by Ford, Lizzy
He pulled on a T-shirt, unaware she was in the doorway.
“Are you that good of a shot or were you lucky?” she asked. She wanted to look away from his perfect body but found she couldn’t. Instead, she found herself recalling what almost happened.
“I’m that good.” His declaration was unhesitant, like his response to killing people.
They were just normal events of his world, a world very unlike her own. Lana couldn’t help thinking they were far too different. And that he’d saved her life again. And she wanted more than a kiss next time.
“Are you okay?” he asked in a softer tone. “He didn’t hurt you?”
“If I had a gun, I might have almost thought of killing him,” she admitted.
“Good thing you didn’t have one,” he said, amused. “I told you I’d protect you. We’re in this together. No one threatens what’s mine.” He sat down to pull off his boots.
She said nothing, not sure what to think of his words. The idea of belonging to her Guardian was thrilling. The idea of belonging to a remorseless insurgent leader was terrifying. He’d said the same words the Guardian did. He said the words with the same assurance he said everything.
Yet, he’d refused her offer to become his companion. The way he kissed her and the way his gaze lingered on her every time they spoke was more than enough to convince her he was attracted to her. She wondered what kept him back and what exactly he wanted. He’d asked for nothing.
“You’re staring at me. What?” Brady asked, without looking up.
“I’m trying to figure you out.”
“There’s nothing much to me. I’m a soldier.”
“Traitor to your country.”
“You’re smart enough to know better. The PMF will be the only thing that holds this country together. You just don’t want to admit what’s going on around you.”
“That makes two of us,” she mused.
Brady glanced over his shoulder at her.
“I was thinking about how you kissed me,” she said. “It was … ah … anyway, Brady, I feel like I know you already.”
He bristled. Instead of answering, he rose and faced her. Lana stepped out of the doorway as he approached, assuming he meant to ignore her and head to the bedroom to rest. Brady paused in front of her, meeting her gaze.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t have asked if I thought otherwise,” she replied.
He kissed her in response, as intense as he had been at the entrance of the underground base. She sensed his restraint break. His hands roamed her body, and she returned his hot kisses, wanting him with the same lust she felt from him. Her question slid away from her mind as he maneuvered her into the bedroom and lowered her onto the bed. Lana pulled him on top of her, certain he wouldn’t walk away this time.
Brady made love to her with passion and tenderness, a combination that made her fall even harder for the side of him that had kept her company for weeks and protected her. He held her afterwards until she drifted into a doze. She awoke beneath the sheets of his bed, warm and comfortable. Her skin smelled of him, and she smiled.
Brady stirred across the room. He was getting dressed in his uniform.
“Gotta fight bad guys.” His voice held a tight note, one she couldn’t place. He didn’t look at her.
“Are you all right?” she asked, pushing herself up.
“Yeah.” He was distant again.
Lana pulled the blankets up as well, feeling exposed rather than comfortable at his sudden change.
“You’re not upset about what happened are you?” she asked.
“I needed a woman,” he said dismissively, as if she was a common prostitute.
Lana studied his back as he moved. She sensed there was something behind his words. He was trying to push her away again, as he had before. Only this time, he’d gone too far with her to completely walk away. She wondered what it was that kept him at war with himself and tried not to let his words affect her.
“Are you taking me as your companion?” she asked.
“Not in the middle of a war.”
“You never answered my question. Do I know you from somewhere?”
Brady’s movement paused then resumed. He whipped open the door to the living area and began placing his weapons around his body. Lana eased out of bed and put on her clothing before joining him.
“Do I?” she prodded at his silence.
“No.”
Disappointment spiraled through her. Her Guardian slept with her then lied to her. Confusion and anger stirred again. Why would he lie about knowing her? He’d been so sweet to her just a hour before. It was plain he regretted it. He still didn’t look at her, and she couldn’t help feeling hurt.
“I’m going on a mission. Will be back in the morning,” Brady said and strode to the door. “I don’t need to tell you not to leave, do I?”
“No,” she whispered. Lana watched him leave and rubbed her face, exhausted. She wasn’t certain what to think right now. Her body still thrummed with desire for him. It was scrambling her logic and had completely decimated her self-control where he was concerned.
Frustrated, she headed to the small bedroom and dropped into the bed. She wrapped her arms around a pillow that smelled like him and stared at the wall, distraught by the feelings of both anger and need for the complicated man. What had started as admiration and respect for the Guardian was turning into something more, and she didn’t know what to do about it.
Lana slept until Elise woke her for breakfast by beating on her door in the morning. Someone had cleaned her clothing and draped it over the couch. Lana changed quickly, her body sore from the night with her Guardian. She wrenched the door open.
“It’s about time,” Elise complained. “And for the record, you’re not supposed to get caught when the bad guys come for you.”
Lana frowned, looking Elise over from head to foot. The elite fed soldier was dressed in PMF gray.
“Elise,” she said in disapproval.
“Someone has to protect you,” Elise replied with a smile. “Let’s get some food.”
“It doesn’t bother you?” Lana pressed. “Wearing their colors? Betraying your country?”
