In the Ruins (Metahuman Files Book 2)

by Hailey Turner

  “Wait for me,” Alexei snarled at him before disappearing from sight.

  Madison stayed put, worriedly watching as Kyle kept swinging. When he judged he had enough momentum going, he grit his teeth and let go, launching himself through the air in a bid for survival. His feet caught the edge of the blasted-apart flooring and he staggered forward. A deep groaning sound filled the air, and Kyle didn’t stick around to see if this spot would hold. He kept moving, stretching his legs into a flat-out run as the floor buckled beneath his weight.

  He was almost in the clear when the floor crumbled beneath him. Kyle staggered from the collapse, throwing himself toward possible safety. He looked down as he started to fall, hoping this time it would just be one floor, not into open air, when a hard grip snagged his right wrist and he was yanked forward. Kyle’s gaze snapped to where Alexei stood in front of him, keeping Kyle from falling.

  “<>” Alexei spit out in Russian, gray eyes narrowed to angry slits as he hauled them both away from the shattered edge.

  “<>” Kyle panted. “<>”

  “<>”

  “<>”

  “<>”

  “Guys, we need to move!” Madison yelled from deeper within the building.

  Alexei jerked his head in her general direction and the two got moving. In the distance, on floors undamaged by the blast, Kyle could hear the smart building’s AI coolly announcing an emergency situation over the sound system and to please refrain from using the elevators. They rounded a corner deeper inside the building and ran down a hallway saturated from the water pouring down from broken sprinklers. Madison waited up ahead, a glimmer of bright energy sparking against her palm out of precaution.

  Most of their weapons and gear were casualties of the bomb. While Alexei had his pyrokinesis and Madison could throw energy blasts with her hands, Kyle’s metahuman ability was strictly a physical one and classified as a defensive power versus offensive. He could heal, but that didn’t mean much if they were going to be fighting their way out of the building and he only had one gun left on him.

  Kyle shoved his hand into one of the cargo pockets of his charred work pants. He grabbed his tactical 9mm handgun through the slit in the inside of the pocket he’d made hours ago and yanked the weapon free of his thigh holster. The familiar weight went a long way toward making him feel better.

  “I’ve initiated an override of the building’s emergency protocols. Take the maintenance elevator, don’t take the stairs,” Katie ordered as they met up in the elevator bank, ignoring the emergency strobe lights going off. “What happened?”

  The doors to the specified elevator slid open and they hurried inside.

  “I had the target in sight when he looked right at me and mimed cutting his throat,” Kyle reported. “Bastard saw me. He knew I was there.”

  A new voice came across the comms, deep and familiar, making all three of them share a surprised look as the elevator descended at a fast rate.

  “The target was aware of your position?” Jamie Callahan, captain of the Metahuman Defense Force’s Alpha Team, asked.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be on liberty?” Kyle said.

  “I was, now I’m not. Clarify your answer, Reaper.”

  “He saw me. I don’t know how, but he did. He knew exactly what direction to look in and I don’t think that was an accident. I wasn’t sure if they had snipers positioned anywhere about to take us out, which is why I got everyone moving. Didn’t know they had a bomb, which was already in the goddamn office, and we only chose the final spot when we got here.”

  They’d cased five floors before Kyle decided on the one they ended up using because it had the best angle for the distance of the shot and the best view of the target’s buy location. That was a field-based decision, not one made during the briefing early that morning, and it was Kyle’s final call to make. Yet Miguel Estrada had known exactly where to look to see him, and the bomb meant they’d known the MDF would be sending a team into the field. It didn’t make any sense.

  “Get clear of the area and make your way back to Icarus,” Jamie ordered.

  “Copy that, Apollo,” Madison said for all of them.

  The elevator doors slid open on the subterranean floor loading dock area, where they’d parked the work van they’d driven to the building. All three of them stepped outside the elevator and stared at the van.

  “They leave bomb in office. Leave bomb in van when we not here to watch?” Alexei asked.

