Red Zone

by Janet Elizabeth Henderson

  “Nope.” He walked behind her, closely behind her, to keep an eye on every move she made.

  Mace was in front of Friday, the hope being that if they kept the woman between them, she would be less likely to touch the mist. Their first priority was to guard Friday, which was why they hadn’t bothered with the pretense of wearing protective suits. Without the suits, they could maneuver more easily and react faster if she needed saving again. Which he didn’t want to even think about.

  “Do you stick to the paths through the mist when you don’t have other people with you?” Her voice had a strange echo, coming at his earpiece through the comm unit in her helmet.

  “We stick to the paths. We’re not sure what long-term effect going into the mist might have on us, if any. We’ve already had enough exposure to it. That’s why we need a scientist. We have lots of unanswered questions.”

  “How did you find out your saliva combatted the mist?”

  He smiled. He’d bet her brain was bursting with questions.

  “Less talk,” Mace snapped, “more concentration. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re walking through Death Valley here, and you’re the only one that can be killed.”

  “What’s your animal?” She sounded irritated. It didn’t look like Friday and Mace were gonna braid each other’s hair anytime soon.

  “None of your business. You survive and get a security implant, then we’ll talk.”

  “It’s a bear, right? A grumpy, antisocial bear. Tell me I’m right.”

  Mace growled, kind of proving her point, making Striker smother a laugh.

  “Were you this huge before you woke up?”

  Friday was undeterred by Mace’s attitude. Striker wasn’t sure if that made her brave or reckless. There weren’t many people who’d confront the big man when he was annoyed.

  “Woman, stop talking,” Mace ordered.

  “Of course. I’ll get right on that.” She sounded amused. “But first, did you wake up this size or were you this size beforehand? I’m wondering if you’ve taken on the bulk of a bear.”

  Her only answer was a deep, irritated growl.

  “Striker,” she changed tactic, pulling him into the mix. “Is his animal a bear? It is, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not sayin’, chère.”

  “A coyote, then. A real bad tempered one. Oh, an alligator! Is it an alligator? They’re antisocial, too.”

  “Are you sure she’s worth it?” Mace said. “Maybe we should just toss her in the mist and cut our losses.”

  “Is Sandi really your sister?” Friday changed the topic fast enough to make a man’s head spin. “You don’t look alike. And I didn’t think women were allowed in the special forces a hundred years ago.”

  “She was among the first wave of female Army Rangers,” Striker said.

  “She had to be tougher than the men to get through.” Mace sounded proud of his foster sister, in a gruff kind of way.

  “You were Army Rangers?” She glanced back, and he grasped her hips.

  “Eyes front. Concentrate. If you can’t do that while talking, you need to be silent. This is no game, chère. I will knock you out if you look back at me one more time. Hear me?”

  “Yes, Striker.”

  Her soft words sent shivers down his spine. If they’d been alone, he would have been on her faster than a cat in heat.

  “Keep it in your pants, dude,” his best friend muttered. “Case you didn’t notice, this ain’t the place to get horny.”

  “Horny?” Friday said. “I missed something. Did I black out again?”

  “No, bébé, he’s is just being an ass.”

  “A perceptive ass,” Mace muttered.

  “You act like brothers.” She sounded awed.

  “We are brothers. We’re family.” And Striker would die for each and every one of them.

  “We’re the only family we got left.” Mace reminded her.

  The silence was suddenly heavy. Striker fought the memories that were brutally fresh. His parents, grandparents, sisters, cousins—all gone. They’d been gone for decades, but for him, it had only been three short years.

  “I’m sorry.” Friday’s soft voice filled the silence. “I didn’t think. It must have been terrible to wake up and find your families had been gone for such a long time.”

  They didn’t reply. There was nothing to say. Striker wondered what was worse, that his family had mourned him as dead while he slept, or that he woke up to find them all gone. He hadn’t even dared to research who was left, what descendants might still be around in the bayou. None of the team had gone looking for relatives. It was something they’d all agreed on when they woke. It was too dangerous for them to call attention to themselves and their families by digging into their pasts.

