Twenty years later, Rikki felt like a kid again. It was not a good sensation.
The sky began to lighten not long after their escape. Slivers of it turned lavender, then peach, gasps of starlight fading. Birds screamed, lost in the dense canopy; monkeys howled. Rikki hardly noticed. Her legs burned, her throat hurt. A headache was building at the back of her skull. Adrenaline had faded. It was hard to breathe. She wanted to vomit.
Rikki did not blame Ebola, or any other disease. She refused to think about it. Or about the fact that she was a hunted woman. Not even the gun still held slick in her hand could compensate for that. Nor could the men who had saved her life.
Strangers. Mysteries. Amiri walked in front. He had taken off his shirt and tucked it into the back of his loose drawstring scrubs. His back was lean as a whip, his shoulders broad and sinewy, and though his skin was dark as rain-soaked earth, there were golden undertones that even in the forest twilight seemed to gleam in his sweat and in the play of shadows rippling against his hard muscles. He was tireless, quick.
But looking at him made Rikki’s head hurt even worse. She glanced over her shoulder, desperate for a distraction. Eddie was behind her. She had barely gotten a look at the young man since escaping the camp. There was finally enough light to see the dark hair, the lean pale face. He was younger than she expected; young, with old eyes. Familiar, too. Startlingly so, which did nothing for her headache.
“Ma’am,” he said quietly, catching her gaze.
“Hey,” she replied, hoarse. Eddie reminded her of someone. Her brother. Dead at seven, but with that same dark unruly hair. Those soulful eyes. Uncanny, how much it seemed like him, if only older. The young man could have been family.
No, she told herself, turning away sharply. No, don’t go there. Don’t you dare.
But staring in the other direction was no help, either. Amiri was there.
Eddie wore a backpack. Rikki said, “Any water in there? Food?”
“I wish,” he said grimly. “Aspirin, if you want it.”
A root snagged her foot. She stumbled and Eddie almost stepped on her. She felt heat roll off his body. Too much heat. She turned, studying him more carefully, and the weak dawn light could not hide his flushed cheeks, or the brightness of his eyes. She forgot herself and reached out to touch his forehead. Found him hot to the touch. Burning up.
“You have a fever,” she said. Eddie caught her hand and pushed her gently away.
“No, ma’am,” he replied. “I’m fine.”
Rikki frowned, and glanced over her shoulder, intending to call Amiri. No need, though. He stood directly behind her, so close she could have touched him if she breathed hard. Silent, silent, man. Rikki tried to keep her voice steady as she said, “We need to stop.”
“No.” Eddie glanced at Amiri. “No, I’m fine. Really. She thinks I have a fever.”
“He’s hot,” Rikki protested. “And it’s not from exertion. It’s internal.”
Amiri looked at Eddie. “How do you feel?”
A tired smile touched the young man’s mouth, and for a brief moment the two men stared at each other with a weight and gravity that made Rikki feel totally insignificant, a stranger amongst friends. It made her wonder how they saw her—if she was nothing but a paycheck. A burden.
That’s what you are, stupid. What else do you expect?
Rikki didn’t know, but either way, it cut. And that was wrong. She was wrong, to want more. To desire even the pretense of friendship. The security of it.
Amiri’s shoulders relaxed, and he glanced down at her. “He is fine, Doctor Kinn.”
“Fine,” she replied flatly. “Really.”
“Ma’am,” Eddie said gently. “It’s nothing.”
Her eyelid twitched. “I spent the better part of twenty-four hours bagging bodies. You want to run that past me again?”
He had the grace not to argue. Amiri turned away. “We need water.”
“A satellite phone would be better,” she muttered, staring at his back. He said nothing. Kept walking. Rikki almost gave him the finger, but Eddie cleared his throat and that was reminder enough to act her age. So she shot him a look—the one usually reserved for drunks and circus clowns—and said, “What, oh paragon of health?”
The young man flushed a deeper crimson. “I just wanted to say thank you. For your concern.”
“Oh.” Rikki hesitated. “I suppose you didn’t need it.”
