Forged in Smoke (A Red-Hot SEALs Novel Book 3)

by Trish McCallan

  Those bastards sure do love their explosions.

  The tunnel shuddered, the walls and floor contracting and then expanding beneath the shock wave.

  The first two detonations had almost buried them alive; they might not survive this third one. With every ounce of strength he possessed, he plowed forward, his arm a vise around Faith’s legs, straining to catch the slightest sound from the limp body atop his shoulders.

  Nothing.

  Crackcrackcrackcrackcrack—

  The series of sharp pops overhead plunged ice into his veins. He lunged forward, his flashlight beam bouncing from undulating wall to undulating wall.

  The cracks gave way to groans, which escalated to a deafening roar. Thud after thud sounded behind him, followed by an eerie sibilant hiss. A cloud of dust rolled over and past him, the gray flecks swirling within the halo of his flashlight beam. Silence fell. Shrouded the tunnel in stillness.

  Deep. Dense. Stillness.

  His lungs laboring to find air within the thick, dry mist, Rawls milked another burst of speed from his heavy legs. The explosions had stopped. So had the rocking and rolling under his feet. Beyond the drifting dust particles, the tunnel walls were hazy, but motionless.

  He concentrated on Faith’s dead weight atop his shoulders. Her lifeless, silent body. No movement. No sound. He needed to assess her condition. But while the imminent threat of burial had faded, it hadn’t vanished completely. One more blast directly above could jolt the structure into collapse again. If he stopped to assess her condition, he could be sacrificing both their lives.

  They needed to navigate the rest of the tunnel and get into the safety of the caves ASAP. Their lives might depend on it.

  Gritting his teeth, he kept moving.

  But the body he was rushing to safety showed no signs of life. What was the use of escaping to the hub if Faith didn’t survive the journey? His scalp tightened. Burned.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  Against every deep-seated instinct, he dropped to a walk and then stopped completely. He crouched, bending forward, easing her off his shoulders and onto the ground. Her face looked blue, almost frozen beneath the harsh white stream of the flashlight. Her pulse was weak. Erratic. Barely there.

  Her best chance of survival without the Cordarone was a shot of adrenaline. Which was in the med kit, in the duffle bag.

  Jesus. Don’t let it be buried.

  Ripping the flashlight from his mouth, he shot to his feet and raced back down the corridor, praying the collapse hadn’t been as bad as he feared. Praying he could locate the duffle bag and get back to her in time.

  Around the first bend the flashlight illuminated a wall-to-ceiling blockage of soil and concrete.

  Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

  He spun and sprinted back to Faith. The duffle bag was somewhere past that blockage. Likely buried as well. Unattainable.

  He’d have to work with what he had . . . which wasn’t much.

  Sweet Jesus, Kait. I could sure use you now.

  Faith lay where he’d left her. He checked her pulse.

  Nothing.

  Checked her breathing.

  Nothing.

  Fuck.Fuck.Fuck.

  His hands and legs suddenly shaking, he knelt, set the flashlight on the ground, and pressed his ear to her chest.

  Nothing.

  Fuck.Fuck.Fuck.

  A chasm opened in his chest, threatened to suck the hope from him.

  Tilting her chin back, he opened her mouth, made sure her tongue was out of the way, and blew steadily down her throat. Her lips were soft against his, supple.

  Heartbreakingly lifeless.

  Lifting his head, he stared at her inanimate face and started chest compressions. “Come on, baby.”

  His chest aching, memories flooded him.

  The sweetest little ass rubbing against his crotch . . . luscious, chocolate-chip-seasoned lips matching his mouth kiss for kiss . . . hot, moist breath bathing his neck . . . solemn, gentle eyes caressing his face. “I’m not afraid of you.”

  She was the oddest mixture of strength, spunk, and fragility. Curiosity and intellectual stubbornness. Sultry hunger and innocence.

  And he wasn’t going to let her go.

  He bent to breathe into her mouth again. “Come on, baby. Come on. Don’t leave me, now.”

  “Mom! Mom! There’s someone coming,” Benji all but shouted from behind Mac. Apparently the absence of bombing had brought a return to confidence, which equaled a return to volume.

