Shoot to Thrill

by Bruhns, Nina

  Being attacked. In a car. To be slaughtered.

  Just like her parents.

  Repressed memories of that day blindsided her. Memories of raw-throated screams and the evil faces of drug-crazed strangers. Of her mother shoving her out of the car and telling her to run. Of her father’s chest exploding in a shower of crimson. Her mother’s face as it ran with his blood. The comforting neck she’d cried against so often, splitting hideously and blooming scarlet. Oh, God, so much blood. And she herself cowering in a doorway, not doing anything to help them. Unable to move for fear and horror.

  Like now.

  These men were going to kill her. She was going to die! And Kick along with her. Because she couldn’t move.

  It barely registered when two of the assailants went flying backward, spurting blood.

  So much blood. Blood everywhere!

  “Rainie!”

  Kick was yelling at her again. Something about a knife. She tried to hear. But couldn’t peel her hands from her ringing ears. Help! Please help!

  He leaped out of the Jeep and launched himself at one of the attackers. Where was his gun?

  Suddenly, a big, ugly brute reached over her door and grabbed her.

  She screamed. He raised his meaty fist. Kick shouted again. Urgently. Something . . . “—knife!”

  The world tunneled down to a slow crawl as she watched the iron fist come slowly around to smash her face in.

  And something inside her snapped.

  No.

  This was not going to happen.

  This was not how she would die. Not today, goddamn it.

  Kick needed her. He couldn’t fight them alone. And she would not be a victim.

  Never again!

  At the last second, she dodged the fist. She dove for Kick’s long knife—that’s what he’d been yelling about!—hidden under the seat. There! She wrapped her fingers solidly around the metal handle. And brought it up.

  All the pent-up rage of her whole life surfaced in one mass of adrenaline and fury.

  She slashed the knife hard across the groping fist. Her assailant screamed in pain.

  “This is for my father, you goddamn asshole!”

  She sliced the blade up his arm and stabbed it deep into his shoulder.

  “And this. Is for my mother!”

  She brought the knife around again. His eyes bugged out. She gritted her teeth. Plunged it into his neck. And again. Severing the artery.

  He spun away. Dropped to his knees. Then fell to the ground on his face. Dead.

  “Jesus God,” Kick murmured behind her, breathing heavily.

  She clutched the door with red-drenched, slippery fingers. Her breath came in ragged, staccato bursts. “Is he—”

  “Yeah.” Kick put his hands tentatively on her shoulders. They were shaking. “He’s dead.”

  “Are w-we s-safe?” she croaked, closing her eyes as they swamped with tears. Willing her breath to slow. Her heart to stop pounding like a jackhammer. They didn’t listen.

  Kick’s fingers squeezed her, but he didn’t answer. After several moments she managed to turn. She searched his face. His jaw was set, his eyes burning with concern.

  No, they weren’t safe.

  “For now,” he said. His voice sounded far, far away. “You all right?”

  She swallowed. Tested her insides.

  A drowning mix of emotions swept through her in a whirl-pool. Abject horror at what she’d done . . . My God, she’d killed a man! But also . . . immeasurable relief.

  She’d fought back.

  Sweet God, she’d fought back.

  And won.

  “Yeah,” she said, eyes brimming over. “I’m all right.” And suddenly a huge weight lifted from her soul. For the first time in twenty years, she meant it. She was all right.

  The fear was gone. Vanished. In its place . . . she wasn’t sure yet.

  “I’m good,” she said, wiping her eyes with a shaky smile.

  The concern didn’t leave his gaze, but he gave a curt nod. “Okay. Here’s what we do.” And she fell in love with him even more for giving her the respect the moment deserved. For not insisting she wasn’t all right. Even if they both knew she wasn’t.

  “The Jeep’s tires are trashed,” he said. “So we’ll take their vehicle. Gather your stuff, okay?” His voice was calm, modulated, like he expected her to fall apart any second, despite the pretense that she wouldn’t.

  Except, she really wouldn’t. Not ever again.

