Rank water had soaked through his boots and his socks rubbed on his heels. Had he done anything else apart from wade through dirty river water and sewage for the past week? He gripped his pulse rifle tighter. He just wanted to get this done and sorted, then he could get back to the base and get on with the business of avoiding Julia for the next ten years.
He sighed. How on earth did he find himself in these situations? First, he’d epically messed it up with Beth, screwing up her life and putting her brother away, and now he’d fucked it up with Julia too. He’d given it his all, and he’d fallen flat on his face. Said a lot about his skills in the romance department.
Anna turned around, her headlamp blinding him. Sawyer covered the light with his palm, his patience on a thin thread. “Anna, get that thing out my eyes.”
Anna twisted her head to the side. “Quit complaining. Have you noticed how weird the water is here?”
“Nope.” I’m trying not to notice anything. At all.
“Figures. Try looking down sometime. Here.” Anna dipped her hand into the water and cupped a handful, raising it up and letting it run through her fingers. It cascaded in oily rivulets, more like thick soup than water.
He swore softly. “The water’s full of crap. I hate to break it to you, but we’re walking through a sewer.”
Anna gave him a sideways look. “You shouldn’t let your love life interfere with work.”
Sawyer’s head snapped up so quickly pain shot from his ear to his collarbone. “Excuse me?”
Anna stopped dead, letting Julia trudge ahead out of earshot. “You heard. You gonna do anything about it?”
“Julia’s a grown woman. She can decide for herself what she wants.” He rolled his shoulders. “We don’t want the same thing anymore. End of.” His gaze drifted to Julia’s silhouette, a shady mirage in the rusty light of the headlights. She’d come to a standstill, craning to see what Anna and Sawyer were up to, then she called out for Hardy to wait.
Anna sighed, ignoring Sawyer’s disgruntled expression. “We’re good, Jules.” She waved and then returned her attention to Sawyer. “She’s just scared. I’ve seen the way she looks at you. Sometimes, a person needs help to see what they have in a relationship.”
Sawyer braced himself against his rifle. He’d heard it all before. If only he could just persuade her, show her the error of her ways. He’d endured enough romantic films in his times to know how he was ‘supposed’ to behave. “She doesn’t want me, Anna. Or at least, not in any kind of romantic way.” He was the one who wanted more, when all along he’d said it wouldn’t be him. He’d been wrong. Really wrong.
“She doesn’t know that she needs you. There’s a difference. You’re better together than apart.”
Maybe.
“Well, it’s too late now. I’m not that guy. And stop giving me that frosty glare.”
Anna hissed in exasperation. “It’s only what you deserve. Julia’s complicated. She’s a workaholic, and she doesn’t know how to switch it off. You’re always going to have to push through that. I’d thought you were up for that, that you’d make the grade.”
“Make the grade?” Sawyer spat the words out. “It may have escaped your notice but she dumped me.”
Anna widened her eyes, dismissing his protestations with a bat of her lashes. Julia was doubling back, Hardy close on her heels. She’d be within earshot in less than a minute.
Anna was not going to be dissuaded. “She’s just freaked out. No one’s ever got to her like you have. Her feelings for you—it was easier to push you away than admit it. Now you have to ask yourself, are you going to let her be an idiot, or are you going to fight for her?”
Words formed on the tip of his tongue, but he was unable to speak. His feet were rubbed raw from friction against his wet socks. His shirt itched under his armor. Nothing was working out the way it was supposed to, and now Anna was rubbing salt in the wound.
“Sawyer?”
“I want to be with her Anna, but—”
She grinned and her teeth shone white in the grime of the tunnel. “That’s more like it. Fighting talk.” She slapped him on the back. “Speak to her. Get a move on, though. Foster keeps telling me we could all be dead soon.”
Jesus. “Anna—”
“What’s the holdup?” Julia drew level with them, Hardy at her side. Bailey sulked several feet behind, his face puckered and cross.
Julia’s gaze skittered from Sawyer like a startled deer. Jesus, she can’t even look me in the eye.