  “Brendan, watch Benji,” Amy’s calm voice said from behind him.

  “I got him,” her equally calm son said.

  Her eleven-year-old son. It was odd how mature for his age one of Amy’s kids was, while the other child acted so damn young.

  A breath later Amy squeezed into the space next to him, her gun braced over her flashlight. He considered ordering the flashlight off. But hell, the glare might prove blinding and provide some protection if that beam bouncing toward them didn’t belong to one of his men.

  He shifted slightly to the right, giving her more room, trying not to breathe, so he didn’t draw any of that damn fresh scent into his lungs. He’d been in similar situations more times than he cared to remember, shoulder to shoulder with a teammate, watching an unidentified Tango creep closer. But motherfucker, he’d never paid attention to the smell of his teammate’s hair, or waited for the brush of their bare skin against his arm.

  He sensed the pressure invading the slim body beside him, but doubted it sprang from the same emotion constricting his muscles.

  He recognized the tight, clipped stride within the brilliant halo of light before the face registered. Amy’s sudden exhale proved she’d recognized Cosky as well. He straightened and stepped forward—relieved to escape the warmth of Amy’s body.

  His kryptonite turned to address the darkness behind them. “It’s okay,” she called softly. “It’s Lieutenant Simcosky.”

  And Kait, Mac realized, as another figure, slightly shorter and much more slender, trailed behind his lieutenant.

  “But we’re hiding,” Benji yelled back, pure enthusiasm in his voice. “They’re supposed to find us!”

  Ah, Brendan must have told the little guy they were playing hide and seek. Good call, turning the crisis into a game. But Christ, it made him feel old to see how quickly the kids had recovered.

  Mac moved forward, meeting Cosky midway. Since the pair was coming from the direction of the hub, they must have already been there. At least he’d be getting a sitrep.

  “You made it to the hub?” he asked once Cos was in hearing distance. At his lieutenant’s nod, Mac grunted in satisfaction. “Who’s accounted for?”

  “Now that we’ve located you four—everyone but Rawls and Faith.”

  Mac scowled. Rawls had been headed to the main lodge from their cabin. But what if the doc hadn’t been there? He could easily imagine his corpsman’s Southern honor getting him into trouble if he had to track the damn woman down.

  He turned to Amy. “Any idea where that roommate of yours disappeared to?”

  “She said she was going to the kitchen to get a start on breakfast.”

  Which was where Rawls had been headed.

  Mac froze, as the next possibility struck. He exchanged grim looks with Cosky. “How did your tunnel hold up during the raid?”

  Cosky frowned. “Fair. We had some leakage where the tree roots had invaded the concrete, but not enough to pose a problem.”

  There hadn’t been any roots in this section of the tunnel. What if Rawls and the doc hadn’t been so lucky?

  Son of a bitch.

  From the grim mask stamped across Cosky’s face, he shared Mac’s concern.

  “Kait and I will backtrack. Look for them,” Cosky said on a sharp turn.

  Mac started to follow, eager to remove himself from his current uncomfortable partnership, but—motherfucker—he couldn’t just abandon her twenty feet underground with two rambunctious boys.

&n
bsp; “Problem?” Amy asked in a low voice, apparently picking up on something in Mac’s tense silence.

  “Nah, they’re headed back to look for Rawls and the doc. The hub’s up ahead. We’ll wait for them there.” He fought to keep the frustration out of his tone.

  “I’m perfectly capable of protecting myself and my children,” Amy pointed out in an edgy voice. “Go look for Rawls and Faith. The sooner you find them, the faster we can get out of here.”

  Well, she’d sure as hell picked something up from him. Something she didn’t appreciate.

  Too fucking bad.

  But he bit back the immediate bad news.

  Until they figured out how their hidey-hole had been located, they couldn’t afford to take the kids anywhere. Not if there was any chance they were bugged and transmitting their location.

  With a ragged exhale, Rawls straightened, drawing in a deep breath to refill his starving lungs. Ignoring the raw ache in his lower back and the sweat trickling down his cheeks and stinging his eyes, he started the next round of chest compressions.