  “Oh my,” she whispered. “I never thought. Some of you must have been married, had children. Striker?” Her voice trembled as she asked.

  His first instinct was to comfort. “Not me, bébé. I was single. I lost family, but not that, no kids.” He paused. “You might want to keep your curiosity about our pasts to yourself where family’s concerned. Some of the guys did lose partners and kids. It’s hard on them.”

  “Of course; I’m so sorry.”

  They all were. Sorry didn’t change a damn thing. They walked on in silence for a while longer, trying not to become distracted by the oppressive presence of the never-changing red mist.

  “How do you map the Red Zone? You can’t use satellite imagery, and there are no landmarks to keep you from getting disorientated.” Friday’s curiosity couldn’t be subdued for long.

  “We use drones to check the passages and to bring back changes in data,” he said.

  “Of course.”

  He watched her head bob, moving that huge protective helmet. “That means you must have people on the team who are good with the current technology, unlike Mace. It must have been a huge learning curve for you when you woke up.”

  Mace growled again, and Striker grinned.

  “Is your animal a wild dog? You definitely growl a lot.”

  “Only around you,” the big guy grumbled.

  Friday looked back at him. “Is it an armadillo?”

  His hands shot out to clutch her hips and stop her from backing into the mist.

  “Wait up,” he called to his partner.

  When he looked through the glass shield in Friday’s helmet, she was biting her bottom lip. “I won’t do it again. I promise I’ll be more careful and keep my eyes front. Honest, it won’t happen again.” She batted those big blue eyes at him.

  It wasn’t going to work. Not this time. Not when her life was on the line. He already had the pressure injector in his hand, ready for this moment, because he knew it would come.

  “I know it won’t.” Moving too fast for her to stop him, he flipped the lock on her helmet, lifted it, and pressed the injector to her neck. “Mace. Catch.”

  The big man was behind her in an instant.

  “No!” she shouted before her eyes rolled back and her body went limp.

  It took seconds to secure her over Striker’s shoulders, her arms tied to his waist to stop them from waving around.

  “She’s going to be pissed when she wakes.” Mace walked behind them to ensure no part of her body entered the mist. “She just doesn’t stop, does she?”

  “Nope.” He shifted her weight, holding her tight with one arm clamped around the back of her thighs and the other hand on her rear. She wasn’t heavy, and he’d be able to carry her all the way out of the mist. For some reason that calmed him. The thought of letting anyone else hold her made him want to roar his displeasure.

  “Never seen someone behave like that in the mist before. Normally people are terrified to touch the damn stuff and struck dumb because they’re concentrating on staying alive. Not Friday. She’s too busy asking dumbass questions.”

  Her questions weren’t dumb, they were just…plentiful. “I’m telling the team she thinks your animal is an armadi
llo.”

  “Asshole.”

  Content to have a quiet Friday in his arms, Striker kept his focus on getting her out of the red zone in one piece.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “I can’t believe you sedated me. Are you aware of how ethically wrong that is? You can’t sedate a person against their will.” Friday tugged off the protective suit while she railed at the men. Her head was foggy, and her mouth felt like it was full of dry foam. “It’s assault. That’s what it is. Assault. I don’t think I like you anymore.”

  “You like me just fine.” Striker’s smile was as smugly arrogant as his drawl.

  “No, I don’t. I like your diamondback, but you I could do without.”

  His smile grew wider, and her heart stuttered a little. She wished that eyepatch was gone so she could see both eyes. Somehow it was reassuring to see the snake staring out at her along with the man.

  “You might change your mind if I tell you the snake agreed with me that we had to knock you out.”

