by C. J. Miller
“I feel the same,” Finn said. “Except my version of berserk will mean taking down him and every person who works for him.”
Selvan was recovering from a recent civil war. During that time, crimes had gone unchecked while factions battled each other for land and resources, and no single, stable government had control. The economy had collapsed and the country was relying heavily on foreign aid to meet their needs for food, clothing and rebuilding their infrastructure. That chaos had opened the door to illegal activities and crime bosses rising up and exploiting the people around them.
Finn and Hyde had their rock-climbing equipment, camping gear and survival provisions in their packs. Ramirez was heavily guarded and traveled with security and decoys, but they’d find a vulnerability.
They set up camp at the base of the mountain near a small village. It was too dark to climb, but they would start moving at first light.
Hyde peeled the orange she had bought at the local market and handed a slice to Finn. “When this is over...” She almost said she would come back and see what remained for her to clean up of Ramirez’s enterprise. If anyone had the bright idea to step into Ramirez’s shoes, she would tear that person down. And repeat until everyone knew that a vigilante would relentlessly and brutally stop anyone who tried it.
“When this is over, what?” Finn asked.
When it was over, she was finished. She wouldn’t come back. That was what retiring meant: walking away from a job that would never be finished and turning her back on the people whom she had worked with over the last ten years.
Hyde couldn’t imagine saying goodbye to Finn. Their other goodbyes had been spoken with the knowledge they would try to see each other again. After this mission, it was over. They were over.
“The West Company can send a team here to keep an eye on things.” Passing the buck to someone else didn’t feel right.
“You don’t have to feel guilty about it,” Finn said.
But she did, about the thought she had expressed and her internal dialogue about Finn. “This isn’t the life I want, but it’s the only job I’ve ever known. Not everyone can do what we do.” The burnout rate for spies and mercenaries was high. Few made it past five years. It was tough on a body, hard on a soul and made a normal life with a family and friends impossible.
“You’ve been fighting the good fight. You can pass the torch,” Finn said. He removed their tent from his pack and started assembling it.
Was it selfish to want a life that didn’t involve constant travel to unknown places, weapons, killing and lying? She knelt to hold the stake for Finn so he could hammer it into the ground with a rock.
“I’m not passing the torch as much as throwing it down and hoping someone picks it up,” Hyde said.
“The West Company’s training facility will produce its first class of graduates in a few weeks. Thirty men and women looking for a torch,” Finn said.
That made her feel better. At least the West Company had a handle on things.
When the tent was erected, Hyde slipped inside. It was large enough to accommodate them without touching as long as neither of them moved.
Finn joined her in the tent. He lay next to her, hands at his sides. After several minutes she listened to his slow, deep breaths. As her ears adjusted to the sounds around her, she could pick out various noises and she categorized them: animals, foliage, wind, water and Finn.
“Finn?” she asked, rolling to her side. She set her fingers on his stomach. Her hand rose and fell with each breath he took. He was strong and warm and she wanted to move closer to him and rest her body against his.
“Hmm?” he asked.
Too many questions weighed on her. “Will I have a way to get in touch with you after I retire?” He had found her in Bearcreek, but how would she know where he was? They had used their mutual associates to locate each other and had exchanged contact information through an ever-changing series of email addresses and phone numbers. She wouldn’t be part of that world, a world that was silent from the outside.
“I can leave you messages where I am. Or the West Company can get me a message from you.”
Throughout her time as a spy, Hyde had kept a phone number and associated voice mail for her family to contact her. It had been part of her cover. “You can’t leave detailed information on my voice mail.” It wasn’t secure. It was hackable. Finn knew that. If anyone connected them, they could use her weaker position to find Finn.
“I can check in so you know I’m alive. I know not to leave any information,” Finn said.
“Will you visit?” She was pushing. Spies couldn’t safely return to the same location over and over. Too easy to track and find them. She had known spies who had not seen their families in years because they needed to protect them.
“Do you want me to visit?” he asked, sounding indifferent.
“I don’t know.”
“Are you thinking that telling your future husband about me would be awkward?” Finn asked.
Hearing him mention the words future husband was awkward. “I wasn’t thinking about a husband, but the people in my new, normal life. They won’t understand what you do or what I did.”
“We can rendezvous from time to time.”
Same as they had until now. Thinking of him and of seeing him had kept her company in the loneliness of the night when she had been on missions.
If she was meeting with Finn occasionally, she wouldn’t be able to move on in her personal life. Though she and Finn hadn’t made commitments to each other, she was a one man type of woman. “It would be harder to let you go if you were still in my life.”
Finn sighed. “Do you want me around or not?” He sounded irritable.
What she wanted wasn’t black-and-white. She wanted him in her life, but not as a spy, and resolving that was complicated. She craved a normal relationship, where they went on dates and talked and saw each other on a regular basis. She couldn’t have that. “Aside from my family, you’ve been the one constant in my life. Unlike my family, you know what I’ve done and who I am. You accept that part of me.” Her job had required keeping secrets and they had to be kept forever.
