Her gun hand didn’t waver. “Of course I was playing you, the same as you are playing me now. I must admit, you’re very good, to risk it all just to wrangle a little more information.”
“Look, I know it’s kind of embarrassing, but let’s face it. What just happened here—” Clint gestured at the grass, pressed flat by the imprint of their bodies. “You can’t tell me that was part of some plan.”
“Please. Don’t insult my intelligence. You know as well as I do that in our line of business, sex is just another weapon.”
Clint considered all the ways women could feign passion. He thought, not for the first time, that Mother Nature had given them one hell of an advantage in the deception department. He thought about how many men had let their egos sway them into thinking that of course she was a master manipulator, but that time with me, hey, that had to be different. He thought about the fact that, as far as he was aware, he and Nat had both left themselves unprotected—in more ways than one.
It was a lot of thinking, but it all took about a second, and then Clint made his decision. “This isn’t a movie, Nat. We can’t just stand here like this debating things for an hour. You’re either going to have to shoot me or put the gun down.” He took a step forward.
“Stop right there.”
“I’m not stopping.” He took another step, and then another. The Glock’s muzzle was flush against his chest now.
Her jaw was set. “I don’t want to kill you.”
“I know,” said Clint, his voice softening. “I don’t want to kill you, either.” It was probably the least romantic thing Clint had ever said to a woman afterwards, but it seemed to have the desired effect.
“Chort poderi!” Natasha lowered the gun, slipping the safety back on. “I can’t decide if you’re the most brilliant opponent I’ve ever faced, or a complete mental defective.”
“Does it have to be one or the other?” Clint nodded at the gun she was holstering in her belt. “You can keep that.”
She cocked an eyebrow at that. “Gee, thanks.”
“Look.” Clint picked up his bow and wiped a wet leaf off the grip. “I’m not saying that we should just start trusting each other blindly. I think what we should do is declare a temporary truce.”
The crease between her eyebrows deepened. “And how would this détente work, precisely?”
“You know where Lykos’s camp is, right? Well, you lead me to it and then back to my team, and I’ll vouch for you.” He watched her as she thought it over. “On the other hand, you take me there and try to sell me out to the bad guys, and I’ll have to reevaluate our relationship.”
She gave him the briefest of smiles. “You are mentally defective.”
“Most likely. Is it a deal?” He held out his hand.
Natasha took it. “When a lefty offers you his right hand, what does it mean?”
Clint couldn’t resist. “Good point. Want to seal the deal with a kiss?”
“I don’t think so,” said Natasha, taking her hand back and checking the compass she had stolen from him before setting off in an easterly direction. “You’re not very good at this, are you?”
“Oh, so that’s what all the groaning was about,” said Clint, following her lead. “You were trying to complain.”
Natasha let a branch swing back, hitting Clint in the forehead. “Sorry. Maybe you should concentrate on where you’re going.”
“’Cause I kind of thought you were having a seizure.”
After that, the path began to ascend steeply, and there was no more breath for talking. But even from the back, Clint could tell that Natasha was smiling.
• • •
BY 6 a.m., Clint’s entire body was slick with sweat. Natasha had stripped down to her sports bra, but neither of them had thought to grab water before heading out. “Not that I don’t admire your stamina,” he called out, “but I don’t think we should go much farther without locating a water source.”
Natasha slicked her hair back from her face. She was so drenched with perspiration, it looked as though she had taken a shower. “Do you have any idea what kind of things we’re likely to find around a water source?”
“Yeah, but I thought there was some kind of temporary animal truce when you go drink. At least, that’s the way it looked in all the Disney specials.”
She gave him a contemptuous look. “It’s only a truce until somebody attacks.”
“True. But that might be enough time to grab a quick drink.” He unwrapped the leather band from around his bow arm. “Hold on a minute.”
“What are you doing?”
“Tying your hair back.” He wrapped the leather around her shoulder-length hair, pulling it into a sloppy ponytail. “How is that?”
