And they both banked the hard left, Sophia trailing behind but following closely enough Declan could hear her breathing, her feet slopping through the sand. He could also hear the engines of the vehicles. He thought he could maybe even hear the chatter of the men aboard. Hyenas, ready to claim their prize. He wondered what kind of prize he and Sophia had garnered, how much these bastards would miss out on since he’d taken the detour through the boulder lane. He checked back again. Both convoys, north and south, had cut diagonal lines to enter the rocky area, still gaining. His heart already pounding, it thudded harder still as he realized they weren’t moving fast enough. Declan checked back ahead of him, miles of sand and rock, then behind him to see the jeeps swerving around the rocks, around the barriers they’d used. It was all they’d had, and it proved to be completely ineffectual. He scanned for some type of cave to slip into, but the hill wasn’t even steep enough to dig out his own cave. Then, exhausted mentally and physically, Declan looked for a hole in the ground to crawl into and hide. Or die. He looked for his grave, thinking he’d likely never leave the area alive.
And Sophia . . . It pained him to think he’d led her down this path, that he’d been so careless as to let two enemy convoys sneak up to them in miles of desert. Miles of perfect visibility, and all he was focused on was joking around with Sophia. Attending to her emotional needs, attending to some of his own with her. Doing almost everything but watch for the enemy. He’d allowed the situation, such an unlikely mission, to distract him. He’d let her slip him into complacency, and now he’d let both of them slip seemingly into the hands of the enemy.
“Declan!”
He turned and found her a dozen yards behind, another disappointment on top of it all. The adrenaline and self-hatred had sent him forward, away from Sophia just as he was thinking about her. The look of fear on her face made him almost too sick to run. He slowed, waiting for her to catch up with him. Waiting for the convoy to catch them both. Waiting to die.
“I can’t,” she said, “I can’t,” slowing down even further.
“The hell you can’t! Run!” he shouted, grabbing her hand and dragging her along with him.
The rat-tat-tat of automatic gunfire roared over the sound of engines. Sophia screamed and instinctively lifted a hand to cover her head as a strafe of bullets flicked up sand across their path. He heard and felt the impacts in the ground. Another strafe in front of him, Declan hearing the sound as the puffs of sand grew ever closer. He glanced at Sophia, knew they wouldn’t make it. Not with her ankle. Not even if she’d been in tip-top shape.
He didn’t need the next spray of bullets to know that. And neither of them needed it to decide for them, probably cutting down their legs as they scrambled away.
“Okay,” Declan said, feet pounding as he slowed, grabbing her close to him in the process, “Okay, stop,” and holding her around the waist till she slowed to a stop. Until they both stopped, chests rising and falling in a desperate urge for air. His side ached, his legs felt like spaghetti, but his mind roared with disbelief.
“Shit!” he cursed, then turned to spit. He held her close, felt her wild trembling beside him, holding on to each other for perhaps one last time.
The vehicles pulled up and skidded sideways in the sand, the first pack coming in from the side, the other from behind a few seconds later. That was how much time the rocks had bought them: a few seconds.
“Declan,” she whimpered into his neck, her face held there, her body shaking. He could almost feel her losing her mind, her sanity evaporating into the early morning heat.
“Don’t give them anything,” he told her, trying to fill his voice as loud and strong as he could despite the edges of panic creeping in. “Don’t say anything, don’t look any way. Don’t—”
“What . . . don’t what!” she gasped.
“Don’t show fear. You got me, Sophia?” he looked beyond her, ignoring her reply, whatever it was, to see two of the men leap down out of the head jeep. They scattered in opposite directions in the sand, aiming rifles at them, not saying anything.
“Stay strong,” he told her when another man came forward, moving slower, unarmed. He stopped ten feet away and smiled.
“I know you have a knife,” the man said.
Declan said, “I don’t know what you’re—”
The rifleman screamed something, but it was unintelligible. Either that or Declan just couldn’t hear or make sense of it anymore. Though he could understand the man standing right in front of him. Close to him. He could see the intricate network of wrinkles in his desert-blasted face. “Drop the knife,” he said, softly, almost in a friendly way. “Go and drop the knife before we take it off your dead body.”
Declan reached in for the handle of the blade at his waist, pulling up so the knife lifted out of his pants.
“Yes,” the man said, “drop it now.”
“Don’t touch the girl,” Declan said, still holding it. He was not sure why he said it, as if they would do as he asked. It was instinctual. Even now, with everything in their near future looking completely fucked, he still wanted to protect her. He held the knife in a more useful defensive position, as if he’d have to use it at any second, despite the two rifles pointed at him—and the dozens of more from the men in both convoys. None of his friends in sight. He looked back at his English-speaking pursuer and said, “You touch the girl, and we’ll have a problem.”
The man chuckled.
But how could he give them a problem without the knife?
“Drop it, my friend.”
He wanted to give them a very big problem with this knife, holding it harder, the knife shaking now with the intensity of his grasp and of his hatred for these men who wanted to lay a finger on his girl.