Finn set his hand on her side. “You don’t need me in your new life. I don’t fit.”
Where his hand rested, heat flowed through her. “Do you think I would make a good mother?” The words shot from her mouth. Some subconscious part of her had wondered how he would perceive her as a future parent. It was a delicate question traipsing over a fragile part of her psyche. Before she could verbally void the question, he answered.
“Of course you’d be a good mother.”
“Really?” she asked. She had her doubts.
“You’re smart and strong and brave. Your kid will be the most protected kid on the playground and you’ll figure out all his secrets before he tells you. I have no doubts when you meet the right man, it will fall into place.”
Hyde blinked back tears. “Thanks, Finn.” They were words she had needed to hear.
He kissed her forehead. “You’re welcome. Now, get some sleep.”
She moved closer to him so her forehead was resting against his chest, and her hands were tucked between them.
* * *
The sun rose, casting rays of light across the tent. Exhaustion leaked from Finn’s every pore, but they needed to keep moving. Three days wasn’t enough time. Barnett was short on forgiveness.
The river was the only place to clean up. Kneeling at the river’s edge on tan pebbles and beige sand, Hyde splashed the cold, moving water on her face and arms, washing away sweat and dirt.
Finn removed his shirt and rinsed it. Same with his boots, socks and pants. Everything was quick-dry fabric. A few minutes in the hot sun and he could redress.
Hyde wasn’t moving. She’d brought her hands to her face
, but then she’d frozen. Finn stalked toward her, wet clothes in hand. He set them next to her on the rocky shoreline. “Hyde?”
She dropped her hands, and her body sagged. Her brown hair hung around her shoulders and she looked forlorn, sitting on the shore, facing the water, her legs tucked close to her.
Finn sat next to her. She glanced at him, letting her eyes travel up and down his body. “Not feeling modest?”
“Not really.”
“I know you didn’t want this,” Finn said. Guilt plucked at him. He had talked her into avenging Simon’s death. He had convinced her that Reed Barnett had to be taken down. Had he made a mistake by involving Hyde?
She ran quaking fingers through her hair. “I do what I believe is right and I don’t feel bad about it. Some people think our work is immoral or that we’re broken inside to carry out these missions and keep moving on with our lives. I wonder...”
Her eyes welled with tears and she stopped speaking. She rubbed her hand across her chest.
“You wonder what?” Finn asked.
“I wonder if I’ve been punished for the lives I’ve taken and the things I’ve done.” She wiped at her eyes and then reached into the cold water of the river, splashing her arms again. The water wouldn’t unburden her soul. Her sadness was pervasive, clinging to every inch of her.
A dark sense of foreboding shadowed him. “In what way do you think you’re being punished?”
She looked out across the river. “This is not something I planned to tell you. This isn’t something I’ve told anyone.”
She was about to pull the pin on a grenade and launch it. This was the reason she was planning to retire. This was why she was cagey around him. He swore to himself no matter what she said, he would stay calm. If someone had hurt her, he wouldn’t fly into a rage and kill them. She needed him and his support. His anger could add to her pain. Even those reminders to himself weren’t any guarantees.
She looked at the water and then lifted her eyes to meet his. “When I was in Germany, something happened.”
Finn waited. Hyde wasn’t a melodramatic person, but each word was being dragged from her mouth as if hard to speak.
“I was pregnant,” Hyde said.
Finn felt like the air was being sucked from his lungs and at the same time, he was dizzy with confusion. Every syllable bounced around in his brain. “Was?” Past tense? What had happened?
Her mouth quivered. “I had a miscarriage. I hadn’t even known I was pregnant. I was taken to a hospital when I started bleeding. The pregnancy was confirmed.”
Finn had questions, most of them selfish, but one stood out in his mind. “My baby? Was it my baby?” He had to ask the question, but he knew the answer. His chest felt tight and his heart was racing.
Hyde looked at him in surprise. “Your baby?”
He had been faithful to Hyde and though they hadn’t talked about it, he had assumed she had, too. The parentage of the baby wasn’t the most important, but he had to know.
“Was it our baby?” he asked. He felt sure about Hyde and their connection, and he realized that he had come to think of her as his and vice versa.
Hyde closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She clenched her fists at her sides. “Yes. I should have told you when it happened. I felt guilty. I thought you would be happy that I lost the baby, which I couldn’t have handled.”
Shock, grief and loss mixed in a volatile cocktail. Shouldn’t he feel relief? He waited, but no sensation of reprieve or happiness struck him. “I am definitely not happy.”
He sat next to her, not touching her, resting his arms on his knees. He watched the water, and the sunlight glinted off it. Thoughts drifted in and out. He imagined Hyde pregnant with his baby. He imagined her holding a child in her arms. She would be a natural, loving mother. Hyde cared deeply about people. She was loyal and fierce. People in the mercenary community admired her.
