He didn't ask about it.
He didn't ask because it didn't matter. If they’d shared a Sunday night dinner together before the outbreak, then he would've asked. It would've been part of the get-to-know-you process. But he didn't need to know this man in this new reality. He just needed to work with him until he could formulate the next best step for his family.
Ahmed unlocked the gate and pushed it open enough for them both to slip through. He made certain it was shut behind them as Mason continued on to the front door. He pushed it open and immediately noticed the prevailing silence.
Noor ran out from the kitchen. “Baba! I took care of Clyde!” She saw it was Mason and stumbled to a stop, staring at the ground shyly.
"He's right behind me," Mason said. "Where is everyone?"
Noor pointed toward the staircase. “Iridia is upstairs. Theresa and Elio—"
"Noor, my dear," Ahmed said as he entered and secured the door. "Have you been helping out?"
"Yes, Baba. I took care of Clyde. He’s so cute. And I finished organizing all the food in the kitchen cabinets. Come! Let me show you!"
Ahmed gave her a proud hug and followed as she dragged him into the kitchen to show off her achievement.
Mason carried the lantern upstairs to check on the kids. They were probably ready for bed. Strange that Noor wasn’t with them though. He knocked on the bedroom door to the left. "Theresa? Elio?"
Iridia opened the door… naked. Really? She belonged in a nudist colony. A small furry face appeared at the door. It looked up at Mason and hissed.
Where was Max when he needed him? Their old bullmastiff would’ve run that cat off in no time. A gang leader had killed their dog over a week ago and yet, every morning Mason caught himself waiting for Max to jump on the bed for a wrestle play session.
Mr. Piddles had adopted Iridia for some reason. Maybe it was because they were both so irritating.
“Do you need something?” Iridia asked, standing there completely naked.
Mason forced his eyes to stay level with her own. “You can’t walk around like that. It wasn’t okay in our house, and it’s even less so here.”
“Who’s walking around? I’m hanging out in my room.”
“Your room?”
She nodded like he’d just said the most obvious thing in the world. Parts of her just below his eyeline jiggled. The movement dragged like a weight on his attention. Fortunately, irritation proved stronger than curiosity.
“One, this is not your personal room. Two, put some damn clothes on! You’ll give Ahmed a heart attack like that.”
“Fine!” she said and slammed the door shut.
Really? Like a goddamn teenager? This is what he had to deal with?
He pounded on the door, doing his best not to punch a hole through it.
It opened a sliver.
A whiskered face appeared in the crack and hissed.
“I’m not dressed yet!”
Mason pinched his eyes shut and did his best to breathe. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. He exhaled.
“Where are Elio and Theresa?”
“How should I know?” she said and then slammed the door shut.
Panic stabbed at Mason’s heart. His frustration with Iridia completely swept away by the surging anxiety.
“Theresa! Elio! Where are you guys?” he yelled to nowhere in particular.
Ahmed appeared at the bottom of the stairs. "What's going on?"
“Are Theresa and Elio downstairs?"
"I don't think so."
Noor appeared at her father’s side and looked up the stairs at Mason. "They haven’t come back yet."
Come back yet?
“Where did they go?” he asked.
"They went on a neighborhood patrol like you wanted them to. But I haven't seen them come back yet.”
Mason leaped down the stairs so fast he almost ran over both of them. He stopped abruptly. "Tell me what happened. When did they leave?"
Noor's eyes opened wide. She jumped behind her father and peeked out from behind his back.
Ahmed wrapped his arm around her and patted her head reassuringly. "It's okay, dear. Please tell us."
"It was a while ago. They were on a bike together when I saw them. I asked them where they were going and they said you wanted them to do a neighborhood patrol. You know, to look around and see how things are. For situational squareness, I think.”
Cold sweat dripped down Mason's back. In a flash, he knew what had happened.
Theresa and Elio had left to go get his mother.
Dammit. How could they be so foolish?
They had no idea how dangerous it could be out there. And Beth should've been back by now as well. The father part of Mason's brain urged him toward blind panic. The soldier and close protection officer part of his brain prevailed. He started mentally assembling a plan of action when a familiar sound intruded on his thoughts.
"Noor, get to the bathroom," Ahmed said as he hurried her upstairs.
Mason recognized the rhythmic thump of a helicopter approaching. He ran upstairs and barged into Iridia’s room.
"Hey! A knock would be appreciated,” she said.
The state of her undress was the last thing on Mason's mind. He inched the heavy curtain to the side and peeked down on his house next door. A Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King hovered a hundred feet in the air. A red glow reflected off the pilot’s visor. All of its nav lights were shut off. This wasn’t a diplomatic mission.
The side door rolled open and two black ropes tumbled out. A red light stick dropped and bounced on the grass. Two men fast-roped down and landed on their feet in his front yard. They pulled night vision goggles down over their eyes and then grabbed the suppressed HK MP7 submachine guns slung to their chests. They pushed out to establish security while two more pairs zipped down.