  “No!” She kicked off the heavy boots and reached for the lightweight shoes Striker had dug out of their supply trunk. The soles were thick, but the upper part of the shoe adjusted to fit the wearer. They were ugly but functional—exactly what she was used to. There had been no need for fashion or vanity in her life; practical was definitely better for the labs. “Did the snake tell you that? Are you lying?”

  He placed a hand over his heart. “Would I lie to you, bébé?”

  “You’d do whatever you thought was best for you.”

  “And you.” His smile turned to a frown. “And yeah, the snake cheered me on when I knocked you out. He said you don’t listen too good to instructions.”

  “He did not.” Now the infuriating man was making things up to justify his heinous behavior.

  He shrugged then turned his back on her, rummaging around in the chest.

  “Sit,” Mace ordered. “Eat.” He pointed at the nutrition bars beside her.

  “I don’t like you, either,” she told him. “You were complicit in his behavior.”

  “Ask me if I care.” The man-mountain sat down on a rock and started to demolish a large box of bars.

  “Don’t forget to drink.” Striker sat down on a rock near to her. “Remember what happened last time. We can’t afford you getting dehydrated again.”

  With her teeth clenched in frustration, she snatched the bottle of water he offered. “You want me to stay in the caves and study your genes when I get back from La Paz. That means getting in and out of the Red Zone at least twice more. Probably even more than that, as I’ll need to go get samples and equipment. Do you plan to knock me out every time I have to go through the mist?”

  They exchanged a look that made it clear they thought her question was stupid.

  “Well, yeah,” Striker said.

  When she took a deep breath, ready to shout some more, he held up a hand to stop her. “You can’t be trusted in the mist. Your mind wanders too much. You show me you can stop thinking, then you can walk through the mist.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “That’s the condition. You comply, or hello, Mr. Sandman.”

  “What does that even mean?” She threw up her hands in frustration.

  “That’s what I miss most,” Mace said around a mouthful of nutrition bar. “Nobody ever gets our cultural references. I feel like my sparkling wit is lost on the people of this new world.”

  “You have wit?” She glared at him.

  “Can we knock her out again?” Mace asked his team leader.

  “Come.” Striker patted the boulder beside him. “Sit with me. We’ve still got a long ways to go.”

  “I’m very annoyed with you.”

  “I know.” His eye danced. “And if Mace wasn’t here, I’d make it up to you. But I know how much you hate an audience.”

  She blinked at him for a minute. “Was that a sexual reference?”

  His chuckle made her want to kick him, but the heat had gone out of her anger. Mainly, she just felt weary. With a humph of annoyance, she sat down beside Striker but resisted when he tried to hold her close—even though it felt like she was cutting her nose off in spite of her face.

  “Whatever I want, whenever I want it,” he whispered against her ear, making her shiver. “And right now, I want to hold you, bébé.”

  “Unbelievably irritating, arrogant man,” she grumbled as she moved closer to him, feeling his arm slide around her waist and liking it far too much. “I’m doing this under duress.”

  He pressed a kiss to her temple.

  “You know,” Mace said as he watched her, “the more I get to know you, the more I wonder why we’re bothering to rescue you. Do you even know how to study our genetics? I mean, how experienced in this field are you? What did you do at CommTECH, anyway?”

  She narrowed her eyes at the man. He was really beginning to irritate her. “I was nothing more than a cog in the wheel. There are a million or more biotech engineers who can do what I do. There’s nothing special about me.”

  “Then what makes you think you can study our DNA and come up with answers?”

  Part of her wanted to rattle off her experience and study credentials, in some misguided show of ego in the face of his blatant disbelief in her skills. The rest of her wanted to tell him to go to hell and find another scientist. Striker saved her from making a choice.

  “Friday here graduated top of her class in genetics. She won a year’s research scholarship to study with a Doctor Swanson in Germany, but she couldn’t afford the rest of the costs to take it up. She had to go work off her study debt at CommTECH, instead. If her field of study had interested them, they might have paid for her to go to Germany, but it didn’t. Tell him what your specialist area is, bébé.”