  “Start walking,” Kyle said as he shoved his handgun back into his thigh holster through the pocket.

  The three bypassed the van as quickly as they could and exited up the ramp leading to the street. Being noticed right then wasn’t an issue. They weren’t the only ones running away from the building and any more possible explosions that would rain debris on the street below.

  Kyle looked up at the black smoke curling in the air around the skyscraper. The sound of emergency sirens was getting louder, and it wouldn’t be long before first responders were on the scene. At least the work suits they wore helped them blend in with the civilians, some of whom weren’t exactly running for cover and seemed more interested in getting a clear picture of the smoking, damaged skyscraper for social media.

  “I’ve wiped you from the security feeds and the servers. Your trackers put you outside of the building but not in a vehicle,” Katie said.

  “We’re on foot,” Madison confirmed.

  “Why?”

  “Wasn’t sure if they wired the van.”

  “Do you need an extraction, Nova?” Jamie asked.

  “I’m ready to fly,” Annabelle said grimly.

  “Negative. Just need a cab. Preferably an automated one,” Madison said.

  “ETA thirty seconds,” Katie replied. “Stay where you are.”

  They waited at a corner which was becoming increasingly crowded with people. Standing at the edge of the curb, Kyle saw the cab first. Rather than wait, the three of them crossed the street on a yellow light and caught it on the other side of the intersection. The automated cab queried them for their destination before the computerized voice cut off and Katie’s came through the sound system.

  “I hacked the GPS so it won’t show where you are going. You’re in the clear.”

  Kyle still pulled out his handgun again and thumbed off the safety. He didn’t let it go as the cab pulled away from the curb. The cab made a U-turn at the next intersection on a green light, the GPS route to their destination showing up on the dash. Kyle watched the smoking building disappear in the rearview mirror as they drove south to their extraction point at the Joint Forces Training Base where Annabelle waited.

  It took a good two hours to get there through traffic, crossing over five separate highways before the cab rolled to a halt outside the heavily guarded checkpoint that led to the base. They exited the cab and headed for the Army captain in uniform standing beside an idling Humvee beyond the security gates manned by several other soldiers.

  “I’m to escort you to your jet,” the captain said, saluting them.

  None of them responded to that statement other than to nod an acknowledgment as they got into the Humvee. Metahuman identities were classified Top Secret under the law if they chose to stay on and work with the government. Not every metahuman chose to keep fighting the good fight. The trauma of surviving being changed into a metahuman was sometimes too much to overcome. If metahumans chose to live in the civilian world, they weren’t bound by secrecy and could reveal what they were to the public, but their actions would always be monitored. The identities of metahumans who chose to work for the MDF were kept secret in order to keep them safe in the field. Usually that entailed a combat hard helmet with tactical goggles and a mask to cover their lower face if they didn’t opt for nanotech that could blur their facial features.

  They’d worn nanotech
strips today instead of their hard helmets and masks. The clear pieces of bioware adhered to the skin of their face over the recognition points, blurring out their features on video and camera. Regardless, anyone who saw them on the military base wouldn’t know who they were to begin with since they were only passing through.

  The captain drove them through the base, heading for the tarmac that sat at the rear of the property. Kyle caught sight of their way home minutes later when the X-17 Hermes combat jet came into view. The MDF’s favored aerial combat jet was larger than the Air Force or Navy’s preferred fighter jet models, capable of urban, jungle, and mountainous infiltration. It could transport up to twelve people in tight quarters, but today it was only ferrying the four of them home.

  Kyle squinted through the Humvee’s windshield, just able to make out Annabelle sitting in the combat jet’s pilot seat. The rear ramp had been lowered for their arrival, and as soon as the Humvee braked to a halt, they exited the vehicle. A ground crew stood on the outskirts of their assigned area but didn’t venture closer. The moment they were all inside the belly of the combat jet, the ramp closed up, the sound of the warning siren piercing Kyle’s ears. He ignored the flashing red light as he stripped out of the electrician’s work suit and kicked it to the side before heading toward the flight deck. He sat down in the co-pilot seat with a grunt and grabbed at the harness, strapping himself in.