An assault team.
"What's going on?" Iridia asked.
“Shhh. Quiet."
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
The six men in black tactical gear and body armor signaled each other as they headed toward his home. Two went for the side gate and circled around to the backyard. The other four stacked up on the front door. Mason watched with grim fascination as one man kicked the door in and the other three rushed in to secure the room.
He and his men had used the same tactics countless times in Fallujah.
What did they want? Had the officer they’d killed alerted a SWAT team that the supposed cop-killer was still alive? Had they come to finish the job?
A few minutes later, the pitch of the spinning blades changed. The chopper descended and landed in the street. The six men filed out and hustled toward it, making sure to cover their assigned fields of fire as they went. The last man covering their six hopped in as the chopper nosed up and lifted into the air.
They were professionals.
The chopper whined as it clawed for altitude. Another minute and the thumping faded into the dark sky.
What the hell was that about?
Mason thought he was just thinking to himself, but then his handheld radio repeated the words.
"Seriously, what the hell was that about?"
Beth!
“Where are you? Over.”
“Parked behind a house at the end of our block. I heard that helicopter flying in and hid. Is everyone okay?”
“Shut your bike off and stay put. I’ll be there in a minute. Which house? Over.”
"The hideously lavender one at the south end of the block."
“On my way. Over.” He released the transmitter as he headed downstairs. "Ahmed, be ready to open the gate."
“Of course.”
As much as Mason’s body protested, the elation of having one of the women in his life out of harm’s way overrode the twinges, aches, and outright pain. He jogged down the street with his Glock in the low-ready position, scanning for threats. Half-expecting the inky forms of the assault team to bleed out of the shadows.
He arrived at the hideously lavender hous
e at the end of the block. In the darkness, it wasn’t half as ugly as in the light.
Beth ran into his arms as he approached.
He kept the muzzle pointed in a safe direction while also wrapping her in a hug that was only matched by the strength of her returned embrace. Her hair smelled musky and fresh at the same time. Her body molded into his.
She was home.
A tear rolled down her cheek.
“Honey, are you okay?” he asked.
“I am now.”
“I’d love to hug you for hours, but we need to get back to safety. I’ll cover us while you push Spock.”
They made it back in short order and stowed the bike in the courtyard. He noticed the busted two-way radio and realized why Beth hadn’t been in communication for the larger part of her journey. At least the walkie-talkie had worked while she hid at the end of the street. Whatever the case, she was home and more important matters required attention.
They secured the house and gathered in the kitchen. Beth took a long drink of water and then splashed a handful on her face. She dried herself and then stared at Mason in silence.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you later. Where are the kids?”
Kids.
She’d already emotionally adopted Elio as a family member.
It was Mason’s turn to stare in silence.
“What?” Beth asked.
“Theresa and Elio left.”
“Left where?” Beth said as her voice jumped up a key. “Why did you let them leave?”
“I didn’t. They snuck away. I assume to go check on Maria.”
“They’re out there alone, Mason!”
“I know. I just found out when that chopper arrived.”
“What was that all about?”
“I don’t know. They came in hard and fast. Heavily armed. Very professional. They busted into our house, didn’t find whatever they were looking for, and took off.”
“Where are you going to look for the kids?”
“I didn’t have a good route put together yet. They’re likely somewhere between here and Inglewood.”
“There are a thousand different ways they could’ve gone. You’d be wandering around hoping to get lucky. There has to be a better option.”
Mason calmed the urgency pulsing in his brain and tried to come up with even one alternative. The walkie-talkie at his hip squawked.
“Did you find Theresa and Elio?”
Iridia. Upstairs. Even her concern was lazy.
Mason clicked off the power with an agitated flick.
Wait a second.
He considered the possibility. Maybe. Juice would know for sure.
“What are you thinking?” Beth asked.
“Theresa has one of these walkie-talkies. Maybe we could get through to her.”
“We have a pair like those,” Ahmed said. “You’d be lucky to get reception a couple streets over.”
“As they are, you’re right,” Mason answered. “But what if we could boost the transmission? If it’s possible, we could at least communicate one way. If we could tell them where we were as we searched, they could move toward that spot. Then, like you said, within a few blocks range, we could pick up two-way communication.”
“How do you do that?” Ahmed asked.
Mason pressed the transmit button on the two-way handheld radio. “Juice. This is Mason. You still monitoring this frequency? Over.”
“You bet, Sarge. What was that about a chopper? Over.”
“I’ll tell you later. Question for you. Over.”
“Shoot. Over.”
“I’ve got a set of consumer-grade walkie-talkies and one of them is definitely beyond transmission range. Would it be possible to patch my walkie-talkie over to your system and then have you transmit to the same frequency with the amplified power of your radio? Over.”
“Standby.”
They all waited until Mason began to wonder if the connection had died.
“Mason. This is Juice. I think I could work up a solution for that. How far away do you think this other walkie-talkie is? Over.”