  He stared into Faith’s peaceful face as the heel of his hands pressed hard against her chest and then lifted, repeating the rhythm over and over again. A dull blanket of defeat dragged at him, tried to smother him beneath exhaustion and loss. While he’d managed to jolt her heart into action a couple of times, the beat had been too erratic to sustain any rhythm on its own. Within seconds it had stalled. Again. And again.

  While he’d been giving her the standard two breaths per thirty compressions for a one-person rescue scenario, it was doubtful she’d received enough oxygen to supply the depleted stores in her brain. Not without breathing on her own. Even if he could get her heart started and keep it pumping, in all likelihood she’d never wake up.

  In all likelihood, she was already gone.

  Sarah’s bleached, empty face loomed in his mind. He’d failed Faith as clearly as he’d failed his sister.

  He should have tried to reach Kait . . . But Kait was Christ knew where. To find her meant leaving Faith alone. Alone—for Christ knew how long.

  Long enough to die. That was for certain. To die all alone, in a dark, cold tunnel.

  He hadn’t been able to tear himself away. Instead, he’d promised himself that someone would come looking for them when they didn’t show up at the hub. Someone would find them and then leave to get Kait. Kait would fix her. Kait would fix everything . . . he just had to keep Faith’s heart beating and her lungs full of air long enough for Kait to arrive.

  He groaned out a shallow breath. A dull roar of defeat vibrating through him.

  . . . Wrong decision. I should have left her. Found Kait. By refusing to leave, I killed her. Just like I killed Sarah.

  He’d lost people before. On the field of battle, it happened. You learned to live with it. But this . . . this was different. It sheared at his soul. Not just the loss of life, but the loss of hope and possibilities and the chance at a future he’d sensed but hadn’t had a chance to explore.

  Yet.

  He hadn’t explored it yet. But it had lingered there in the back of his mind. Something to pursue after he’d exorcised his ghost and got his life back on track. A bright shiny possibility waiting for him in the future.

  She’d wanted him. He’d known that. She hadn’t tried to hide it. Hadn’t pushed it, but hadn’t hid it either. And he’d noticed. Sweet Jesus, had he ever noticed. And been tempted, only to haul back because of the circumstances. She’d wanted him. And he wanted her. They could have started with that.

  Not that it mattered anymore.

  Turning his face toward his shoulder, he rubbed his stinging eyes on his shirt. But the cloth was soaked with sweat and did nothing to absorb the trickles of perspiration or liberate the sting from his eyes.

  Might as well stop the compressions. She’s gone. It’s too damn late.

  He lifted his hands, but leaned down, opened her mouth, closed off her nose, and gave her two more lungfuls of air.

  He straightened to the sound of footsteps behind him.

  “Rawls?” It was Cosky’s voice.

  “Yeah.” A puddle of light closed over him as he started back in with the chest compressions. “Kait with you?”

  His question was lethargic. Without hope.

  Too late. Too late. Too late.

  The lament pulsed in time to the beat of his hands on her chest.

  “I’m here.” Kait squeezed past him, stepped over Faith’s limp body, and knelt across from Rawls. “What happened?”

  “Her heart stopped.” The dullness graying his world echoed in his voice.

  “How long has she been . . . out?” Kait asked, her tentative voice ripe with concern. “If it’s been too long, I might not be able to help.”

  She meant dead. How long had she been dead?

  Too damn long.

  “I know.” He forced his palms to relinquish their claim on her chest and sat back, watching Kait’s slender hands with their long, tapered fingers replace his as Faith’s guardian against that silvery, transparent world he’d escaped.

  “Cosky. I need you on this,” Kait said, settling onto her knees and pressing her hands against Faith’s still chest.

  A vague memory stirred in Rawls’s mind. Kait’s voice.

  “The odds are much better if we wait until Cosky returns. His touch amplifies my healing. Together we can heal injuries much faster. That’s how we managed to save you.”

  His mind warped back to that eerie otherworld. He hadn’t been simply injured. He’d been dead. Kait and Cosky had dragged him back. Why not Faith as well? Hope swelled as he shuffled to the side and pulled back, making room for Cosky’s taller, wider frame.

