Grabbing the belt around his shorts, he faced her. “This could get a little awkward. We should talk it out first.”
“Okay. What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing, really. Just watch. It’s the part where I strip to my skivvies that could get uncomfortable.”
She rolled her eyes. “Uncomfortable because I’ll see you in your underwear?”
“It’s not proper.”
“Get over it. I’ve seen Josh in everything and in nothing. I used to give him his baths.”
“Oh, I see. Well, that’s good.”
“You need to keep your eyes closed, too. You’ll hardly know I’m here.”
“Right. You won’t have that problem in the field, but I can’t risk my knife pointing to Israel without warning. Perhaps I should blindfold myself.”
Thinking comic relief might elevate her mood, she toyed with him. “Ooh… kinky! Knives and blindfolds. I feel like a dominatrix. Your safety word is ‘submarine’.”
Poor at hiding his discomfort, he blushed. “Let’s just be quick about it.”
“Great. Make sure to rip off as much skin as you can to avoid embarrassing yourself.”
“I’m not embarrassed.”
“No, you’re just turning red.”
He raised his voice while marching to his dresser. “Bloody hell. Let’s get this over with.”
She couldn’t resist piling on. “After you blindfold yourself, you’ll lick the bottom of my shoe.”
He cringed. “What?”
“Ugh. You’re no fun. Never mind.”
“I’ll do it right here.” He tied a tee-shirt over his eyes and dropped his pants to the carpet, exposing the bronze blade and his blue cotton underwear.
“Well, finally we’re down to business.”
“Are you watching?”
She noticed the tip disappearing under the fold of flesh between his leg and his groin. “Yes, I’m watching. Why’d you jam it up so high up your leg?”
“It was the least conspicuous way I could do it.”
“You’re sure it didn’t cut you?”
“Maybe a little. Nothing worth crying about.”
She assumed he could sever an artery and withhold tears. “Aren’t you worried about cutting yourself when you pull it off?”
“That’s a good point.” He broadened his stance to expose the full dagger. Bending, he lowered both hands to the handle.
“Hold on, buddy. Only one hand.”
“Why, for God’s sake?”
She raised her voice in protest. “Because you’re like ten times stronger than me! If you need two hands, there’s no way I’ll be able to do it.”
“Fine, I’ll do it one-handed. Do you prefer my broken arm or my weak arm?”
“Just pick one.”
He sighed a long, drawn out breath. “Let me think this through. The knife’s going to snap out quickly, and it’ll rotate in the direction of my wrist. Best I use my right hand to avoid cutting my leg open.”
Expecting she’d need two hands when her time came, she filed away the wrist-rotation lesson as useless unless she stumbled upon a dose of superhuman strength. “Whatever. Go ahead.”
Widening his stance, he extended his cast forward and grabbed the handle. His arm shook, but nothing happened.
“What’s wrong, Hercules?”
“Shut up.” His trembling increased, and his skin reddened. The flesh of his upper groin stretched like white rubber as he tugged the knife.
“You should stop before you flay yourself.”
Grimacing, he ignored her and grunted.
As she saw a portion of the adhesive stretching near the hilt, she ceased her taunting and offered encouragement. “Come on, caveman. You can do it. It’s coming off.”
An inch-long airgap formed as the blade separated from the elastic glue. “How am I doing?”
“Feel it with your other hand. It’s working.”
Relaxing, he ran his left index finger along the knife edge, stopped at the hole he’d created, and probed it. “You’ll be able to see when you do this. Doing this blind is hard.”
“I’m not accepting any excuses.”
“Oh, come on! I’m nowhere near one hundred percent with this cast on. Stop whining.”
Glad he was wearing the blindfold, she blushed as she conceded she’d been chiding him too hard. “Okay. I’ll stop whining. Keep going.”
He started yanking again, and the air gap grew.
“Keep going. Almost there.”
