kind of interrogation Cam was about to face. He’d sacrificed himself to save her.

  But it wasn’t just her life at stake. Though he didn’t realize, he’d also prevented the CSS from finding the comm she’d hidden in her bra. Not only would the people on the Valiant Knox know she was behind the walls and fences of the camp, but if the CS soldiers didn’t find it before the rebels attacked, she’d still be able to call in the air strike. Without knowing the movements of the rebel troops on the ground, she couldn’t exactly coordinate like she’d planned. But she could call in the jets at the right moment, and Alpha would be able to take it from there.

  So, she kept quiet as the soldiers led her through two more corridors, then stopped in front of a door. One of the soldiers uncuffed her while the other unlocked the door. As she was hustled in, four male figures rose from where they’d been sitting around the room. For half a second, a low swell of anxiety rushed up that the CS soldiers were locking her up with some unknown men, but then the faces registered as familiar, leaving only relief.

  “Seb!” She rushed forward into his embrace, hugging him tight.

  “Damn it, Bren, you weren’t supposed to end up in here, too.” He pulled back to grin down at her, though the expression didn’t reach his eyes. He was looking worse for wear, as were the others. Clearly the CS soldiers had interrogated all of them.

  “Do they know?” she asked in a low, quiet voice, not sure if the CSS had the ability to hear whatever was said in this room. It was definitely some kind of interview or viewing room, with one entire wall looking to be a one-way mirror.

  “That we’re UEF?” Seb asked in a normal tone. “One of the rebels betrayed us.”

  Then she’d given away her hand by hugging Seb if anyone was watching on the other side of the glass. But the leader had clearly guessed the truth anyway. Why else put her in here?

  “Where’s Colonel McAllister?” Harlow stepped closer, looking concerned.

  “We got captured at the same time. He told them he was UEF to protect me.”

  “Of course he did,” Bartlet muttered.

  “There’s something else,” Seb said. “It’s Shen. She’s here. I saw her in another cell just down the corridor.

  Hell. She couldn’t work out if this was great news or terrible news. They knew where she was, but they had no way of getting to her. And in a few short hours, their own squad was going to bomb the heck out of this place.

  If they were being watched, she couldn’t tell Seb and the others about her comm or the air strike. It wouldn’t just give away a hand, it’d give away the entire game.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The CS soldiers kept a contingent of five guards on Cam as they marched him down a couple of corridors with the leader bringing up the front. Obviously, they weren’t willing to take any chances after he’d taken three of the bastards down in the holding room when they’d threatened to strip Bren.

  He might still be pissed as hell with her—she had defied his orders and gotten them both caught, just like her brother had done to him all those years ago. Just as he’d feared, she’d proven to have the same selfish judgment that put other people in jeopardy. The entire fate of the rebel movement and the whole damn war with the CSS hung in the balance simply because she hadn’t followed his directive.

  Nonetheless, when that soldier had put his hands on her with the intent of stripping her naked in front of half a dozen men, he’d seen red. His instinct had taken over, pure, unadulterated rage boiling in his veins. It wouldn’t have mattered if it’d been three or thirty men standing between the two of them, he would have put all of them down to get to her and stop her from being violated.

  They had a few short hours until the rebels attacked. All he needed was for her to keep her head down until then, and they might still get out of this alive.

  The soldiers around him came to a halt as the leader opened a door and then stood back.

  “After you, Colonel.”

  His heart thumped against his ribs, but he set his shoulders and walked forward, as if he wasn’t worried about what was going to happen inside. They could do whatever they wanted to him. He’d endure anything as long as he knew Bren was safe. Yes, she’d betrayed his trust. And he’d been fooling himself if he’d really thought their relationship had any substance to it, that it would be sustainable once they got bac
k to their usual lives. These things happened sometimes, when soldiers were thrown together and emotions ran high. He’d just never expected it to happen to him. And not with Jordie’s sister, of all people.

  But maybe that was the crux of the issue—this thing with Bren had been more about what had happened with her brother and his need to work out his demons or some psycho-babble bullshit. He hadn’t wanted her to be anything like Jordie, had wanted this mission to turn out differently, had kept believing it would, even as things got more and more screwed up. But in the end, history repeated itself, and yet again, he was left to pick up the pieces.