  Abruptly he remembered Faith’s dislocated shoulder. Best to fix that before Kait got cranking so the healing could work its magic on her joint as well.

  “Hold this,” Cosky said as soon as Rawls had taken care of Faith’s shoulder. He handed over a flashlight and knelt across from Kait, covering the top of her hands with his palms.

  Rawls directed Cosky’s flashlight toward the drama taking place on the ground. The beam from his own flashlight, still upright and propped against Faith’s knee, ricocheted down from the tunnel’s ceiling, intensifying the spotlight haloing Faith’s prone form.

  His mind flashed back to his stint on the ground, with Cosky and Kait hovering over him. Beneath the backdrop of a gloomy liquid night, they’d been glowing. A bright current of white running from their arms into their hands and plunging into his chest.

  He frowned, the tension expanding, pressing against the hope. The flashlights were so bright they drowned any supernatural glow. If Kait and Cos were glowing, he couldn’t tell.

  “Is it workin’?” The question finally burst from him.

  “I think so.” Kait sounded drugged.

  Another minute ticked past while Kait’s face and Cosky’s hands turned redder and redder. He stared at Faith’s chest so hard his eyes burned. No movement. At least none that he could see.

  Come on, baby. Come on.

  He concentrated, willed life into her.

  Still nothing.

  The dullness from earlier returned, started to compress the hope.

  Come on, sweetheart. Come back to me.

  Cosky’s hands lifted slightly. Rawls’s gaze locked on them, his breath caught in his tight throat.

  Come on, come on, come on.

  Had it been his imagination? Wishful thinking? But no—there. Another flutter of movement and then a steady rise and fall of hands and chest as Faith’s heart and lungs went to work again.

  The breath locked in his throat escaped in a whoosh.

  She was breathing. Breathing on her own.

  The seconds ticked on again.

  “That’s enough.” Cosky pulled Kait’s wrists away.

  “What the—” Rawls jolted forward. Faith needed more time beneath Kait’s hands. While it looked like the combined healing had healed her heart, what about her brain? Ha
d it reversed the damage caused by oxygen depletion? “Let her keep goin’.”

  “No,” Cosky snapped, still holding Kait’s hands. He rose to his feet, taking Kait with him. “She’ll drain herself completely trying to help.”

  “Maybe you should let her make that decision,” Rawls snapped back, shooting a quick look at the easy rise and fall of Faith’s chest.

  “I said no. Kait’s done.” Cosky’s voice hardened.

  But Faith needed more time, damn it. He crowded closer to Kait and rustled up a coaxing tone. “Darlin’, just a bit more . . .”

  His voice trailed off at the sight of her face.

  Her brown eyes were glazed. Exhaustion carved deep crevices into the hollows of her face.

  She looked as drained and sick as she had way back in the parking lot when she’d healed Cosky’s trashed knee. The memory morphed into déjà vu as her legs folded and she started to collapse. He leapt forward, catching her before she hit the ground.

  “Son of a bitch.” Cosky’s voice rose grimly. He all but ripped her from Rawls’s arms. “You take care of your charge. I’ll take care of mine.”

  Rawls surrendered his grip, guilt rising. Cos had been right. Kait wasn’t in any condition to continue the healing. He could only hope that Faith had received enough of whatever magical elixir flowed through Kait’s hands to heal her brain as well as her heart.

  * * *

  Chapter Twelve

  * * *

  THE HUB WAS exactly as Mac remembered it. Jagged rock walls, bumpy rock floor. Fifteen by twenty feet in diameter. The tunnels fed into each other, until eventually, a single corridor spilled into the hub. At the moment, the rendezvous point looked smaller than it actually was. But then, a multitude of clustered bodies and flickering flashlights tended to have that effect on any given space.

  Mac scanned faces as he entered the cavern. As Cosky had indicated, everyone was accounted for except Rawls and the doc. He frowned. He hoped like hell Cosky had found the pair, and not under the dire circumstances they’d both assumed.

  He nodded toward Zane before beckoning him over. With their rock fortress encasing them, they were safe enough for the moment. They could afford to take a breather, figure out where the hell to go from here, and how the hell to get there.