It would be his only chance out of this, although extremely slim, to stay armed. Even with a rusty knife against . . .
“Do it, Declan . . . please,” Sophia said, this time her voice cutting through his thoughts. That was the power she’d had, making him flinch with the idea. Do it. Drop it. His thoughts and her voice combined into a single order that his body had no other choice but to listen to.
His grasp suddenly weakened.
Sophia said, “Please.”
Declan dropped the knife to the sand, the blade sticking in with a loud scuffing sound. Straight in, handle out and glistening against the sun.
He took a breath, looked at her, preparing for their last moment together. Preparing to say goodbye. He might never see her again, at least on this mortal earth.
Her face had been quivering, too, a weak, quivering smile. A look that only he could understand, after their days together, after their conquests, their misfortunes, after their sleeping together in a cave. Everything coming down to this. It was, he agreed, slightly humorous.
Then, not so humorous: her gaze moving away from his and at something past him. Something that horrified her. She nodded in the direction, and when Declan followed, he saw that she’d been motioning to the man. He was approaching them, a handgun now drawn and pointed at Declan’s forehead.
Declan watched his expression again, the crumpled anger in his face. A face and a body and a gun, moving toward the two of them. His face was tight with hatred, and then suddenly gone. Gone in a spatter of blood, bone, hair, and brain matter. A deep, loud, rippling shockwave sped over the valley. The man, too, shrinking away and falling back and slamming into the ground like dead weight over a reddening stain in the sand. The other men, maybe a half dozen, stood in stunned silence, as did Declan. What the hell—
“Down!” he shouted, dropping to the ground and pulling Sophia with him.
23
Sophia
Sophia hit the dirt with a weak cry, not understanding, eyes wide as she stared at the destroyed skull of the man who’d nearly killed them. They’d been seconds away from dying. Her heart pounded so hard she was amazed that it didn’t burst. Limbs trembling, she lay stunned, silent, stiff, and nonsensical. Nothing had been making sense
for quite some time. It had gone on like that for days, it seemed. And lately, these last few hours . . . And this last minute, staring into Declan’s eyes and seeing both the beginning and end of her future. She assumed it would have been the end of things not making sense, and the beginning of a cold, hard nothing.
Death.
But then the gunshots rang out and bodies dropped fast, sprawling across the sand. Someone’s arms grabbed her, strong and lifting her, someone—Declan—carrying her away from the gunshots and the bodies.
And the explosion.
She felt it first as light, a blinding white heat blasting into her body, shining through her eyelids even as she closed them. And then it was pain, a burn that wrapped around her tighter than Declan’s grasp. She felt it worse in every inch of exposed skin, her bare arms, her neck, face, those see-through eyelids. Until she buried her face in Declan’s chest and found darkness there, the sound of gunshots away from their embrace. The sound of him breathing hard as he carried her away.
“Declan,” she screamed, “I got it, I can run!” But he made no indication that he’d heard her. She had trouble hearing herself. What was happening around them, what sounded like a theater of war, raged on even louder despite how far they’d already run.
“Americans!” he cried, not answering any specific question from Sophia, but just yelling it over and over again, half-crazed sounding, half elated. No, fully elated. He seemed crazed with the idea that their Americans had finally showed up to save the day. Maybe his Americans. Maybe DARC Ops.
He’d been so strong this whole time, mentally. Sophia figured now was as good a time as any to lose it.
But please don’t stop carrying her away.
When he finally slowed and dropped Sophia to her feet, as softly as her injuries required, it was in concert with the quick, skidding approach of a van, its tires splashing sand across her feet as it came to a stop. Engine purring loudly. Door opening.
A man shouting, “Get in!” before the loud thunks of something rippling across the side of the vehicle. Something hard into metal. Sophia could feel the sound of it ripple through her body. Her bones rattled with the impact, and she hadn’t even been hit. Yet. Or had she?
Thunk thunk thunk, and then mad scrambling and screaming. Declan pushed her away from the opened door and around the front of the vehicle, saying something about needing more mass between them. It was a blinding whirl of activity, and the next thing Sophia knew was that she was on the ground again, panting, her back leaning up against the hot metal of the US military vehicle. She could still feel the thunking through the metal, the whole situation feeling so crazily unsafe. But it was better than being open in the sand. Better than being at gunpoint.
Anything was better than the smug, self-satisfied smile of the man they’d sent to finish the job.
Even better was watching how someone had tossed a rifle into Declan’s hands, him catching it perfectly and crawling over to the edge of the van. And better still was how he’d responded, taking his shots immediately. Sophia could only catch her breath, trying her best to stabilize her racing pulse, her thoughts. She didn’t want to become a burden, especially now that they’d gone so far and had come so close to being done with this mess.
But there was more to it than just stabilizing herself.
She wanted to be useful.
How could she be useful?