  Annabelle twisted around in her seat, her own flight harness buckles hanging off the sides, her red hair a tangled mess, as if she’d run her fingers through it too many times out of worry. Hazel eyes raked up and down Kyle’s body, taking him in.

  “Y’all look a little singed,” she said.

  Kyle rubbed his hands over his head, feeling the crispy ends of his longer-than-regulation length light brown hair. “Was a little too close to the explosion.”

  Nothing remained but a memory of the pain—the burnt skin on his face, neck, and hands, the ache in his torso from slamming into the wall and getting hit by debris, the scorching rawness of his lungs—all of it had healed between the first spark of the bomb and their arrival on the jet. That didn’t stop Annabelle from reaching over to poke Kyle in the arm.

  “Better be sure. We don’t got Bones around to check you over right now, but you ain’t supposed to hide wounds anymore.”

  “I’m fine,” Kyle assured her.

  “All right.”

  After almost seven months on Alpha Team and working for the MDF, Kyle knew the protocol for team assessment by heart now. Since their first mission together, back when he and Alexei were still pretending to be human, they’d promised never to keep back vital information again. That included their personal health status in the field.

  Annabelle craned her neck around, eyeing where Alexei and Madison were strapping themselves into their chosen seats in the back. “Y’all ready?”

  “Ready,” Madison said, giving her a thumbs up.

  Alexei nodded agreement and Annabelle twisted back around before snapping her own harness back on. Kyle could have joined the others since he wasn’t needed as a navigator or on guns, but the flight deck was equipped with visual uplinks. While Annabelle went through the final points of her pre-flight check, Kyle opened an encrypted uplink to MDF headquarters.

  The person who answered wasn’t Katie.

  “Hey,” Kyle said, some of the tension draining out of him.

  Jamie looked back at Kyle from the guts of the MDF’s main war room where field missions were monitored in a real time. His blond hair was styled more for a night out than a day in uniform. His blue eyes flicked up and down as they took in what he could see of Kyle through the uplink, a frown marring his face. It didn’t do much to detract from his good looks. Then again, Kyle would always think Jamie was hot, no matter the circumstances. With a strong jawline, defined cheekbones, and a straight nose set above an expressive mouth, Jamie could easily be mistaken for a rugged model in or out of uniform.

  “You’re all right?” Jamie asked.

  “Was a little banged up at the beginning, but everything’s fine now.”

  “Good.”

  Kyle kept his attention on Jamie, wishing for some privacy, but this was an encrypted uplink being recorded by the MDF for records purposes. Anyone who observed the mission record would only see them interacting as teammates and friends, not the lovers they were outside the MDF and the regulations that defined it. Keeping the real status of their relationship under wraps was important to them both.

  Liking men wasn’t the issue, and hadn’t been for most of the world for the past few centuries. Jamie’s rank as his team captain and superior officer ran right up against regulations concerning non-fraternization. Which meant they shouldn’t be together, but they were. In point of fact, the entire team was breaking the rules by keeping quiet about their relationship status, because even before Kyle joined, the members of Alpha Team had wanted Jamie to be happy.

  Kyle, they knew, made Jamie happy.

  Some days Kyle couldn’t believe he got so lucky. He still remembered the night they’d met in a bar, when he’d come off a long mission overseas and just needed to get out of his head. Jamie had been the best-looking guy there that night, dressed in a bespoke suit that outclassed everyone else. Kyle hadn’t known at the time that Jamie was military, or even a metahuman; all that mattered was Jamie turned out to be the best fuck he’d ever had. That one-night stand in a hotel room ended up turning into something more, something deeper, after Kyle and Alexei were seconded to Alpha Team just days later.