  “How do you know that stuff?” She stared up at him and, as usual, felt the world fade away. Having Striker’s full attention made everything else feel as though it was a hologram and he was the reality.

  “I had you researched. I read the report last night.” He brushed her hair off her forehead. “I had to know who I was dealing with.”

  Of course he did. And it was stupid to be disappointed that he hadn’t wanted to know just because he was interested in her. Pressing her feelings down deep, where they usually lived, she turned her attention to the giant, annoying idiot.

  “I studied genetic anomalies. The scholarship would have let me take part in Doctor Swanson’s study on how the slightest genetic manipulation could prolong the use of implants and make them less invasive for the host.” She glanced away before looking back at them, wondering if she should tell them the area she was most interested in. Wondering if they would think it was a setup, her approaching them. She took a deep breath and gave them honesty.

  “What I most wanted to study was the genetic impact caused by the low levels of chemical seepage and radiation that are emitted by the implants and absorbed into the host’s system. In the implants I studied, especially the ones in the brain, I found significant genetic adaptation in relation to the host. Most of it was localized, but my hypothesis was that, given enough sustained exposure to the implant emissions, the overall genetic makeup of the host could, and would, change. I wanted to study these changes, to see what the implications were for the future. To, in essence, predict the genetic development of the human race in relation to the impact caused by the implants.”

  It was the men’s turn to look stunned.

  “In other words…” Mace recovered first. “Your field of expertise is genetic deformities caused by manmade chemicals.”

  “Yes.” She whispered the word, and there was silence.

  It was Mace who broke it, and his voice was ice cold. “That’s a helluva coincidence. The one scientist who falls into our laps happens to be the one who is a specialist in chemically-mutated DNA.” He glared at his team leader. “You still sure she isn’t a spy sent by the Territory governments?”

  To Friday’s dismay, Striker didn’t say anything
at all.

  Chapter Twenty

  The penthouse, New Amsterdam Hotel

  New York City, Northern Territory

  “Why am I here?” Serge Abramovich sounded bored as he lazed back on the decadent red sofa. “I’m a busy man.”

  Sandrine Cherbourg was certain he was a busy man—busy getting drunk and screwing his way through New York’s elite. Instead of snapping at him to be serious for once, she poured him a glass of the hotel’s finest Scotch and handed it to him.

  “We’re here to discuss the methods Miriam is using to deal with her missing scientist.”

  “I thought she’d sent an Enforcement army to head her off at the coast.”

  “Seems Ms. Jones slipped through their net.”

  Serge grimaced. “Not a good look for Miriam.”

  No. It wasn’t. A fact that pleased Sandrine no end. She tossed her long black hair over her shoulder and sat back into the armchair facing Serge. She’d chosen the form-fitting red dress she wore because it flowed over her curves, showing her body to her best advantage. After all, her body, like everything else at her disposal, was simply a tool she could use to achieve her aims.

  “I’m assuming you’ve jammed all comm devices in this room.” Serge pointed with the hand that held the glass.

  The man was even too lazy to use his free hand to gesture. If she didn’t need his alliance, she wouldn’t give the buffoon the time of day. But she did need him.

  “Of course.” She crossed her long legs, letting the spiked heel of her red leather shoe dangle like a lure in front of her. “We are in Miriam’s territory, non? It would be foolish to assume privacy.”

  She watched Serge lick his lips as he followed her movements. “You won’t mind if I check for myself.”

  She inclined her head. “But of course.” She watched as Serge used his implant to attempt to communicate with an outside team.

  His smile was wide, but his eyes were dead, when he discovered it was impossible. “Tell me what you want, Sandrine.” He took another mouthful of liquor.

  That was one thing she did like about Serge—the man didn’t like to waste time on small talk. Not when he could be using that time to indulge his desires. If she hadn’t seen him in action in the boardroom, where he was ruthless and cutting in his intelligence, she would never have imagined how such a man could retain power over his region.