“No more than ten miles. Over.”
“It should be possible. How fast do you need it? Over.”
“Yesterday. Over.”
“It’s going to take a minute. But I’ll get on it. Over.”
“How long do you think? Over.”
“A few hours, at least.”
Dammit.
He couldn’t wait a few hours.
“Copy that. I owe you one, bro. Over.”
“Negative on that, Sarge. Sit tight and I’ll put it together as fast as I can. Over and out.”
Beth turned to Mason. “We can’t wait that long. What if it ends up not working?”
Mason nodded. He understood the danger. The only problem was that heading out into the night with zero idea of where the kids were was a recipe for disaster. He wasn’t especially concerned for his own life, except that losing it would leave Beth to fend for herself.
And an untimely end would do nothing to help his daughter and Elio either.
So what, then?
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
ELIO scratched at the crud gluing his eyelids together. He managed to pry them apart and blinked a few times wondering where he was. A Ford logo on the glovebox a foot in front of his face hinted at things he didn’t want to remember. The group of deltas had departed in the middle of the night. They’d decided to sleep in the truck rather than venture out into the darkness.
He simultaneously registered an aching hip from laying on one side all night long and also the thrill of being so close to Theresa.
She lay pressed tight to his body as the bench seat was just deep enough for both of them on their sides.
The dim light outside told him the sun was coming up. He wondered when they’d finally gone to sleep. There was only so long they could lay absolutely still and silent waiting for the deltas to leave. And then, when the did, waiting for them to return. Waiting in paused terror for one of the deltas to realize they were trapped inside.
He wanted to get up and check the area but, more than that, he didn’t want to disturb Theresa. Her body melded to his in a way that made him uncomfortable and excited all at once.
Speaking of excited, he realized with horror that he was sporting a raging boner. And that his fully-at-attention manhood was pressed firmly into Theresa’s backside. Thinking about her sent a pulse of excitement through it.
Oh God, no.
How horrifying. She’d wake up and feel it jabbing her in the buttcheek.
Humiliating.
He had to move, but couldn’t. If he tried to adjust to get a little pocket of air between his eagerness and her body, she’d wake up and feel it.
Maybe he could stay still and just let it relax away. Then there wouldn’t be any evidence when she woke up.
That could work.
Elio took a slow breath and let it ease out. He consciously tried to relax the straining tension in his underwear. He tried that for a number of breaths and then realized with a shock that it wasn’t helping at all. In fact, he was even harder.
Maybe he could think of Algebra class. That class was enough to put anything to sleep. It was like getting hit with a tranq dart. He squeezed his eyes shut, ignored his aching hip, and tried to focus on x’s and y’s and equal signs and how they related to each other in the most boring way possible.
The images in his mind dissolved into Theresa’s gorgeous smile. She really was gorgeous. He throbbed involuntarily.
This was not working.
He needed something simpler. Counting. That could work.
One. Two. Three. Four.
He focused as hard as could on the numbers. And not on the softness of her body.
Five. Six. Seven.
“Are you awake?” Theresa whispered.
His hardness twitched in response. Whether from the shock of knowing he was busted or at the anticipation of wh
at might happen next, Elio wasn’t sure.
No. No. No.
The more he tried to relax, the more it twitched.
“Why are you tapping me?” Theresa asked as she glanced back and realized his hands were nowhere near her backside. Her eyes opened wide.
Elio closed his and wished lightning would tear through the inevitably cloudless sky and blast him into little bits of charred, embarrassed dust.
Could it get any worse?
“Your little friend seems to be wide awake.”
She called it his little friend. Okay, it just got worse.
“Sorry,” Elio said. “It’s, uhh, like that in the mornings.”
“No reason to be sorry,” she said as she looked at him with barely concealed laughter. “You know, just the miracle of nature at work.”
“So you think it’s a miracle of nature, huh?”
Theresa’s cheeks burned pink and she covered her face. “That’s not what I meant. I was just… I mean…”
Her awkward discomfort made her more gorgeous than ever. Her long brown hair fell in waves off the edge of the seat. The heat of her body still formed to his own made his heart race and palms sweat.
Kiss her.
What if she didn’t want him to?
Do it!
What if she didn’t like it? Or thought he was being too forward?
Kiss her!
Now!
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Elio propped himself up on an elbow and dipped his head. With her hand still over her eyes, he kissed her. Her hand fell away revealing gorgeous brown eyes. A smoldering heat reflected in their depths. She closed them again and slipped a tentative tongue between his lips.
According to all reasonable logic, they should’ve both recoiled at a deep kiss flavored with morning breath. But neither did. The shared heat burned away all conscious thought. Burned away all observation that didn’t involve the magnetic pull between their bellies, and lower.
Theresa shifted onto her back as Elio scooted on top of her. Her legs parted wider as he settled his weight between them.
The Last Peak (Book 2): The Darwin Collapse Page 18