“That’s the harshest thing I’ve ever heard leave your mouth. Good girl!”
Elise strode away. Lana followed. They grabbed food from the small cafeteria that was devoid of people at the late hour of morning. Lana hadn’t expected to sleep in so long but was grateful Elise had thought to leave her alone for the full night. Elise straddled a chair, and Lana sat across from her.
“Elise—” she started.
“I don’t see things as simply as you,” Elise said. “This isn’t a case of good guy, bad guy. I agree with Dan—someone in the government wants to start another civil war. What do you think?”
Lana listened, nibbling a pastry. It was impossible for her to think anything different. Her thoughts went from Brady to Greenie and the communications she’d forwarded to her micro. She itched to have her micro again, to look at the logs and hack into whatever she could to find the answers.
She flushed despite herself. She’d paid her one night with Brady and still didn’t have her micro or the vault. He seemed immune to most emotions remotely human. What more did he want from her?
“Well? You’re the analyst,” Elise prompted. “I’m a grunt because I couldn’t pass the fed tests, you know.”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit, Elise,” Lana chided. “I don’t have any empirical evidence to suggest—”
“Don’t use that fed speak on me,” Elise said with an exasperated sigh. “I asked what you think, not what you know.”
“I don’t think the PMF did it,” Lana said at last.
“That was painful. Remind me never to ask your opinion on what I’m wearing.”
Lana half-listened, thoughts on Greenie and the Horsemen. The weight of those secrets robbed her of her appetite and made her feel tired again, even after a
full night of rest.
“I think someone in the government was working with some very powerful partners who had the funding, operational planning, and corrupt government officials in high enough places to execute,” she said.
“Is that close to what I said?” Elise grinned.
Lana nodded.
“Awesome.”
“I still don’t consider the PMF an ally.”
“If you want to stay alive, you better learn to adapt,” Elise advised. “Something we learned in my training: survive then worry about fighting another day.”
“We come from two different worlds.”
“I have a feeling this will be permanent.”
Lana agreed silently. Even if she reached the Peace Command Center, the world wouldn’t right itself. She’d hoped her burden would end there, and the secrets she kept could be turned over to someone who could fix things. She suddenly found these thoughts foolish.
She wished to talk to Guardian again, to hear his take on the world. He’d been her only friend. Her thoughts turned dark as her mind wandered to Brady. Their relationship had changed to one far more dangerous, less open.
“Elise, can I use your micro?” Lana asked suddenly, surprised to see the elite soldier had it at her waist.
“Later. We got something to do first,” Elise said, standing. “I’m going to teach you some self-defense. The next time someone grabs you, you can take care of him. This afternoon, we’re learning some basic survival shit, since it’s clear you don’t know any of it. All your fancy training won’t …”
Lana half-listened to Elise’s lecture, thinking about how she could hack into her micro with Elise’s. She followed her friend to a portion of the underground site converted into a massive gym and training facility. A dozen or so of the PMF soldiers were present. Elise breezed by them, unaffected. Lana couldn’t help but feel self-conscious at the lingering looks they gave her. She didn’t have Elise’s physique; she was clearly not one of the genetically altered warriors.
Elise peeled off her shirt to reveal a snug undershirt that outlined the shape of her muscular upper body.
“We’ll start with how to break some general holds,” Elise said.
“Brady said to help if you need it,” a deep male voice said.
Lana turned to look at the speaker and craned her neck back. He was bigger than Brady by a head and one and a half times as wide. She felt like a flower next to a tree and stared, hoping Elise didn’t take his offer seriously.
“Great!” Elise said with enthusiasm. “Put her in a choke hold.”
Lana paled, expecting her day wasn’t about to get any easier.
Chapter Ten
BRADY SURVEYED THE MESS before him, admiring the ability of the bio-elimination field to destroy on touch. The fed’s facility had been armed as well as the hospital, and one of his commo guys intercepted the call for help only an hour before. Even so, Brady and his team had arrived too late.
Nothing remained. Rather, no one remained.
“They left everything in storage. Didn’t take a damn thing,” Dan reported from his position inside the building.
Brady rested his laser gun on his shoulder, taking in the undisturbed minefield and pieces of bodies remaining after several of the intruders tried to cross the bio-elim field before it was disabled. The fed building smoldered before him, the scent of metal and burning plastic thick in the air.
“No survivors out here,” he said. “Looks like they were here to kill, not loot.”
“Some good shit back here, though.”
“The feds always have the best shit,” Brady said.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Dan asked.
“That this was a fed-on-fed attack?”
“No one else uses this ammunition except for us, and this wasn’t one of our ops. It’s military grade.”
Brady walked the area between the double walls, looking for anything or anyone in a large enough piece to provide clues as to what was going on. The compound was a nuclear power plant. The reactor area, the storage and logistical areas, and the hazardous waste areas appeared untouched. Just the barracks and office areas had been attacked.
Whoever attacked didn’t want survivors or to destroy a perfectly functional facility. Someone would be coming back to take over the facility, he assessed.