  She slid out of the Jeep and went over to the body of the man she’d killed. She picked up his headcloth, which was fluttering next to him. And wiped his blood off her face and hands. Then she tossed the cloth back on the ground.

  Stalled in midmotion as he grabbed the field pack, Kick watched her, the look in his eyes unreadable. He didn’t say a word.

  “I’m okay,” she repeated, and gathered her stuff. “Really.”

  Because amazingly, she’d never felt more okay in her life.

  She approached the other vehicle. A newer model Toyota Land Cruiser, no doubt stolen from the refinery. Tossing her things in back, she climbed into the passenger seat and buckled up.

  “Hey,” she said with a wobbly smile, already memorizing the controls so she’d know where they were when it was her turn to drive. “It’s got air-conditioning.”

  “THERE you are.”

  Gina whirled, nearly fumbling the specimen slide she was trying to secure under the portable scanning electron microscope. “Gregg!”

  “I waited at your place.”

  She stared in disbelief. It was late. Almost midnight. She’d totally given up on hearing from him. Ever again. Last night had just been too mind-blowing—in an extremely scary way— to expect a repeat. Sex like that didn’t happen to her. Probably a good thing. She’d never get any work done.

  Her latest and greatest lover moved toward her, all killer jawline and black T-shirt panther-man. “From now on let me know where you are.”

  From now on? Obviously delusional. He hadn’t even called her today, and—

  She peered at his face. Good Lord, he was serious.

  God, she hated men like that. All cocky and arrogant and God’s gift. Like a woman had nothing better to do than to wait around until His Royal Dickhead deigned to make contact the morning after.

  Oh, yeah, now she remembered. That’s why she only dated young, worshipful interns and residents. They knew how to show a woman she was appreciated, after a night of life-altering sex.

  Report her movements to Rambo here, like a two-year-old to mommy? She didn’t think so.

  “What makes you think I want you to know where I am?” she asked incredulously.

  Besides, she wasn’t speaking to him. She’d been stewing all day about what Wade had told her this morning. About that ill-fated FedEx plane. In freaking Africa. And Jason Forsythe going down with it. There was definitely a whole lot Gregg wasn’t telling her. He was playing her, and she couldn’t figure out why. She wanted no damn part of it.

  She turned back to the SEM, dismissing him. A second later she felt him behind her. When she’d found him gone this morning, no note, no fresh coffee in the carafe, not even a damn phone message, she’d deliberately dressed in her I-don’t-give-a-damn clothes: short lab coat over plain khaki pants and a washed-out baggy T-shirt, white Keds, and her hair pulled back in a severe ponytail. Because she so didn’t care if he saw her without makeup. Not that he’d show up, she’d figured.

  Wrong.

  His warm breath tickled her bare neck. His boots brushed up against her sneaks. She made herself ignore the fluttering low in her belly.

  “What’s the matter, sweet thing?” he murmured in her ear. He didn’t press his body into her, but kept himself just a shade apart. Not that she wanted him to press it into her. “Didn’t I satisfy you last night?”

  Something disturbed her ponytail and she realized he was stroking it. Almost imperceptibly running his fingers down the strands.

  S
he covered a shiver with a tossed-off laugh. “Couldn’t you tell?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I could tell. Which makes me wonder why the leper greeting.”

  She snapped the slide into place on the digital scope. “What’s the matter, van Halen? You can dish it but you can’t take it?”

  The fingers in her ponytail got more obvious in their stroking. Was that supposed to be some kind of threat?

  “You expected flowers maybe?”

  Nice. She made a derisive noise. “That’s the last thing I’d expect from you. Look, I’m kind of busy right—”

  The chains on his leather jacket jingled. “No, you’re not.” Her head suddenly went back in what would have been a jerk if it hadn’t been so smooth and controlled. She gasped, groping for the counter.

  A glass beaker next to the scope hit the floor and splintered in a million pieces. “What—”

  He spun her around and suddenly his tongue was in her mouth. He was hot and muscular and, oh, God, why did he have to taste so good, feel so arousing? She forgot all about his macho arrogance and just gave in. Melted into him and his amazing tongue.