Anna was suddenly extremely interested in her rifle. “My safety is sticking.” She shouldered past Sawyer, leaving him face to face with Julia. An awkward silence descended.
“Anna was making scientific observations,” Sawyer explained, searching Julia’s face for answers, for any indication of what Anna had told him.
“Sawyer, I—”
Hardy butted in, his bulk filling the limited space between them. “We have a job to do. What’s with all the chitchat?”
“Nothing. Let’s go.” Sawyer shifted his backpack, it was rapidly becoming uncomfortable from the sheer weight of explosives. Excruciating pins and needles sprinkled across the small of his back as the blood returned in a whoosh. He didn’t want sympathy or explanations. He just wanted to go home.
Hardy grunted and wheeled around to chivvy Bailey.
Julia’s mouth snapped shut, and she sucked in her lower lip, teeth pressing into the soft flesh.
Hardy whistled, moving everyone on.
Sawyer indicated ahead. “We should move.”
She gave the tiniest nod, her expression flattening. “Yes, we have a job to do.” She half-turned and then swung around abruptly.
“Sawyer?”
“What?” he asked, unable to stop frustration from coloring his voice.
She flinched. “Nothing.”
33
Julia stumbled away from Sawyer, her face burning, explanations and apologies on the tip of her tongue. The way he had looked at her, his expression—she’d been glad when Hardy interrupted them and blew the moment out of the water, saving her the humiliation of embarrassing herself again. Tears pricked her eyes.
Sawyer hadn’t forgiven her. His face said it all. She was trapped in an emotional vice. She’d damaged something between them and didn’t know if it was fixable anymore. She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, composing herself. I’ve been stupid but it’s done now. She sucked in a shaky breath.
There were aliens to kill.
The stench of long-abandoned sewer invaded her nostrils as she hurried after Hardy’s wide shoulders. She might have messed things up with Sawyer but that didn’t mean she couldn’t do a good job with the Sweeper.
She caught up with Hardy who was doing his best to ignore Bailey’s wheezing. Hardy’s face was tight with irritation as she drew near and fell into step behind him. He massaged his temples in a fidgety movement clearly distracting his hands from popping Bailey on the nose as his rattling exhalations continued.
Despite aid from the headlights, it was tricky going and their pace slowed the deeper they progressed into the sewer. Julia inched carefully forward, feeling with the toe of her boots, ensuring her steps were secure in the darkness. Stones rolled under her soles, unbalancing her and forcing her to grab at the slimy brickwork while mud worked under her nails and ground against the palms of her hands. She gritted her teeth. She was not going to complain.
Hardy’s headlamp cast a glow on the dripping walls. Slick orange algae sprouted from jagged corners of the broken masonry. They jostled for foot hold with crowded alien clusters of tiny red-fronded plants like anemones, huddled in clumps at eye level, their tendrils waving in the still air as if deep under the ocean.
Julia peered at the slow, hypnotic dance of the alien plants. “These things are getting more prolific the closer we get,” she muttered.
Bailey leaned past, extending his hand to touch the delicate organisms.
“Don’t.” Julia slapped his ha
nd away. “They’re all innocent and pretty looking, but many are carnivorous. They bite and sting.”
Bailey snorted. “Yeah. Right.”
Hardy swung between the red plants and Bailey, his voice raised. “Let’s focus on the task at hand and try not to get killed by tiny vegetation before we even find the nest.”
Bailey backed off, but he flashed Julia a sour expression before stomping away, grey water thrashing under his feet.
Julia ignored his posturing and re-adjusted the metal cartridge of the Sweeper on her shoulder. It still wasn’t as portable as she would have liked, clunking uncomfortably against her hip. Both Hardy and Sawyer had offered to carry it, but she’d been adamant she’d carry it herself. It was her prototype and her responsibility. She glanced back at Anna and Sawyer as she shifted the weapon. Anna smiled but Sawyer’s face was set in stone. Julia gave Anna a quivering smile and then turned her back on them both, blanking out the dull ache in her chest.