“I hate being too near this stuff,” he muttered. “Won’t know if there’s an issue ’til you’re dead.”
“Or your dick falls off. We’ll loot fast,” Dan promised.
Brady pushed chunks of body parts blown out of the minefield and knelt to retrieve a thumb keypad. He didn’t understand the significance of the seemingly benign keypads. This one was similar to the other his team found, only there was no biohazard sign, and the serial was in blue. He’d spent days fighting to reach the Peak with the first one, and Lana had nearly gone off a cliff for another one.
He’d tried hard not to think of her or their night. He’d betrayed his own sense of responsibility, not to mention his promise to Tim. God, but she was worth it! She’d proven as lively in bed as she was timid outside of it. Her heart was in everything she did, and she’d loved him back with both tenderness and passion.
Brady forced his thoughts to his mission. He tucked the keypad into his pocket. Lana would know what it was, even if he didn’t. He rose, unsettled by the scene around him.
His conversation with Tim returned, and he stayed the urge to call Lana as he had when he was simply the Guardian. Her voice still brought him comfort, but he’d just fucked up that relationship. The chances of them both surviving—or of Tim not finding out—were low. Not to mention lying to her had been harder than he thought. He’d wanted to admit the truth, in hopes she’d talk to him—and trust him—as she had the Guardian. Then he slept with her and walked away again. She didn’t deserve that. No normal woman would deal with what he put her through.
As much as he hated to admit it, he still missed talking to her. He missed his friend. He contemplated the stray thought as he moved around the facility.
“There are a few other fed facilities around here,” Dan said. “We’ve heard mayday calls from several of them.”
“I have an idea why. There’s one between us and the hard site. Let’s take a look.”
“What’re you thinking?” Dan asked.
“I’m thinking someone is destroying the fed buildings in case a certain fed is hiding there.”
“Greenie looking for Lana.”
They loaded one of the transports with the supplies and sent it towards the hard site with a security force. He kept Dan and two others with him.
“You need some of this?” Dan asked with a long look at him. He tossed him a bar of chocolate he’d stolen from the supplies.
“I need a box full,” Brady said.
Dan knew him well enough not to ask anything else, and they set off on foot.
“I sent Elise and Benny to teach Lana some self-defense,” Brady said as they struck off in comfortable silence.
“Benny? Christ, she’ll be in tears,” Dan said with a shake of his head.
“She’s gotta learn,” Brady said firmly.
The sight of her with a gun to her head the day before made his blood boil as much as the thought of her in his bed. She was helpless in his world, and the helpless didn’t normally last long.
“Go easy on her,” Dan advised. “She’s smart but brainwashed by the feds. She’ll come around.”
“I found another of those keypads,” Brady said, ignoring Dan’s words.
“The ones they went loony over last time?”
“It’s a little different. They never did say what they were.”
“I’d say they were probably important. Lana might know.”
Brady gave him a look.
“All right. Maybe when she stops crying every time you look at her, you can ask her.”
Brady hid a smile. She’d proven how willing she was to become his companion, a surprise considering she real
ly did seem fragile in his world. Every moment he spent with her, he felt like he was getting farther and farther away from his ability to walk away without either of them getting hurt. Eventually, she’d find out who he was. Eventually, things would come to a head. But as a man who lived day-to-day, tomorrow was a concept he wasn’t always comfortable with.
They walked parallel to an abandoned highway for a couple of hours until they reached the second fed site. They saw the smoke half an hour before they arrived and approached with caution. Brady’s scouts reported nothing, and they emerged from the cover of nearby buildings.
This was a communications facility, heavily guarded. The tower was in pieces, the building at its base a gaping crater. They tested the bio-elim field before passing through. As with the other site, there were pieces of people but nothing else.
“This is creepy,” Dan voiced his concerns. “Looks like systematic extermination of an enemy’s strongholds.”
“Exactly what this is. The start to another civil war. Let’s not linger.”
They moved on, taking circuitous routes back to the underground entrance in case they were being watched. He dropped his gear in his suite, curious not to find Lana within. Dan met him in the hall, and they went to the cafeteria together.
“Hey, Elise,” Dan said, tapping the button behind his hear to access his personal net. “Where you guys at?”
Brady got his food as the two talked, seating himself before he looked to Dan again.
“They’re in the gym,” Dan said. He was trying hard not to smile.
“Is she crying?” Brady asked.
“Don’t think so,” Dan said. “I guess she wouldn’t play this morning at all but changed her mind this afternoon. She was afraid of Benny until Lon told her to pretend like he was you. Sounds like she lost some of that timid field mousiness.”
“Whatever works.” He looked up to find Dan studying him closely.
“You’re damn cranky today. Wanna spar? Maybe with Benny?” Dan asked. “He can beat this funk out of you.”
“Maybe later,” Brady replied grudgingly. He didn’t think his abruptness any more clipped than usual, but Dan would knew the difference. “I want to look at the logs for the past few days to see if any of the scouts have reported any other fed buildings going up in flames. I need to ask Lana about the keypad we found, too.”
