Friday sat on the mattress, her knees pulled up tight to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. It didn’t take a genius to see she was hugging herself. She didn’t move or speak. She just sat there, watching him pace. The fight had gone right out of her. Seeing her like that was a knife to his heart.
He tore his eyes from her and examined every inch of the room, one more time, paying particular attention to the door. There was no way out. At least none that he could see. All the while his diamondback kept sending him images of them running free. It didn’t help.
I’m trying! he snapped at his other half.
There had to be a way out of the room. He just had to try harder to find it.
“It’s pointless,” Friday said softly. “Even if you find a way out, it will be too late.”
“No.” He refused to believe it. Refused to give in.
There was no handle on the inside of the door. No lock, either. Which meant nothing to pick. Another dead end.
“Come talk to me. Take my mind off things.” It was a gentle plea that made him want to punch and scream with frustration. He had to get her out of there!
“I’m a bit busy here.” He examined the ceiling. It was flat, solid concrete, with one strip light wired into it. They were trapped in a concrete box. Floor. Walls. Ceiling. All solid concrete. The only gap was the solitary window high on the wall. The one that was barred, and too narrow for them to get through even if it wasn’t.
“Honey, come sit with me.”
“No!” The roar echoed off the walls. “No! We need to get out of here.” He looked at his watch. Nine hours. It was still possible. It had to be.
She rose from the mattress and came to stand behind him. He felt her palms on his back and jerked forward, everything within him exploding. There was nothing to hit out at except the door, and he gladly whaled on it with his bare knuckles. He struck it hard. Again, and again, and again, until blood soaked his fists. He didn’t feel any pain. The rage inside was so loud it drowned out everything else.
Soft fingers gripped his forearm, gentle in their touch. He reeled back, opening his mouth to roar, but nothing came out. Friday stood beside him, her blue eyes wide with distress, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Fuck!” he huffed. His hand hooked the back of her neck, and he pulled her against his body. “Fuck,” he whispered.
She trembled against him as she cried, not once making a sound. It humbled him like nothing else could have done, and the rage seeped away, only to be replaced with agonizing fear.
“I’m sorry, bébé. I’m sorry.” He kissed her hair and cooed nonsense to her, trying to soothe something that couldn’t be soothed.
They stood like that for what seemed like forever, swaying in place as Striker held her tight, hoping his hold alone would be strong enough to keep her with him. Against all odds. Forever.
As Friday’s silent sobs eased, he cupped her cheek and angled her face up to him. “I’m sorry, bébé.” He smoothed away the tears.
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, and the look she gave him would have brought him to his knees if she hadn’t been holding him up. Her tears weren’t for herself. They were for him. She was crying for him. Fuck, but she tore him up inside.
He opened his mouth, intent on promising that he’d get her out of there. That he’d do something to make things right. That he would fight with his last breath to save her.
Trembling fingers pressed against his lips as one lone tear slid down her already stained cheeks. “It’s over,” she whispered. “I know you don’t want it to be. I don’t, either. But even if a miracle happens and we get out of here, we won’t make it to the antidote in time.”
“No.” He shook his head. His stomach tightened. “No. It’s still possible.”
“I want…” She took a shuddering breath that went straight to his soul. “I want to spend these last few hours with you. Concentrating on you. I want to feel every single minute I have left. With. You.”
“No, bébé, it isn’t the end.” He couldn’t accept it. He wouldn’t. His throat was tight, the ache making it hard to get the words out. His eyes stung, and he blinked furiously. “No, bébé.”
“Please.” There was no guile in her expression, only the bare honesty of raw emotion. “Please give me this.”
It hurt to swallow. Striker looked up at the ceiling, staring at the blank gray concrete until he felt he could speak again. When he looked back down at her, he saw the most beautiful woman alive. She was so fucking brave. There was no hatred in her. No resentment. No anger.
He didn’t deserve a woman like Friday.
But if this was all he had, he’d take it.
Take it and beg for more.
“I let you down.” He could barely get the words out. It was a first. He didn’t fail. Never. And in this, the most important job of his life, he’d failed spectacularly. He’d failed her. He’d failed them.
“No.” Her hands clasped his face. Her expression earnest. “Is that what you think? You silly man. You did exactly what I hired you to do. You brought me to La Paz before the deadline.”
“I promised I’d save you.” It was a confession. All he had left was his honor, and now that was gone, too.
“This isn’t your fault. None of it. If anyone’s to blame, it’s me. I knew what I was doing when I took the poison and ran. I knew the risk, and that the chances of survival were slim. There had to have been another way to stop Enforcement from tracking me through my implants, but I didn’t look for one. I did it anyway.” She stroked his face, from the eyepatch to his lips. “Do you know what? I wouldn’t change a thing. I would do it all again just to have these last four days with you.”
He shook his head as his eye closed. “You can’t say that. Not after everything that’s happened. Everything you’ve been through. Not after it led to this.”