  The CS soldier stepped into the small room after him, none of it what he expected. There were a couple of chairs and a desk, with one wall entirely taken up by tinted glass. On the other side, Bren stood talking to Seb, while the rest of his men sat or stood around the room. Though they all looked liked they’d been worked over, none of them appeared seriously injured.

  “What is this?” he demanded when the door closed, leaving him alone with the CS soldier, who seemed to be higher ranking.

  “You said she wasn’t UEF,” the soldier said, perching on the edge of the table and clasping his hands.

  He didn’t reply, since the familiar way Bren and Seb were talking spoke volumes. And at this point, he assumed the CSS knew Seb and his men were also UEF.

  “Your men weren’t very forthcoming about their reasons for being in CSS territory, or why they were meeting the rebels,” the soldier said when Cam didn’t answer. “I’m not stupid. I can put a picture together without all the pieces.”

  “And what kind of picture do you have?” he asked, deciding to play the game, knowing that’s what the soldier wanted from him.

  The soldier clasped his hands behind his back as he stepped forward. “The UEF was going to make some kind of deal with the rebels. Maybe I don’t have the details, but I’m sure you could fill me in. What did you have to offer them? Weapons? Men? Technology?”

  He clenched his jaw, keeping his gaze trained straight ahead to where Seb was giving Bren what was no doubt a sanitized version of what he and the other men had endured in the past few days.

  “After dealing with your men, I’m guessing that torturing you will be just as pointless in extracting information.”

  “Then I guess we’re done here.”

  “Far from it.” The CS soldier came to stand next to him, staring into the room beyond the glass. “See? I got this idea, when you were so determined to protect that woman in the holding room.”

  His guts started churning, but he kept himself from outwardly reacting. Shit. He’d revealed his weakness, and now this bastard knew what it was.

  Bren.

  The door to the other room opened, and the five men who’d escorted him down the corridor stepped in, weapons raised, ordering his men to get back and on their knees. When Bren started to go with them to comply, one of the soldiers grabbed her, keeping her apart in the middle of the room.

  “We’re a lot alike, you and I,” the CS soldier next to him said, leaning in as if they were buddies discussing a football match. “You have the respect of your men, and you hold yourself to a higher standard to keep that respect.”

  “And you learned all this from ten minutes of me not answering your questions?” he taunted, trying to think of a way to distract the man out of whatever scheme he’d come up with.

  “No. You aren’t an open book. But I can tell from the dealings I’ve had with your men. And the way you reacted to protect her? Well, I think we both know she’s more than just another one of your soldiers.”

  His stomach felt heavy, his body hot, like his insides were turning to lava. His mind was rushing. There had to be some way out of this, but he couldn’t catch a single thought.

  “Nothing to say?” the CS soldier asked, not sounding particularly surprised. He grabbed an old-fashioned radio from his belt, holding it up to his mouth. “Go ahead.”

  The soldier standing in the middle of the room closest to Bren backhanded her without warning, sending her to the floor.

  “Hey!” Seb yelled, shooting to his feet in fury. “What the hell was that for?”

  The soldier standing over Bren reached down and grabbed a handful of her clothing to roughly pull her up. But only so he could hit her again.

  “Stop, damn it!” Seb started to surge forward, but one soldier intercepted him as another pointed a gun in his face. “We don’t know what the rebels are planning. You grabbed us before we met with them!”

  The rest of his men joined in, every one of them furious. And Bren, hell, she hadn’t been cowed by the assault, she looked just as pissed.

  “Hit me all you want. They’re not going to tell you anything. And neither will I.” She wrenched out of the soldier’s hold and stepped back to stand tall, blood trickling down her chin from a split lip.

  His insides were tearing, right down the middle, duty splitting apart from instinct. He couldn’t stand here and watch them hurt her; it was making his entire body ache with fury. But he couldn’t give the CSS what they wanted when the fate of the whole damn war was at risk.