The gap widened to the width of his hand, and feeling the lowered resistance, he stopped. He spoke through labored panting. “I’ve got it now. Just going to take a bit of break.”
With success eminent, she had to harass him one more time. “You’re supposed to be making it look easy.”
“Fine.” Straining his entire frame, he pulled the knife down and away from his body. The last strand of cement resisted but then released the dagger to his overpowering wrist. The young hunter’s choice of his right hand proved wise as the blade slashed an arc away from his leg.
“Good job, Liam!”
A knock at the door startled her.
“It’s Connor. May I come in?”
Enthused by the young hunter’s success, she pranced to the door and opened it.
Connor looked at her, gazed over her shoulder, and pasted an inquisitive look on his face. “Skivvies and a blindfold. I’m afraid to ask.”
“Come in before someone sees us.” She closed the door behind the elder hunter.
Liam laid the dagger on the dresser and then removed his blindfold. “I tore off the dagger to show her how easy it was.”
“Well, now that it’s over, may I suggest that you put your pants back on in front of the lady?”
“Yes. Right, Father.” The young hunter obeyed.
“May I ask how the experiment went?”
Liam hastened to answer. “Quite well. It came right off, no problem.”
“Then why are you beet-red and short of breath?”
The young hunter flipped his wrist. “Just a bit of exertion. She made me do it one-handed.”
“That was wise of her. I imagine if you can do it with your arm in a cast, then she can manage with two hands.”
Dianne noticed how the men with bulging muscles trivialized what she considered a feat of strength.
As she prepared for an afternoon reviewing the plan to insert her into the trafficking network, find the wraith, and kill him, she speculated about other challenges they’d underestimated. Would they lose her? Would she end up in a third-world country as a sex slave? Would someone find her knife and kill her on sight?
She thought about complaining and calling the whole thing off, but she remembered the counsel of her ghostly maiden. She needed to risk everything. She needed to be ready to surrender herself to save others. To save Liam.
Unable to defeat the wraith in one-on-one telepathic combat, she needed to attack him with her team. And they needed her to lead the way. Fear of failure had to wash away, and she committed herself to trusting her destiny. “Sure, guys. No problem.”
Half an hour later, she wore shorts and stood by her bedside with her enchanted dagger, a bottle of Dermabond, and a roll of duct tape poised on her nightstand. A pang of shame shot through her as she realized the trivial task scared her.
An inch in the wrong direction, a few degrees of misorientation, or some other deviation from an unknowable perfection could beget a catastrophe. She needed someone. She needed Liam.
Her phone in her face, she dialed and listened on speakerphone.
“Hello, Dianne?”
“Hi. Can you come by my room? I need help.”
His soft tone implied his understanding. “Sure.”
When she heard his soft knock a minute later, she opened the door and lowered her head.
He looked to the carpet, too, as he entered. “I suppose this is for the adhesive?”
“Yeah.”
“Wou
ld you like me to do it?”
The burden of the task’s execution outweighed the awkwardness of the pending intimate touching. She inhaled and sighed. “It’s too important for me to do it. I trust you.”
“Alright. Why don’t you lay down, pull your shorts up as high as you can, and let me do the rest?”
She complied and rested her back against the headboard.
He transferred the items from her nightstand to the comforter beside her. “Um, you’ll need to spread your legs.”
Rolling her eyes, she blushed while submitting. She felt his weight shift on the mattress as he crawled onto the bed and knelt between her knees. She tried to avoid saying anything about the thoughts his proximity sent racing through her mind.
“You’ve shaven your leg, have you not?”
With him in her life, she’d made it part of her daily routine. “Of course. I’m not a barbarian.”
“Just checking. I made the mistake of keeping my hairs, and it hurt like… well, I imagine like that hot wax thing you mentioned.”
“Probably.”
“Okay, this is going to feel odd, but I know it works. Here comes the glue.”
His measured grip strength produced a steady stream of adhesive which he ran slowly up her thigh.