When he opened his eye again, she was smiling. Her eyes were red and glistening, her cheeks blotchy with tears, and yet she was smiling. “I spent four days with a man who makes me feel completely alive.” She took a shaky breath. “I’ve never lived. I’ve only existed. Hoping that, somehow, tomorrow would be different. I never experienced real joy, or fear, or exhilaration, or passion, or ecstasy, or genuine laughter. Not until I met you. You gave all of that to me. You gave me four days of a full life. You let me taste freedom. That’s all I ever wanted. And you gave that to me.”
She swallowed hard, steeling herself, gathering her courage when there was no need. Didn’t she know by now that he was her safe place? She didn’t need courage to do or say anything to him. He wouldn’t hurt her. Never her.
She looked up at him through those long, black lashes that were a stark contrast to her pale, pale skin. “I never knew love until I met you.”
She slayed him. Completely and utterly devastated him with her courage and honesty. With her fearless emotion. All directed at him. All for him.
With an animalistic growl that shocked him, he clasped the back of her head and slammed his mouth down onto hers. There was no resistance. She willingly gave everything he demanded. He kissed her with every word he couldn’t say. He kissed her with every emotion he didn’t know how to express. He kissed her with a desperate, furious longing for a future that was fast slipping away. He gave it all to her in his kiss.
Fight. His rattlesnake demanded. Fight. Save mine. Save Friday.
He couldn’t answer. Couldn’t even think about what was coming. Couldn’t get the words out that told his other half it was too late. The words cut like knives, ripping his soul to shreds.
The diamondback showed him a string of images where he slunk out of the window and came back into the building to open the door from the other side, and Striker stiffened. His head snapped up, ripping his lips from Friday. He examined the barred window. The glass was open to let air circulate. His diamondback could get outside without any problems, but would he be able to open the door? His reply was an image of the rattler biting Striker for doubt
ing him.
Okay. We’ll try it. It wasn’t like he had any other options. But I need to set up some cover first, otherwise your escape is gonna be on camera.
He leaned in to whisper against Friday’s ear. “The diamondback wants to try sneaking out and opening the door for us.”
She started to shake her head, and he stopped her. He knew what she was going to say—that it was pointless to try to escape. And maybe, in a secret part of him that he couldn’t acknowledge, he knew it, too. But his diamondback was desperate to do something, and that Striker could understand because he felt the same way.
“Let him try to get you out of here. Let us both try to give you somewhere else…” He couldn’t say the words. He couldn’t. He could barely even think about the fact he was trying to give her somewhere better, nicer, to die. Damn it to hell. He blinked to clear his stinging eyes. The muscles in his throat were tight and raw.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay, Striker.”
His fingers tightened in her hair. He couldn’t let her call him that. Not now. “Luke. My name is Luke Boudreaux.”
She sucked in a breath. “It’s beautiful.”
He stared into her sky-blue eyes. The color of freedom. “It’s yours. Only the team know it. I’m giving it to you.”
He may as well have given her diamonds from the look of wonder on her face.
He cleared his throat and turned toward the mattress. “I need the bedding. Can you help me?”
“Of course.” She gathered the blankets as he dragged the mattress over to the area under the window, beside the sink. Taking a blanket, he tied one corner to a bar on the window farthest away from the sink. He then secured the opposite corner to the sink. He stood the mattress on its side and wedged it against the sink so that it stood out at an angle from the wall. He then draped the remainder of the blanket over the edge of the mattress and stepped back to consider his work.
With the mattress making a wall and the blanket forming a lopsided roof, they had a space where they could sit out of sight of the cameras. More importantly, he had a section of window that was hidden by the blanket—a secure escape route for his rattler. Taking the last two blankets and the pillow, he made a pallet on the floor inside the little hut.
“Come on.” He held out a hand. “We can have some privacy in here.”
Her fingers were small and fragile in his. “Kane will probably knock it down.”
Since there was no lock or handle on the door that could be jammed to stop someone coming in, and nothing in the room to use as a barricade, there wasn’t much he could do to stop Kane. But at least their privacy would give them the time needed to set the diamondback free.
“We’ll worry about that later.” He helped her into the shelter.
Once he’d settled her on the pillow, with her back to the wall, he pulled down the rest of the blanket. Now they were completely hidden from the cameras.
“They can’t see us right now, but they can still record sound. Don’t say anything important.”
She nodded. Without hesitating, he sat back on his heels, widened his arms, and called to his rattler. He felt that familiar pulling sensation inside his body before there was a burst of pain and the snake emerged.
Get going, he ordered.
Although the damn reptile knew the situation was urgent, he still took time to rub up against Friday before he headed up to the window. They watched it disappear, a silent and deadly phantom, completely hidden by his makeshift tent.
Friday reached out and lifted his hand, examining his torn and bruised knuckles. “We need to see to these. At the very least, we should wash the scrapes.”
He studied his beaten hands. “They don’t hurt.”
She gave him a cute little frown. “I’ll dampen a tissue and wipe them for you.”
“No, I’ll wash them.” He didn’t want her moving around, not when she looked this close to exhaustion.