“Better.” She looked surprised. Clint wondered whether, for all her experience seducing men, she wasn’t used to men making nice gestures. “So,” she said brusquely, “what’s your plan for locating water?”
“Well, I…” Just as Clint was about to admit that he didn’t have a clue, he heard a crack of thunder. “I thought I’d just order room service.”
“Very clever.” There was a second thunderclap, louder and closer than the first. “Do you think…” Her words were cut off by the rain, which came down in sudden, tropical torrents, drenching them both instantly.
They looked at each other, both laughing at the same time as the rain sheeted down, a heavy curtain separating them from the rest of the world.
“So how do you like my plan?”
“What?”
Giving up on conversation, Clint leaned back, mouth open, and drank. Natasha copied him, and then Clint reached for her hand and ran with her, taking shelter under a large tree. He moved his bow and quiver into a depression in the trunk and pulled off his vest to cover it. He had a small canteen on his belt, but it was empty. He opened it and propped it against a small tree. When he turned back to Natasha, she quickly raised her eyes from his chest. Ah, he thought. Nice to know.
“How long do you think this will last?”
“Not sure,” he said. “Not too long, I think.”
There was a clap of thunder, and then the rain came down even harder, so he could barely hear her response. He’d seen tropical rains before, but never anything like this. He leaned in closer. “What?”
She repeated it, but he shook his head again. “Sorry.”
He focused on her mouth, trying to read her lips, and then they were kissing again. He made his way from her neck to her collarbone, which tasted slightly salty, and then he kissed lower and Natasha’s hands tangled in his short hair, yanking him up. Startled, Clint looked up into her remarkable green eyes, trying to figure out what the problem was. To his shock, he saw there were tears running down her cheeks.
He cupped her face in his hand, then realized she wasn’t crying, that it was a trick of the rain. He kissed her cheeks nevertheless, just to make sure, but then she turned her head and they were mouth to mouth again. Suddenly, Natasha tucked her head into the side of Clint’s neck and he felt the vibration in Natasha’s chest as she cried out, saying words the rain and the thunder stole before he could make out their meaning. He’d never been a talker before, but Clint found himself saying all manner of crazy things. Confessions. Promises. Declarations.
When it was over, though, Natasha remained in his arms, and Clint found himself kissing the top of her head. You’d think, having made the mistake already, that a second time wouldn’t compound anything. But this time felt like a whole different kind of insanity. When the rain let up a bit, Natasha turned her head. “So, have you decided not to kill me yet?”
He tensed, and then forced his muscles to relax. “What do you mean?”
“You’re under orders, correct? And you’ve been trying to decide whether to follow them.”
Jesus. Clint turned Natasha in his arms so he could see her face. “What gave it away?”
Natasha smiled, touching his mouth. “You. Right now. But I suspected.”
; Clint pressed a kiss to the tips of her fingers. “What about you? You made up your mind whether you’re going to live up to your namesake?”
She made a throaty little sound of surprise. “Stop that.”
He had sucked her fingers into his mouth. “Thtop whath?”
Natasha reclaimed her hand, wiping it on his chest. “You have not been trained in the seduction arts, I take it?”
“Carson’s Traveling Carnival did not offer that particular talent, I’m afraid. You?”
“Of course.” She settled back against his bare chest, resting her head over his heart. “Couldn’t you tell?”
“Um, would you be terribly insulted if I said no? Or is that the point of the seduction arts?”
Natasha didn’t say anything for a moment. “How much longer till the storm passes, do you suppose?”
Clint stroked her hair and looked out at the rain. “It’s letting up now, so not long.”
She pressed her lips to his chest. “I wish it would keep going.”
Clint tightened his arms around her until he was sure she was going to protest, but instead she gripped him back just as firmly. Oh, man, he was drowning here. If these were the seduction arts, then he was a goner. Trying to defuse the intensity, he relaxed his hold a little and said, “If you’re really set on killing me—can we do it at least one more time first?”