She giggled. “That tickles.”
“Sorry.”
“Stop apologizing when it’s not your fault.”
“I don’t like to see you in any discomfort.”
“It’s fine. Keep going.”
“Right.” He set the tube aside and then pressed the dagger into the gel. Sliding the blade upward, he stopped it against the tender flesh above artery. “Done. Now hold it there tightly.”
She put her fingers against the knife and stabilized it.
The hunter reached for the duct tape, which he tapped against her leg and rolled over the dagger.
She started to elevate her knee.
“No, not yet.” He ripped the roll from the strand holding the blade against her inner groin. Moving between her fingers, he applied a second strand closer to her pubic bone. “Now, keep your left hand against it, and I’ll help you to your feet.” He crawled away, stood, and walked to her side.
As she elevated her free arm across her body, the tape felt taut against her skin. He held her hand and drew her up and forward. With his guidance, she landed on her feet and stood.
He knelt and rolled the tape in complete circumferences around her thigh. “That’ll hold. It’s not too tight, is it?”
His judgment had been perfect. “No, it’s fine.”
“Great, sleep on it and call me if it moves or gives you discomfort. I’ll keep my phone on real loud.”
“Thanks, Liam.” When the moment came to call upon the dagger, she would remember his gentle strength, and he would boost her confidence.
CHAPTER 26
The memory of palpating the empath’s supple upper thigh teased Liam and his vow of lifelong celibacy.
Standing at the street corner by a highway onramp, he forced the sweet memory from his thoughts and timed the traffic light one last time. It stayed red for forty-three seconds. “You’re sure the truck will pull up here on a yellow light?”
Beside him, Dianne sounded annoyed. “How many times are you going to ask?”
“I need to be sure.”
“I’m sure.”
Bracing for the wrath of an angry empath, he reverified the critical concern. “And you’re sure this is the right street corner?”
“I saw the street signs in my vision, and this location feels right.” She smacked his shoulder. “Stop asking me. It’s right.”
He let himself trust her. The spot she’d envisioned was perfect. The crossroads were quiet with sparse vehicular and pedestrian traffic, and the closest shop was a liquor store with few windows facing the street. Behind him, cement pillars held the highway above the access ramp, which followed a sharp curve underneath the main thoroughfare. He saw the road’s curve as an opportunity to conduct his operation beyond the view of trailing vehicles “Then we’re ready to rehearse it.”
“Does your dad have our other car yet?”
Liam had confirmed with his father an hour ago. “Yeah, he’s waiting at the gas station.”
“What did he rent?”
“He got a crossover SUV, a Ford Kurga.”
“Yulla. Let’s go.”
At the Esso petroleum station, Liam sat in the driver’s seat of the Fiat 500X. He rolled down the window. “Are you ready?”
Beside him, his father pointed the Kurga in the opposite direction. “I am. Run ahead, and I’ll catch up and pass you.”
The young hunter aimed the Fiat into highway traffic and accelerated.
Beside him, Dianne craned her neck towards her grandmother in the back seat. “Are you okay, Nana?”
The elder Chaldean Iraqi Christian women responded in Aramaic.
Liam understood a few words, but she spoke too fast for him to achieve a full mental translation. However, he understood her reverent tone.
Nana was uncomfortable placing her granddaughter in danger, but she respected Dianne’s motivation.
The young hunter navigated through traffic lanes until he reached the right shoulder and decelerated. He stopped the vehicle and waited for his father’s Kurga to appear in the rearview mirror. “Here they come. Nana, look up here. Dianne, look here and pretend we’re lost and playing with our navigation, but tell me exactly when you see Josh and Father drive by.”
“Sure. Not yet. Okay! They just drove by.”
He lifted his foot off the brake and moved it to the accelerator. The Fiat lurched forward in pursuit of the Kurga, which the elder hunter drove down an off ramp. Liam tried to catch up, but a delivery truck maneuvered in front of him. “Damn.”