  Bastard. Damn him, he knew exactly how easy she’d be.

  Except, wait—

  She wrenched away from him, bits of glass crunching under her Keds. The man was truly a menace on every front. “Stop it. You lied to me.”

  He just stood there, a vein pulsing below blue eyes that were as hard and unreadable as those cat’s-eye marbles kids used to play with before Sony and Steve Wozniak changed the games of childhood forever.

  “You lied about Rainie,” she accused. “You said she went on that plane voluntarily.”

  He continued to watch her silently. Not denying the lie, she noted.

  “That plane crash was in Africa,” she bit out. “Rainie would never willingly get on a plane to goddamn Africa.”

  Something flashed through his eyes. Fleeting. Barely there. Like he was surprised she knew where the plane had crashed. Miracles. Finally, a reaction. Okay, a micro-reaction. But the tell was big. She was right.

  “Rainie was kidnapped and forced to go against her will. Wasn’t she?” Gina demanded. “Forsythe’s dead, and she’s dead, too. Isn’t she?”

  Moisture from her own tongue glistened on the commando’s lips as he regarded her evenly, his stony façade firmly back in place. Not answering. Not moving an eyelash.

  Jesus, the man was as scary as he was sexy.

  She took a crunching step backward. “I’d like you to leave now.”

  His head tilted. Just a little.

  And that’s when she knew she was in big, big trouble.

  RAINIE was whistling the theme from Lawrence of Arabia.

  Kick glanced at her and, despite the grinding tension in his stomach, couldn’t help smiling. She wasn’t just riding on top of a camel; she was riding on top of the world.

  God knew it wouldn’t last. That brief feeling of invincibility. The unbelievable but temporary high from beating the living crap out of the biggest, nastiest, most soul-defeating nightmare in your entire life, the one that had been snarling and snapping at you from the inside out and bringing you down since before you could remember. You’d finally won, and all because you’d killed a man who’d been hands down certain he’d be killing you.

  That first win, it was powerful medicine.

  Kick was happy for Rainie. Hell, if he could miraculously transport her back to her job and apartment in New York City right this minute, she’d be fine for the rest of her life. At least about the irrational fears that had plagued her. She’d never get another panic attack, or feel she had to circumscribe her actions because of her inner demons. The ZU psych had preached at Kick hard and long enough about somatic therapy to know she had just slain those demons, every last one of them, along with the tango she’d left dead on the desert sand. He also knew because he’d slain his own childhood demons the same way. It had just taken him a lot longer. Well okay, he’d probably started out with a whole lot more demons than she had.

  Anyway. She was sitting there on her camel like a cross between Joe Cool and T. E. Lawrence, wearing Kick’s gold-lensed aviator shades and the off-white Bedouin clothes that he’d bartered for along with the camels, including a kaffiyeh that she’d wound around her head covering all but her face. She must have sensed his gaze, because she turned and grinned at him. Damn, that New York girl was enjoying the shit out of riding that camel. Who’da guessed?

  Kick, not so much. But not because of his leg, which, miraculously, hadn’t been hurting him at all today, leading him to suspect the psych had been right all along—the pain really was in his head, not his leg. Damn, he hated that. Not only the wasted months spent wasted on painkillers, nor the money wasted to procure them, but also because it only confirmed he was a total head case.

  Not that he hadn’t known it all along. Just add one more fucked-up thing to the list.

  Of course, who could tell if one measly leg was hurting when his entire body felt like it was going through a constant wringer?

  Wiping the sweat from his brow—damn, it was hot—he shifted on the hard, wooden instrument of torture the Bedouin he’d traded the dead giveaway Land Cruiser for clothes, two camels, and three skins of fresh water had actually called a saddle. What a joke. And yet Rainie was perched cross-legged on hers like she’d been a freaking Bedouin princess in a previous lifetime. If there was such a thing.