“Not now,” he said easily, almost cheerfully, though she noted a soft aching fear flash through his gaze, an uncertainty that made her heart hurt.
Just a kid, she thought. He was too young to be out here. Too much like her brother, Frank Jr., what with that loopy sweet smile. She almost wanted to find a football and toss it at him, just for kicks. Which was … really pathetic.
She was silent too long. Eddie frowned. “Ma’am?”
“Rikki,” she corrected him absently. “You make me feel old.”
“Rikki,” he said, with surprising gentleness. “It’ll be all right. You can trust us.”
Trust. She gave him a closer look. He met her gaze, square and true. Earnest, even sweet. Naive as hell, maybe, but she wasn’t going to hold that against him. Not when looking at Eddie made her homesick for something she could not name. Rikki patted his shoulder. “Thanks, kid.”
Eddie raised his brow, mouth twitching into a grin. “Kid?”
It was hard not to smile back, but it didn’t last. The young man held her gaze without moving, those old eyes studying her with disquieting intensity. It made her uncomfortable, and just as she was about to say something he held aside some branches and gestured for her to precede him.
As she passed, he said, “Do you know why, ma’am?”
Rikki stopped. “Why what?”
Eddie searched her face. “Why would men want to hurt you?”
She stared, caught, but all she could think of was Bakker and Mack and every other person lost at that refugee camp. All she saw in her head were the flames and the dead: children, splashing gas on bodies; men in peacekeeper uniforms, men she should have been able to trust. Her scars ached.
Why, indeed?
Amiri appeared from behind the gnarled trunk of a massive tree, pushing aside a sweep of vines dripping from the canopy. His eyes were sharp. He did not need to say a word. He stared at Eddie and the young man flushed. Rikki glanced at him. “We were just talking.”
“I asked Doctor Kinn why she’s a target,” Eddie said, with such simple honesty it was like looking at a choirboy—the kind with guns jammed in the back of his pants and spots of blood on his shirt. Rikki wanted to shake him around a little … or give him a noogie.
Amiri raised an eyebrow. “And?”
“And nothing,” Rikki said. “What went on in that refugee camp last night was bigger than me.”
Eddie shook his head. “With all due respect, ma’am, we weren’t sent to protect a refugee camp. And even though it came under attack, it was your name those men knew.”
“They knew more than your name,” Amiri added softly. “They knew your voice, as well. The men at the airfield could not see your face when they recognized you.”
“Someone prepared them,” Eddie said. “Someone’s been watching you.”
Rikki closed her eyes, fighting for control. “We need to go back, you know. The camp is scheduled to receive a new influx of personnel and supplies. What’s going to happen when they get there? More explosions? I assume they’ll see the smoke if those fires haven’t been put out, but that won’t stop them from landing. And if those same people are waiting …” She thought of Mack. Ruth. “We have to send out a warning. There should be a radio left, some way of communi—”
“No,” Amiri interrupted sharply, and then, softer: “No.”
“More people will die.”
“But not you,” he said. “Not you.”
Rikki stared. Amiri was an unflappable man, but last night she had seen a crack in the mask. Felt his hand on her chi
n, his heat; the way he had looked at her, hungry and dangerous with those fires burning all around them, in his eyes. His glowing eyes. Those impossible eyes.
His eyes were not glowing now, but the hunger was back, an intensity that rolled down to her bones, weakening her knees. So rough, so damn alluring.
Rikki shivered. Amiri blinked, relaxing his jaw. “You think I do not care about those people.”
“I don’t know what to think. Least of all, about you,” she replied, and watched his gaze slide back into that cool mask; predatory, aloof. She wanted to tell him it was too late, that she saw right through him—that she could feel the echo of his emotions, the burning. No mask could hide that. And his calm did not make him any less intense. Not to her.
Eddie said, too quietly, “We should keep moving.”
Amiri held Rikki’s gaze a heartbeat longer. “Follow me. I found something.”
More than something, Rikki realized, minutes later, staring dumb and silent.