The water deepened to her knees as she sloshed on, Bailey’s snotty breathing fading as he moved ahead. Everything resisted her steps, and her thigh muscles ached with the effort. She glanced back frequently, unable to help herself, catching sight of Sawyer every time, the beam from his pulse rifle dotting the wet walls in a reassuring, rhythmic monotony.
In her mind, she tried to work out the location of Garrick and the others, anything to distract herself from thinking about the hundreds of tons of earth and concrete suspended above her head. She didn’t remember feeling so claustrophobic when she’d been down here in her twenties.
Anna huffed closer, monitoring her radio headset for a signal. Crackles and buzzes filled the echoing chambered roof above their heads.
“That’s loud,” Julia hissed. She stopped and swiveled, blinking in the red beam of Anna’s headlamp.
“I know. I’m struggling to pick up Foster. He keeps fading in and out of range,” Anna snapped.
“It might pick up when we’re closer to the nest. Then we’ll be nearer to each other.”
“It’d better. I don’t see how we’re going to coordinate detonation of the charges otherwise.”
A stream of expletives from ahead interrupted them as Hardy stopped and slammed the digital map he wore against his thigh with a smacking noise. His voice was clipped. “Bloody map’s given up the ghost.” He lifted it close to his face, pressing the reset button on the side repeatedly to no avail.
“Let me see.” Julia waded forward and took hold of his wrist. The display remained silent and blank. She fiddled with a combination of the reset and power buttons, but nothing happened. Damn.
Anna and Bailey crowded in. Sawyer hovered on the edge of the group, his gun raised, searching the darkness.
“It’s dead,” Julia said.
“How the hell are we going to do this without the map? I thought you people were organized. This is crazy,” Bailey blurted.
Julia ignored the accusatory note in Bailey’s voice, but she made a mental note to slap him in the face if he didn’t shut up.
Think.
“When the Sweeper’s activated, it does two things. It tracks acoustics to identify a target and discharges a lethal sound wave. They can be operated separately. We can use it to track. We can only use it for short bursts because the battery has limited capacity. But we can use it to track the Chittrix because any movement creates sound.”
Bailey whined, “Fucking shit, man. You seriously want us to creep around in the dark hunting these things by listening for them? Jesus.”
Julia fired him a steely smile, and he backed off, stepping away from the group in disgust, his face disappearing into the murk.
“What if you’re wrong?” Hardy asked.
“I’m not wrong. I know this crap back to front,” Julia said, more brusquely than she intended. “I can track if you’ll let me.”
Anna squeezed Julia’s upper arm. “I’m with Julia. Besides, we don’t really have any other options.”
Sawyer’s voice came out of the darkness. “If Julia says she can do it, we’re good.”
Julia started slightly. He was right behind her, and she hadn’t even heard him approach. His presence soaked into her back, her body attuned to the same wavelength as his, even now. She closed her eyes for a second, allowing his presence to ease the knotted muscles at the base of her neck.
Then he shifted, inching away from her, breaking the connection and she stiffened her trembling knees.
“Okay. Julia, you lead, and I’ll cover.” Hardy withdrew from the conversation satisfied, his voice low.
Julia flipped the main power switch with her thumb, feeling the Sweeper waken in her arms as it powered up with muted vibration. After the doubt and worry of the past week, she knew this would work, and it felt more right to her than any of the other recent thoughts she’d had, except perhaps the one where she realized she’d dumped the best thing that ever happened to her.
She moved forward, Sawyer a sentinel at her side. She risked a glance out of the corner of her eye but he was staring resolutely forward. Ignoring her? Or concentrating? She couldn’t tell.
They continued as a single unit, tracing the contours of the tunnel. An animated blue blob on the control screen indicated the shifting mass of the nest, two hundred feet ahead. Its edges were a fluctuating blur of subtle noise and movement that turned her knuckles white.
Breathe, Julia.