  She was scanning the desert rim above and the narrow wadi channel behind them for any sign of being pursued. They weren’t. He’d been damn careful in plotting their hundred-mile route to the insurgent camp. Camels were fast when they got their steam on. Didn’t have to take all the detours a wheeled vehicle did; those big saucerlike feet could eat up pretty much any kind of terrain you threw at them. She should be more concerned about what lay ahead. . . .

  Kick pulled out the GPS and checked it. They’d been hugging the bottom of the wadi for a while now, using it for cover as they approached their target. Wouldn’t want to overshoot and end up in the middle of the enemy camp. Oops. Sorry, Osama, just out lookin’ for General Gordon’s lost candlestick . . .

  When she saw his jaw tense, the humming stopped and her smile faded. “Are we getting close?”

  “Should be just past those next hills.” About five miles away, the hilltops were just visible above the wadi wall.

  Definitely close enough. His pulse was already pounding in his ears. He scanned the dry riverbed. Saw a large covelike area just ahead that would give her a bit of shelter.

  He urged his mount over to hers. “Let’s stop here. The cover is good and we’re far enough away that the camels can’t be heard.” Nor would enemy patrols stumble across her. “We’ll set you up over there in that hollow.”

  Naturally she picked up on the one word he didn’t want her to.

  “Set me up? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He met her gaze head-on. “You didn’t really expect to go with me,” he said. Not a question, but the answer was obvious in her face.

  “Why did you bring me this far, if you never intended to let me help you?”

  She was actually pissed off. He couldn’t believe it.

  No, what he couldn’t believe was that he’d brought her along in the first place. All day he’d been reaming himself a new one, thinking about the danger he was about to put her in. Christ. The woman he loved might die because of his colossally bad judgment. He should be lined up against a wall and shot for—

  The woman he loved.

  He slammed his eyes shut. Ah, hell. He couldn’t deny it any longer, could he?

  He loved Lorraine Martin.

  It was the second time in one day he’d heard the same fateful word echo in his head. Love.

  The first time he hadn’t had time to think about it. The thought had just sort of crept up and leapt out at him suddenly, and retreated just as fast.

  But this time . . .

  Yeah, he’d really done it. He’d gone and ut
tered the dreaded words, if only in his mind. He’d actually formed the thought and admitted it to himself.

  And wasn’t this a fine time for that conversation with his conscience.

  He loved Lorraine Martin.

  He loved her.

  He loved every obstinate, admirable, frustratingly wonderful and achingly touchable inch of her.

  And he’d just put her in mortal danger.

  Shit.

  Double shit. Because not only was that unforgivable, but he couldn’t have her anyway. He could never have her.

  Even if they managed to live through the next twenty-four hours, and even if he somehow miraculously managed to get them both out of this goddamn country alive, with Forsythe dead, that promise to release Kick from his contract had about a snowball’s chance in hell of being honored. Forsythe had never signed anything. Kick had no proof.

  Therefore so much for a normal life.

  And so much for being in love with Rainie.

  Shit, shit, shit, shit.

  “Well?”

  They were still staring at each other; it was obvious she actually expected an answer.

  Why did he bring her? If only he hadn’t. . . .

  His frustration boiled over. “You want to die? Is that it? Maybe I should have taken you into that refinery so you could see what’s in store for you if we’re caught.” He slapped his forehead. “Except—no, wait, you’re a woman! It’ll be a thousand times worse for you than for those men, because first they’ll brutally rape you and subject you to every kind of humiliation known to man, and only after they’ve had their sadistic fun will they put you out of your misery. Probably by stoning. A quaint little method of execution. Have you ever seen a woman stoned? Because I have and it’s—”

  The look on her face made him stop abruptly. It had drained of all color. Horror bled through her eyes.

  Her bottom lip trembled. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t let you do this by yourself,” she said hoarsely.

  Oh, God.

  “They’ll make me watch,” he ground out. “If I close my eyes, they’ll probably cut off my eyelids. And when they finally kill me, my last thought on earth will be that I let them do that to you.”