She laughed. “If we keep doing this, we’re both going to wind up dead.”
Her words were prophetic. There was a sound from the branches overhead, and then they were under attack in a blur of fur and fangs. But not by animals.
Pinning Clint to the ground, Nekra bared her fangs in a vampiric smile and said, “Were you looking for us?”
On his other side, Clint saw Mandrill on top of Natasha, and something in the man’s simian features made him tense. “Because we certainly enjoyed looking at you.” Then he laughed, wild hoots of baboon laughter that reverberated through the jungle.
T H I R T E E N
NEKRA’S corpse-pale face and vampiric fangs were even more shocking out in the jungle sun than they had been under the fluorescent prison lights. “I like the black combat gear,” she purred as she raked Clint’s face with her long, sharp nails. As Natasha watched, he managed to get her in a leg-lock.
Nekra widened her eyes. “Ooh, big boy,” she said, before going for his eyes.
Natasha looked up at Mandrill, thinking furiously. Back in the program, Natasha and Yelena had been forced to memorize the biographies and skillsets of hundreds of super heroes and villains, the same way medical students might learn the characteristics of various illnesses. Mandrill and Nekra were clearly both preternaturally strong and fast. In any direct hand-to-hand-combat situation, Natasha and Clint were outmatched, which meant they had to be clever.
Unfortunately, Jerome Beechman was an extremely intelligent man underneath the simian physiognomy. Which begged the question: Why was he just sitting on Natasha, instead of beating her up?
“Do you feel it yet?” The furred hand stroked her cheek. “I must admit, I don’t usually enjoy other men’s…leavings. But you are something special.”
Oh, kakaya merzost. She had forgotten about his pheromones. Now, that was a big heaping plate of repulsive. Still, it was something she could work with. “Don’t touch me, you animal!” She strained against him, thrashing her head for good measure.
“You won’t feel that way for long.”
“Clint, help, don’t let him…don’t…” Natasha widened her eyes. “Don’t touch me.”
“Don’t touch you—like this?” He trailed one furred finger down the center of her chest. “Or like this?” Before he could complete the move, Natasha had jammed her knee up into his nose and rolled.
“For a supposedly brilliant scientist, you really are quite stupid,” said Natasha, sweeping his legs out from under him with a kick before stomping on his kidney, hard. “Pheromones work subliminally. Keep calling attention to them, and you allow a person to guard against the effect.” She grabbed the Glock and turned from the prostrate Mandrill to check on Clint.
“Well done, girlie,” snarled Nekra. “But you might want to give yourself up…before I remove your man’s eyeball.” She had Clint on his knees in a chokehold, and her dagger-sharp fingernail was positioned at the corner of his right eye. Clint looked at Natasha with a familiar, slightly rueful smile.
“Sorry,” he said. “Got distracted there.”
“So sweet,” said Nekra. Her black hair was pulled back so tightly from her skull, it gave Natasha a headache just looking at it. “I might give you his eye as a souvenir.”
“What do I care? I was just using him,” said Natasha, shrugging. Mandrill was beginning to stir; she didn’t have long. “Unlike you, I do not weaken myself with personal attachments.”
“Oh, all right, then.” Nekra began to press her finger into Clint’s eye. “You might not want to watch this part.”
“I won’t. I’ll be too busy shooting your man in the head.” Natasha pressed the gun’s muzzle at the back Mandrill’s skull.
“Idle threat. Avengers don’t kill.”
“I’m not an Avenger,” said Natasha. “I’m not even a super hero. In fact, I don’t have any powers. So if I hesitate to kill, it’s a pretty fair bet that the super-powered folks will kill me instead.” She cocked the gun.
It seemed impossible, but Nekra’s face went even paler. “Let him go. Look. I’ll give you your man back.”
“You first.”
“At the same time.”