Dianne surprised him with her determination. “Don’t worry about it. Even if there’s a witness tomorrow, we’re going through with this.”
While driving down the ramp, the young hunter saw the Kurga moving aside to let the delivery truck pass. “Father’s giving us a break today for training, but tomorrow we’ll have to move faster. Dianne, you’ll have to give me five seconds of warning when we do this for real.”
“I’ll do my best.”
As the lead vehicle reentered traffic, Liam nestled the Fiat behind its tailpipe and followed it around a bend, under the highway, towards the stoplight. The delivery truck slipped under the yellow while the elder hunter’s Kurga slowed into the red light. Liam stopped the 500X behind the Ford, shifted the transmission into park, and checked his position. The Ford’s driver’s side mirror was visible, but the curving road prevented the vehicle’s other reflective surfaces from exposing him. “Go, Dianne!”
The empath darted out the passenger door.
Liam wiggled over the console to the passenger seat and grabbed bolt cutters from the floor. He followed Dianne out the door, and with the tool tucked under his arm, he trotted towards the SUV.
Wearing a skirt to hide her dagger, Dianne labored forward as he passed her. “It’s hard to move.”
“Pace yourself. Better to arrive late than to trip and fall.”
“I’m not that clumsy.” She tripped and stumbled the final steps to the Ford. “Okay, maybe I am that clumsy.”
Reaching the hatchback, Liam stopped, lifted the sharp steel to the door, and began a ten-second mental countdown. He shook his head and sighed. “Don’t worry about speed. I’ll need a few seconds with the lock anyway. Take your time walking so you don’t break your ankle.”
“How long’s this normally take?”
“I’m allotting ten seconds, but I plan to cut through in half that time. Five seconds is a long time over this short distance. Just walk calmly.” As his countdown timed out, he lowered the bolt cutters to his hip. “Okay, you’re in.”
“What do I do now?”
“Practice what you’ll say to the girl you’ll be replacing.”
“I’d tell her to get out and join you.�
�
“Say it in Aramaic.”
She rattled off words he partially comprehended.
“What was that? I heard you say ‘hurry’ and ‘walk’.” He lifted a new lock from his pocket to simulate hanging it on the truck. From his other pocket, he pulled a magnetic GPS tracker and pressed it against a flat surface under the bumper.”
“That’s what I said, more or less.”
“Good enough for now, but practice with Nana tonight. Let’s go.” He marched back to the Fiat’s passenger door, slid the cutters to the floor, and crawled over the console into the driver’s seat. The light turned green before Dianne could sit, and the impatient driver in the Renault sedan behind him honked his horn.
When Dianne reached her seat, she complained. “I’m moving too slow for this.”
“I have no idea how fast the Iraqi girl will move or if she’ll even come with me. She may just run away from the truck and never look back. As long as the traffickers count five women when they get wherever they’re going, that’s fine.” Liam darted through the intersection and hailed his father through the cabin’s microphone and its Bluetooth connection to his phone.
The elder hunter’s voice issued through the speakers. “Hello.”
“Can you pull into the liquor store?”
“Yes, of course. One moment.”
Liam angled the 500X into the parking lot, stopped it next to his father’s vehicle, and hung up as he rolled down the window. “How was it from your perspective?”
“I was concerned when you became separated from me. That delivery truck swooped in fast, and you’ll need to account for that sort of driving. That would play out poorly tomorrow if it happens.”
“It won’t.”
“Don’t be too eager, either. You need to stay inconspicuous.”
“I’ll handle it.”
“We’ll rehearse it again to get the timing down.”
Liam trusted himself to get it right, but he knew better than to challenge the elder hunter’s conservatism. “Yes, Father. We’ll rehearse it again.”
“How was the breaking in?”
“Fine. It’ll all depends on how fast I can cut the lock and on how receptive the real Iraqi girl is to Dianne’s orders.”
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