  At the time, neither he nor Jamie had been looking for a relationship. Then the whole mess with a ghost from Kyle’s past in the shapeshifting form of ex-CIA Agent Cora Everly had derailed the life Kyle thought he’d have with Strike Force in favor of one with the MDF and Jamie. He’d been angry about that at first, but his anger didn’t last long. It never did, not when he had Jamie by his side.

  “I’ll be present for your debrief when you and the others return,” Jamie said, looking off-screen at something that had caught his attention for a brief second.

  “You had plans,” Kyle protested.

  “They can wait.”

  Kyle bit back his initial retort before it escaped his mouth. He would never say he regretted the way they got together, and he didn’t regret the secrecy their relationship existed in now, but some days Kyle wished they could speak their minds without fear of reprisal. Promising to give Jamie a blowjob if he’d just go and deal with his family probably wouldn’t go over well with any of the brass. On the other hand, he knew it would go over extremely well with Jamie.

  “Where’s Viper? Did you take over for her? You know she’s more than capable of leading in your absence,” Kyle said.

  “Of course she is. And Viper was the one who called me back to the war room once the bomb was reported in. She knew I needed to be updated.”

  Kyle knuckled his eyes. “Right. Did any of the photos from my scope camera get received?”

  “Some. We have analysts working on them. I’m hoping we’ll have something when you guys get back.”

  “Yeah. Okay. See you in two hours.”

  Jamie nodded, all business, but Kyle knew how to read the relief in his blue eyes. “Copy that. Base out.”

  Kyle killed the uplink and slumped back in the co-pilot’s seat. Annabelle was on the comms with flight control, the electromagnetic engines a faint hum in the background. She muted the public conversation in favor of their encrypted comms.

  “We’re cleared for take-off,” Annabelle announced.

  The Hermes combat jet was capable of vertical take-off and landing. Once the ground crew cleared the launch pad, Annabelle pushed the engines to full throttle and the jet launched itself into the sky with a roar. The jagged megacity skyline surrounding the base disappeared in favor of hazy blue sky that got shades darker the higher they flew. The clouds thinned out as Annabelle plotted out a vector that would have them flying in the high stratosphere and skirting the edge of the me
sosphere. The windshield was polarized against the bright sunlight and Kyle blinked to adjust his vision to the brightness, staring at the curved horizon.

  The flight didn’t take long, not with the way Annabelle was flying them home at a rate of Mach 2. By the time they landed, Kyle had his thoughts in order for the long debriefing he knew would happen.

  The combat jet juddered as it touched down at the MDF’s airfield, the assigned ground crew approaching with their maintenance tools as Annabelle lowered the ramp. Kyle was already out of his seat and leaving the flight deck before the ramp even touched the ground. Madison and Alexei shucked off their harnesses and hurried after him, none of them surprised in the least to find the rest of the team waiting for them on the tarmac.

  Aside from Jamie and Katie, Trevor Sanchez and Donovan Williams were standing shoulder to shoulder nearby as they let their captain and second-in-command assess Kyle and the others first. Trevor was the team’s medic and probably should’ve had first dibs, but the four who’d gone into the field were all walking under their own power.

  “All right?” Jamie asked as his gaze trailed over them.

  “Alive, if pissed,” Madison replied.

  “If none of you need Medical, the director wants to hear what happened in person ASAP.”

  “What happened is the mission was a complete fuck-up and either the target was a metahuman or we were found out somehow,” Kyle said flatly.

  Jamie’s mouth pressed into a tight line. “Let’s get inside.”

  MDF headquarters consisted of three main buildings connected by various ground corridors and aerial pedestrian bridges. Hangars lined one side of the airfield and smaller buildings attached to the main building of the MDF headquarters. The ready rooms where teams geared up for missions were located in those smaller buildings. Jamie and the other three waited long enough for Kyle, Alexei, Madison, and Annabelle to strip off their tactical armor. They didn’t bother with changing out of their combat uniforms since that would necessitate a shower, and they didn’t have time for that right now. Everyone except Jamie was in uniform, and Kyle found himself stealthily eyeing the bespoke suit Jamie wore. He had fond memories of that suit.