He crawled out of their tent and washed his hands in icy water, drying them off on his jeans. Her eyes were closed when he crawled back into the tent. He sat beside her and pulled her to him, wrapping his arm tight around her. When her cheek rested over his heart, he swore he heard it miss a beat. This was where she belonged. In his arms.
“Tell me about your life, from before, when you were a child.” Her tone was sweet, soft, intimate.
He rested his head back against the cool wall with the warmth of Friday’s soft curves pressing against his side. He could feel her heartbeat against his thumb as he caressed her neck. It was strong. Vital. Alive. He couldn’t think about the time when that would change.
He cleared his throat and gave her what she wanted. The only thing he was able to give her. He gave himself. “I grew up in a house on the bayou. There was a big old gator that slept in a hole at the bottom of our yard, by the water. Mon Père wanted to shoot the thing, but Maman told him the gator had as much right to be there as we did…”
As he whispered, she relaxed into him. He told her all about his younger sister, who tormented him night and day, but needed a keeper, seeing as she had the worst taste in boyfriends. Not that she ever got far enough with any of them to get hurt. Striker chased them away long before it could happen. He told her about his Maman’s famous cakes and how she had a special one for every occasion. It had been his job to deliver them—a spice cake for good news, an angel cake for births, a strawberry torte for weddings, a fruitcake for funerals.
He told her about apple pie Sundays during the season, after he and his sister had collected the fruit from the neighbors’ trees. And how, when they were feeling particularly wicked, they would throw the bad apples at that old gator, stirring him up enough to make him mad. Those were the days his Père would take a switch to his behind for being dumb. Then he’d feel bad about it and take him fishing out in his boat, with his Maman shaking her head because her husband was soft.
He didn’t know how long he talked, remembering a life long gone, but he stopped when he heard Friday’s breathing deepen and knew she was asleep. He ran a hand over her hair. The golden silk comforted him, as did the beat of her heart against his chest.
“You can’t die on me, mon amour,” he whispered. Four days he’d known her, but it felt like she’d been wrapped around his heart for an eternity. There was no way to imagine the rest of his life without her. It just wasn’t possible. She was everything he didn’t know he’d been looking for. Her insatiable curiosity and her astounding bravery. Her kindness in giving everything she had to the people whose house they’d broken into. Her self-sacrifice when she’d thrown herself into the mist to save him. Her unexpected reactions and big brain that derailed everything else.
He chuckled at the memory of her wanting to turn his cock chocolate flavored, and his arms tightened around her. The world would lose something wonderful if it lost Friday Jones. He would lose something wonderful. Something he knew he would never be able to replace.
Still holding her tight, he twisted his wrist to look at his watch. Six and a half hours. In desperation, he reached out to his snake.
You have to do something. We need to get out of here. If nothing else, he could at least give her daylight and sunshine. He clenched his jaw tight enough to ache. Hurry. For Friday.
And then he rocked his woman as she slept.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The western diamondback felt cold as it moved stealthily through the corridors of the building. He was used to being warm. His other half provided that for him—a nice consistent temperature where the rattler could doze all he liked.
The diamondback wasn’t sure how he’d come to be part of the man. He remembered a time when he was separate. But he had to admit, he liked this new existence better. He knew things now that he’d never known before. And he had someone to talk to. He’d never felt alone, not before his human half came along, but it was better being part of a pair. And now they had Friday. They were a family. He’d known she was the right person for them as soon as she appeared. Mate
. That’s what she was. The one person who could complete both man and snake. She was special.
She was theirs.
And he wasn’t going to let anything happen to her.
The rattlesnake wasn’t stupid. What the man knew, he knew, too—in as much as he could understand it. But even if the man hadn’t told him Friday was sick, the rattlesnake would have known. He could smell it on her. Taste it on the air around her. The snake knew toxins. It knew she had one inside of her. One that didn’t belong there. One that was sleeping, waiting to take her from the rattler and the man.
He wasn’t going to let that happen.
That was why he was sneaking through the corridors looking for the man who’d hurt Friday. He had to save her. And to do that. He had to eliminate the threat. He had to kill the man.
He’d told his human that he was going to open the door. That he would get them out of the room. But he’d heard the human’s thoughts, the ones he didn’t even acknowledge to himself, let alone say out loud. The human knew that the door needed a special key. A biological key. And there was no way the rattler could get it. The human had been lying to himself. Clinging to hope that wasn’t there.
The diamondback knew better.
The rattler couldn’t free them, but he could eliminate the threat. And then he would go back to the room and help his human take care of their mate.
Because Friday belonged to both of them.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Kane Duggan was amused by the nest the smuggler had built for himself and his woman. Amused enough to allow his captives the illusion of privacy, for the time being. It was hours until the poison activated and Friday Jones expired. According to the records at the Houston facility, she’d accessed the controlled substance cabinet at six p.m. five days earlier. That meant she’d taken the poison close to the same time. Which gave her less than six hours to live.
Kane smiled at the monitors showing the couple’s cell. In an hour or so, he’d send a team to rip apart their little sanctuary. And then he’d record every last emotional minute for Miriam. He knew exactly how much she’d appreciate his efforts.
Red Zone Page 24