Tossed in the undergrowth were three aluminum cylinders the length and breadth of her arms. Polished to a shine. Unmarked. Missing caps. A fine white powder was scattered on the ground around them. Not much, but enough to look like someone had been playing with a chalkboard.
Eddie crouched, leaning close. He rubbed his nose, like it itched. “Cocaine?”
Amiri frowned. “The scent is different.”
Eddie reached down to touch the powder. Rikki snapped back to herself and grabbed his wrist, squeezing her fingers so hard the young man winced. She did not know jack shit about scents, but she recognized her own business when she saw it. Even if it took a moment to register.
“Back away,” she murmured, hardly able to speak. “Don’t breathe too deeply.”
Both men froze, then turned slowly to stare at her. She gave them hard looks, and tugged on Eddie’s arm. They moved. Rikki did not go with them. She stayed and stared and looked for a big stick. Held her breath. Used a long branch to push leaves and debris over the powder and canister. Hiding them.
When Rikki was done, she very carefully backed away. She counted steps. She did not need to, but it helped her focus. And not run screaming.
When they were all at least three hundred paces away, very much out of sight and down a hill, Rikki braced her hand—and gun—against her knees, and forced herself to breathe.
“I take it that substance was bad?” Amiri said mildly.
“Shit,” muttered Rikki, staring at her feet. “Fuck.”
“Probably very bad,” Eddie said, somewhere over her head. “Like … we’re going to die, bad?”
“Holy crap,” Rikki said, and fell to her knees. “Jesus Christ.”
“Well, that’s not comforting.”
“Indeed.”
“Think we should get down on our knees?”
“Humility and penitence?”
“No. Just tired.”
“Ah.” Amiri crouched beside Rikki. Eddie sat down on her other side. Both were dwarfing her, like trees to a sapling. She stared at them, looking into their eyes—golden, brown, both watching her with so much intensity, such fascination, she might as well have been a poodle in some tutu doing the cancan and singing showtunes.
“You two are insane,” she said.
“No,” Eddie replied, cheerfully. “We’re terrified.”
“Justifiably so,” Amiri murmured. “What is it that I found?”
Breathe. Focus. Breathe. Rikki closed her eyes, swallowing hard. “First, did you touch anything? Before you came to get us? Did you get close?”
“No closer than we just were.”
Rikki exhaled. “Good.”
Amiri looked like he wanted to shake her. “Explain.”
She rubbed the back of her neck, hurting. “Those canisters you found are sometimes used in the transport of biological materials. Airtight, waterproof, insulated, difficult to damage.”
“They looked like thermoses,” Eddie muttered.
“Ain’t no coffee beans in that stainless steel,” Rikki shot back.
Amiri frowned. “The powder? What is it?”
“No way to tell. It could be dozens of things. Drugs, or ground bone dust—part of some black market trade in human body parts. Pulverized animal bits, for sale in traditional medicines.”
“Traditional medicines are not exactly terrifying.”
“But anthrax is,” she said, grim. “Smallpox. Biological agents. Deadly.”
Eddie paled, staring at his hand. Amiri never flinched. “The same substance that killed those people in the refugee camp?”
Rikki’s mouth clicked shut. He could have been reading her mind. But that question—that awful question—still felt like a steel-tipped boot in her gut.
And she knew what that felt like. Boy, did she.
Eddie stiffened. “I thought what happened there was natural.”
Rikki said nothing. Neither did Amiri. They stared at each other, and she could almost hear his thoughts, turning inside his head. His eyes were piercing, intelligent … beautiful, if she could admit it—and she could, even if it were a secret she’d take to the grave.
“Hey,” Eddie said. “I’m hanging here.”
“I would need to run more tests,” Rikki replied, looking at him. “But since I’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell of managing that, better to be safe than sorry. No poking around anything white and dusty.”
His face flushed. “Because it might kill me.”
Rikki gave him the thumbs-up sign. He blew out his breath, rubbing his wrist where she had grabbed him. “What about the people who left those canisters behind? They didn’t open by themselves.”
Amiri rumbled, turning slowly to look behind them. Methodical, deliberate, thoughtful. Rikki stared at him. So did Eddie.