They stared into each other’s eyes. Just as Natasha was about to agree, something shifted behind Nekra’s flat, dark gaze. “Do you have any idea how much I despise you? With your pretty face, you could go anywhere. Do anything.” Nekra’s hands, clamped around Clint’s neck now, trembled with rage. The black leather outfit she wore seemed equal parts bondage gear and Halloween costume, but her expression was pure anguish and fury. “You don’t belong here. You belong in the normal world, with normal people, sitting at some stupid coffee house drinking macchiatos and planning your career and your nursery and your vacation in Aruba.”
I have to snap her out of this, thought Natasha. But how? The mutant woman’s power was fueled by hate, and she was riding a wave of it now, making her irrational and unpredictable and enormously, dangerously strong.
Suddenly the ground around Nekra began to tremble, as if an earthquake were beginning, but this was no shifting of tectonic plates. All around them, small, dead things were clawing their way to the surface. A desiccated tree shrew. The skeletal remains of a small dinosaur. The half-eaten carcass of a young ape, slung up in the branches of a tree by some predator, was painstakingly making its way down to the ground.
Zombies. Nekra was calling up zombies, perhaps not even consciously aware of what she was doing. Thank God there weren’t any larger corpses around, thought Natasha.
And then she felt the ground shifting under her feet. There was a larger corpse, and it was about to break through. For a moment, Natasha couldn’t think what to do. Then it came to her, the pertinent detail from the woman’s file: Nekra’s power was fueled by rage.
“You think I’m normal?” Natasha forced herself to disregard the dead things encircling them and tried not to think about how long Clint’s air supply had been cut off. Instead, she concentrated on Nekra. “You have no idea. Maybe I can pass, like Lykos when he’s in his human form, but inside? I’m more a monster than any of you.”
Unfortunately, Mandrill had learned his lesson about not announcing his moves all too well. He reared up without warning, seizing Natasha’s wrist and forcing her to drop the gun.
But Clint managed to use that moment of surprise to flip Nekra onto her back. Now their positions were reversed, with Clint’s knife at Nekra’s throat and Mandrill’s arm choking Natasha.
“Let’s try this again,” said Clint. “How about you let the lady go, and I don’t turn your girlfriend’s black-and-white look all red?”
“Yeah, I know, she pissed you off. But let’s just call this one a draw, okay? Count of three?”
Mandrill threw Natasha away from him at the same moment that Clint released Nekra. As Mandrill helped his pale companion to her feet, he snarled at Clint. “You think it’s just us you’re up against? Lykos is gathering an army. Americans, Russians—you’re all the same. You’ve raped your own land, but you can’t have Pangea.”
With that, he slung Nekra over his shoulder and bounded off. The jungle swallowed them up within seconds.
Natasha and Clint looked at each other. “You okay?” He touched her throat.
“What is it with you and the count of three, anyway? What are we, toddlers?”
“I can’t believe you nearly let that woman gouge out my eyeball with her talon.”
“I can’t believe you let her get that close.”
“I was watching you and the monkey man!”
“Well, don’t. I don’t expect you to save me, so don’t expect me to save you.”
She turned from him, astonished at her own burst of temper. She never got mad. She never lost control. That was the first thing they had taught her in the program.
“Listen, Nat. I don’t know how it works where you come from, but if you want to join our little clubhouse, then you ought to know that I will expect you to save me, same as I’d expect it from Jessica or Steve or Luke or Tony. And you should expect the same from us. It’s not about the sex. It’s about the teamwork.”
She whirled to face him. “Your precious Jessica is lying to you, and you’re too blind to see it!”
His response was curiously mild. “Maybe. What are you too blind to see, Nat?”
The sat phone at his waist beeped, and Clint picked it up. “Yes, I’ve located her. We’ve also encountered two of the escaped inmates.” He paused, listening. “Affirmative. We’ll start making our way back to camp.” He replaced the phone in a holster on his hip.
New Avengers: Breakout Prose Novel Page 12