Declan paused for a moment after firing another half dozen rounds, turning his head to check up on her again. She could almost hear him, his voice internalized. His concern. His question: “Are you okay?”
She was okay, but she wanted to be better. She wanted everyone to be better.
She wanted join in and man up and fight alongside them.
Finally, when Declan turned to her again, she said, “What can I do? Declan . . .”
He fired several more shots, then said, “Nothing. Just get through this.”
Sophia wanted more than base survival. She knew it—she could feel it—that she was capable of so much more. Definitely something more than hanging art in a New York gallery.
Through their time together, she thought she’d showed him, if only occasionally, that she was capable of more. Sometimes asking permission for the opportunity. Something more than just following some advice or even order he’d given. But now she wanted to take action, taking it into her own hands.
“Give me a weapon!” she shouted. “Give me a gun!”
She wasn’t sure where it came from or who gave it to her, but she grabbed it and held it tightly. She’d never fired a gun in her life, but she wasn’t going to cower here and not help. No more. The weight, and how it fit snugly in her grip, made her feel she was capable of doing some serious damage to the men who’d already done so much against her.
She watched how they’d handled the guns, how they were held just so. Where the hands went. Fingers. She wasn’t exactly sure about aiming, but as long as the barrel was pointed the right way—at any of those bastards near the jeeps—then she would at least be not receiving the brunt end of it.
Everything else, like how the clips worked, or the safety switch or whatever other intricacy stood in her way, she would just have to blindly guess at. Next was to guess how she’d position herself to aim and actually maybe fire back at the attacking party. She looked over to Declan, who seemed too busy to turn away from the action and advise her. And probably too busy to give her some last-minute shooting tips had she crawled next to him. A bad move, crawling next to him. Instead, Sophia scampered to the other end of the vehicle, edging around the front of it. She took one last breath and lay flat on her belly, resting her elbows on the hot sand. All she had to do was point the barrel in the right direction. Pull the trigger. Pull the trigger! She did, surprised at the buck of the stock against her shoulder, the wild spray of shots skimming the sand in front of her.
Then a hard hand grasped her other shoulder, pulling it back, her head whipping around to see Declan’s bewildered face.
“What the hell?” he said. “What are you doing? What are you trying to do?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” She leaned back around the rear of the van, both of them hiding in better cover now while she waited for whatever speech he’d had planned for her. Likely something about her not knowing her own limitations. Something about her taking these extraordinarily irresponsible risks that would ultimately put him and her and the rest of their men in dire jeopardy—once again.
But instead, he simply smiled and took the rifle out of her hands. Her leaned it up against the van and turned back to her, grabbing a handgun he had stuffed into the back of his pants, handing it to her. “This is a little more your size.”
She just stared at it.
Declan’s face was grim, but he still managed a smile for her. “After seeing your work these last few days, I think you’ve earned a shot.” Then he forced it into her hand, the gun fitting smoothly and more comfortably than the rifle. She trusted him with it.
“So, take your shot,” he said. “Just pick a bad guy and point it and shoot. If it’s too much, then just drop it in the sand.”
How did he know?
How did Declan know that she needed this, and if she didn’t get her satisfaction now, she would forever feel the emptiness? The cowardice?
He’d shown bravery in just giving her the chance . . .
Hollering from the other side of the van pulled Declan’s attention back away from her, him leaving without watching how she’d do with the handgun. She preferred it that way, no audience. She preferred to ease into the action by herself, at her own pace.
She might not even fire it at all. The trigger was hard enough just to pull back when she’d finally found something worth aiming at, squeezing back with all her strength until the gun jerked hard in her hands, ears ringing worse than before with the grenade explosion and the automatic fire next to her, hands still buzzing with the vibration. Brain buzzing with the realization that she’d just fired a shot. For the first time i
n her life, she held and fired a gun—at another human being.
But an awful, wicked human being.
She would lose no sleep over that, only if she hadn’t had the chance for revenge.
Sophia fired again.
She still couldn’t tell what had come of it. No idea whether she’d hit anything or if her bullet had sped into the desert into a clump of sand. It didn’t matter. She was doing something. She was fighting back.
Good or bad, it was all a jumble. The more she thought about shooting and killing someone, the more she thought of the human behind the monster, the weaker she felt for revenge. Weaker in the hands, too, the gun and the trigger feeling almost impossible now.
She’d had enough.
Sophia turned back and hid behind their military vehicle and thought of Ironside and all the men who had conspired to—
She looked around once more and emptied the entire ammo clip at the jeep, screaming as she did so, finally exorcising, she hoped, some dark, deep-down demon.
Hiding back behind cover, Sophia waited for one of Declan’s men to give the signal. They seemed ready for a change, for some announcement. It came before the sputtering of gunshots on her side, a loud, “hold your fire, hold your fire!” until their shots petered out to silence. And in that silence, a wave of quiet groaning from the other side—or at least what had been left of the men on the other side, shot up and groaning and rolling around in the sand.
Dark Escape (DARC Ops Book 10) Page 14