“What?” she said.
“I think I might have the answer to that question,” Amiri replied.
“You hear someone?”
“No.” He hesitated. “Something is rotting.”
“Oh.” Rikki pursed her lips, and thought about the open canisters. “Oh. Man.”
“Exactly.” Amiri raised his brow. “Both of you, stay here.”
Rikki and Eddie looked at each other.
“You might need us,” Eddie said.
“All for one, one for all,” added Rikki.
Amiri’s mouth twitched. “We are quite alone here.”
“We’re doing this for your protection,” Rikki said, and made a shooing motion. “Go. Let’s get this over with.”
They took a circuitous route, and walked only a short distance before they came upon an area of rough damage—broken branches, undergrowth hacked, cold cigarettes littering the blanket of dead leaves and vines. Like Bambi’s mother: Man was in the forest, and oh, it was time to run.
Amiri found the bodies. Four of them. Riddled with bullet holes. No blood appeared to have seeped from their eyes or ears, which provided only limited comfort, given that those parts of their bodies had already been eaten away by scavengers. Rikki was very tired of seeing dead people.
“Well,” Eddie said, quite pale. “I guess that does answer my question.”
Raises some more, too. Rikki kept a safe distance, peering at the decaying bodies. All four were men. Soldiers, from the look of things. Still wearing guns, practically bristling with weapons. Clothed in blood-stained olive-colored uniforms with good black boots.
“That’s not natural,” she said, thinking hard.
“That is generally the case with murder,” Amiri replied, crouched with his fingers dipping delicately into the trampled undergrowth.
Rikki frowned. “What I mean is, no one ransacked their bodies. Those are good guns. Expensive guns. And maybe the uniforms are ruined, but those boots look just-out-of-the-box, and in these conditions that’s a miracle. Trust me. No gunman in this region is rich enough to not steal from the dead. Especially from someone you disliked enough to kill in the first place.”
“She’s right,” Eddie said, with enough c
onviction—and experience—that Rikki gave him a double take. The young man blushed, and began to shove his hands deep into his jean pockets. He stopped and let one hand, the hand that had almost touched the powder, rest lightly against his leg. Almost as though he were afraid of doing too much with it.
Amiri brought his fingers to his nose and inhaled. “So, they were not killed for their belongings. Their murderers wanted for nothing except their deaths.”
“A bit single-minded,” she said, tearing her gaze from Eddie. “What are you doing?”
“Tracking,” Amiri said.
“Huh.” Rikki tilted her head, thinking of how he had found these bodies. Funny, how she had never doubted him. “You have a pretty good nose.”
“Every sense is valuable,” he said smoothly, and straightened to his full height. She craned her neck to look into his eyes. Wanting to say more, but unable.
Eddie stared at the dead men. “Shouldn’t we bury them? It doesn’t seem right to just … leave things the way they are.”
Rikki hesitated, sharing a long look with Amiri. “We’re drawing a lot of assumptions here. Maybe they didn’t have anything to do with those canisters.”
“Like two ships passing in the night?” He smiled tightly. “Somehow, I think not.”
“Then we have to assume the worst.”
Amiri tilted his head, tapping his fingers beneath his nose. His expression was troubled. “Agreed.”
Eddie looked between them both. “So, what? You think they might have opened those containers? That they could be contagious? Covered in that powder?”
“Anything’s a possibility at this point,” Rikki said. “We don’t have enough facts.”
“Well,” replied the young man, “I’ve already been exposed. At the refugee camp. From the two of you. Even maybe from that powder we found. So if those bodies are infected with something, how does it matter if I touch them?”
“It matters because it’s not worth the risk,” Rikki said sharply, thinking of how she had stayed to hide those canisters—these dead men possibly just as lethal. But bigger. Requiring hands. Proximity. “And maybe you’re right. Maybe it wouldn’t be a danger to bury them, but right now we’re breathing and they’re not. Sentiment never kept anyone alive” And caution is better than regret, she added silently, feeling like a coward for it. Hoping the scavengers acted fast.
The Last Twilight Page 9