Sawyer halted in front of her, raising his hand, signaling her to stop. She froze, swiping her forehead to get rid of the cold sweat.
Hardy was at her side a second later.
“Fucking hell,” he whispered.
Thirty feet ahead, filling the entire floor of the tunnel, was a deep, heaving sea of Scutters.
34
Ear-splitting screams clawed at Sawyer’s ears as he scanned the seething mass of Scutters blocking the path ahead.
“… answer me?” The tiny transmission unit lodged in his ear vibrated from the force of Foster’s voice.
Ahead, Scutters milled in a rhythm all of their own, unaware of the closeness of the humans. The agitated click and slide of their pincers rose over the rustle of the water, oscillating against his bare forearm even from a distance. He gently pressed against Julia, pushing her back around the corner and out of sight of the snapping aliens. She retreated with him, inch by inch, not taking her eyes from the Scutters until they were no longer visible.
She sagged against his forearm when they were hidden again, and he lingered for a second against the soft swell of her body. He told himself he was providing reassurance. Whatever.
Sawyer touched the button to speak. “Foster, stop yelling in my ear. You’re going to blow my ear drums.”
“Thank fuck.” Foster’s high-speed voiced rattled over the airwaves. “I’ve lost communication with Darr. Garrick is going absolutely fucking mental. Where are you?”
Sawyer squeezed the earpiece as if his fingers could change the facts he was hearing. “How can you have lost contact with Darr? He’s with you.”
Julia flattened against the brick wall, oblivious to the stream of water soaking it as she processed the conversation through her own headset. Sawyer wished for a mute button as he watched her eyes slide closed, her fingers clutching the Sweeper tightly.
“Foster?” he repeated. He shook his head at Anna and Hardy as they approached, Bailey tailing them. Hardy stole forward, dropping to a crouch to check the situation beyond the corner.
Exhaustion soaked into Sawyer along with the water. He willed Foster to answer, pinching his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger. Their route was blocked. He rubbed his face in an effort to focus.
Foster crackled back into range. “A whole fucking shoal of Scutters appeared out of nowhere…cut Darr off. He’s gone. No fucking idea if he’s still around, or if he’s taken off. We’re too close to the nest to blast the Scutters. It could wake the whole nest…” Garbled voices in the background rose and fell in disjointed symphony.
“Foster?”
Anna touched her own earpiece, her expression serious. “You hear that?”
Sawyer grimaced. “Foster?”
More garbled noises. Voices. A thick rasp, like the slice of a grasshopper’s thigh against brittle wings, swooped and reverberated through the receiver.
Sawyer pressed the transmission button again, already concerned it was futile. “Foster, our map’s failed. We’ve been forced to track the Chittrix acoustically, but we’re at a dead end.”
He stopped. Still leaning in the stream of water, her hair slicked in dark rivulets to her face, Julia had opened her eyes. She pointed over his shoulder.
Slowly, Sawyer turned.
Behind him, the brickwork was torn open, a dark maw in the human construction, partly concealed by a dirty waterfall from a split in the tunnel roof. A new passageway.
Sawyer waded over and touched the savaged bricks. Red, dusty sludge coated his fingertips. “Fresh.”
Julia plowed against the current to join him, clutching the Sweeper protectively to her abdomen. She assessed the gouged entrance, taking in the jagged edges.
“Wow,” Anna whispered, her lips parted in disbelief. She took a step inside the entrance, stretching her hands to touch the interior.
Sawyer lurched forward. “Anna—”
Wonder and fear filled her voice. “Sawyer, look.”
He dropped his hand and targeted the walls with his headlamp, shadows jumping and twisting under the exploring beam. Sweeping curlicues and layers of scales, waves and waves of them, crusted the walls, reflecting the red light like shiny, organic tiling. Occasional patches of brickwork were exposed where the scales had failed to completely cover the original architecture, scabby patches of human construction that the Chittrix had failed to obscure.
Sawyer: Scifi Alien Invasion Romance (Earth Resistance Book 2) Page 16