But he was a mess. He didn’t get along with his family and he didn’t have a place he called home. His plans for the future included chasing another mission. His devotion to his job was something he had been proud of and now it bothered him to admit it. “Why did you feel guilty?” Shredded emotionally, sure. But guilt was misplaced.
She picked up a pebble and tossed it into the water. “I should have been more aware of my body and what was going on. We should have been more careful when we were together.”
His insides clenched. Finn set his hand on her back, softly. “No guilt. This happens sometimes. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
She turned her head and met his gaze. “Should I have called you?”
The pain in her eyes nearly knocked him over.
“Yes.” He would have come to her no matter where he was. They could have gone through it together.
She looked away from him, pulling her knees tighter into her chest. “Nothing could have been done.”
“I could have been a friend to you when you needed it.”
He slipped his arm around her shoulders. He didn’t know what reaction she had expected, but he needed to comfort her. He didn’t have a word to describe precisely what he was feeling, but she was hurting and it burned into him, like another of his failures.
“I’m sorry, Alex. I’m sorry you went through that and I’m sorry I wasn’t there when I should have been,” he said.
A tear slipped down her cheek. “If I hadn’t passed out and been taken to the hospital, I may never have known. And after I knew what I had lost, I wanted the baby. With everything in my soul, I wanted a baby I didn’t know I’d had. That sounds silly, but losing the baby left a hole in my chest,” Hyde said.
He now understood her behavior of late and he was riddled with guilt. He should have been there for her. Going through the ordeal alone seemed unfair.
“I would have kept the baby and raised him,” Hyde said.
Her statement was needless. She would have. They had never discussed a family or their views on children, but her pain made it clear.
“I know,” Finn said.
“It’s screwed up. I thought I couldn’t have children. I had a horseback riding accident when I was eight and the doctor told my mother than it had left scars. It changed how my parents raised me. They encouraged me to have a career and put everything I had into it. I guess they figured if I would never be a mother, I could have work I loved.”
She had never shared that detail of her life with him. “The doctor was wrong. If you were pregnant, you could be again. You could have the family you want,” Finn said.
Hyde wiped at her eyes. “Or this baby was a freakishly lucky chance and it will never happen again.”
Finn left almost nothing to chance and he had learned to make his own good fortune. This sounded important to her. “You can’t think like that. It happened once. It could happen again.”
She met his gaze. He read gratitude and hope in her eyes.
“Are you mad?” she asked.
No anger for her in his heart. “Not mad. I’m not sure what I feel.” His shoulders felt heavy with guilt and worry. She had gone through the experience alone and it had been hard enough on her that she had made a drastic life change.
They sat on the shore for a long time, listening to the water and the wind in the trees.
Hyde finally stood, brushing off her pants. “Thanks for listening. We should clean up and get moving.”
Her body was tense and her gaze cast downward. She took a shuddering breath in. He sensed she needed something more, more time, more conversation, but they were on a tight timeline. He wouldn’t close the book on this yet. When she was ready to talk again, he would listen. In the meantime he would try to process his emotions. “Let’s clean up and cool off. We have a day of climbing ahead of us.”
They walked into the river. Finn pulled her shirt over her he
ad, cleaned it and tossed it over to his clothes. Next, her pants, socks and shoes. She dipped down in the water and let it run over her hair.
Letting go of her hand wasn’t an option. He was also saddened by what she had told him about their baby. A baby deserved better than him for a father. Knowing what he did, he wanted Hyde close, wanted to hold her in his arms and reassure her that it would be okay.
Trying to convince himself this was fine, he couldn’t shake the idea of what might have been.
Chapter 7
Scaling the Quinn Range Mountains was slow and tedious work. Though Ramirez’s camp was only a few hundred yards from the base of the mountain, getting there and staying off the winding road leading to it meant climbing. Losing their way was possible, and the rock face didn’t provide many cliffs where they could rest. At least the rocks on this side of the mountain were dry enough to grip onto. If it started to rain, they would have trouble maintaining a strong hold on the smooth rocks.
The blowing wind was chilly, but Hyde’s muscles burned. They had changed into dark clothing, long sleeves and long pants. Not only would it protect their skin from scrapes, the cold came on fast as they rose. Every few yards, Hyde glanced over her shoulder, taking in the view. Beautiful fields of purple and yellow wildflowers, the river intersecting the trees and rocks jutting from the ground, beds of green surrounding them.
Hyde and Finn were using stakes to secure their ropes, making it an exhausting climb. The lack of sleep added to their fatigue. With Hyde’s revelation settled on their shoulders and lingering between them, it was a quiet and solemn ascent.
Hyde questioned whether confiding in Finn had been the right idea. He hadn’t said much about the baby, and reading him was difficult. He wasn’t happy about the loss and he’d been concerned for her.
Not the easiest way up the mountain, this was the best way to approach Ramirez’s headquarters undetected. Ramirez had the main roads covered and she and Finn didn’t have enough firepower to blast their way to him.