  “Now I know what you see in her.” The CS soldier next to him moved closer to the glass separating the rooms. “She’s got some fight in her. And that hair. It must look spectacular when it’s untied.”

  He took the radio in hand again, half turning away to murmur a command too low for Cam to hear. But something in the husky tone of the man’s voice started to ignite the fury into wild, uncontrollable rage.

  In the next room, the soldier who’d hit Bren pulled out a knife. As he stepped closer to her, she tensed, as though debating whether or not to fight. When the soldier reached up and grabbed a handful of her hair, she began to struggle and Cam couldn’t breathe.

  The soldier brought the knife up and flicked it, slicing the tie that’d been holding back her hair, sending it tumbling to her shoulders. He then wrenched her arm so that she was forced into a turn, her back to his chest and the knife at her throat. The soldier walked her forward until she was pressed against the glass. So close, but no way he could get to her. He clenched his fists, barely resisting the urge to smash through the glass.

  Though her expression was still furious, he could see the fear in her eyes. In the background, the other soldiers were having trouble keeping Seb and his men contained. Until a shot exploded loudly in the room, and one of his men fell to the floor. Seb had been shoved face down on the floor, leaving Harlow and Bartlet to rush to their companion’s aid. But it was no use—Cam could tell even from here that the bullet had gone through his heart, and there was nothing they could do to stop him bleeding out.

  “Well, that’s unfortunate,” the CS soldier next to him commented, totally blasé. “If you don’t start talking, things are going to go much further with the woman, and it’s probable the rest of your men will be killed in their pointless attempts to stop it.”

  Even as the soldier next to him spoke, the man holding Bren wrenched her head back, pressing the blade against her neck until a rivulet of blood dribbled down to the neckline of her shirt.

  The sight snapped the last thread of his sense of duty tethering his instincts. With a cry of fury, he slammed himself against the CS soldier, putting him against the glass just like Bren.

  “Order him to let her go,” he said, his voice guttural with rage as he shoved more of his weight against the soldier.

  The bastard actually laughed. “Then tell me what I want to know.”

  His gaze was drawn back to Bren. She’d started struggling against the soldier, who was clearly enjoying the way she writhed against him.

  “They’re going to attack the Holy City.” He couldn’t keep quiet any longer, not when they were threatening Bren and had already killed one of his men. But if he could misdirect the CS soldier’s forces, then maybe when the rebels attached the camp, there’d be less CSS forces to hold the ground.

  He released the CS soldier and stepped back, letting his shou
lders slump as if he was defeated. “The rebels are going to attack the Holy City in a few hours, and the UEF planned to give them weapons.”

  The CS soldier pulled his clothes straight and shot him a cool smile. “That wasn’t so unpleasant, was it? I’m glad we could come to an agreement.”

  “Screw you,” he muttered darkly.

  The soldier shoved him toward the door, sending him stumbling a step. They left the room again, but only took the three short steps to the next door, where he was pushed through to join the others.

  One of the soldiers paused to uncuff him as the rest filed out the door, leaving Bren and the others free.

  “Colonel.” Harlow came over and clasped his forearm. “Glad to see you’re in one piece, sir.”

  Bartlet was still crouched next to their fallen man. “We just lost—”

  “I know. I saw everything.” He nodded toward the mirror.

  “I thought they were playing that game.” Seb shrugged out of his shirt and handed the garment over, leaving him in only a tank top.

  “Thanks.” He pulled it on and fastened half the clasps, shifting over to where Bren was dabbing the sleeve of her jacket on the cut on her neck. She’d also made an attempt to wipe the blood away from her mouth, leaving a streak.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, resisting the urge to tend her injuries himself. He didn’t want her to be his responsibility, his concern, his weakness. Not after what she’d done. But he couldn’t get his damned emotions to disengage.

  “Fine,” she muttered. “What did you tell them?”

  “Tell them?” Seb repeated in confusion.

  “I’m guessing that’s why they suddenly stopped and left. Because you gave in and told them what they wanted.”

  Harlow scoffed. “No offense, Bren, but he’d never—”

  “He did,” she cut in with quiet intensity, crossing her arms.