by Sylvia Ryan
The unknown of traveling and establishing a home base was overwhelmingly more dangerous than being an Emerald in New Atlanta. Yet, he hadn’t been able to tell her he’d be leaving her there. Probably because he knew they’d both languish without the other. As the days progressed and the withdrawal from their constant connection affected her, he was glad he hadn’t. His tentative decision, to leave her in New Atlanta, began to vacillate again. The more time elapsed, the more she deteriorated.
He didn’t want her to suffer when they were apart, and she would. She already suffered from the distance between them even though they’d still been in each other’s presence twenty-four hours a day. The only thing that had changed between them since they’d left New Atlanta was the intimacy. And on this, he wouldn’t budge. If Sydney and Garret knew they were in love, it would only take a minute for Morgan to know too, after they returned to New Atlanta. That would be a dangerous position for Laila, especially with him still in Onyx, setting up their home. It was actually safer if Sydney and Garret saw they weren’t getting along.
Rock followed Laila as she left the two guardsmen at the doorway. Her long brown curls bounced along with her determined strides. He caught up to her at the truck. She let out a disgusted huff and tried to walk away. He caught her easily and trapped her against the flat metal side of the armored vehicle, placing his hands on each side of her body and closing in on her.
“Laila.”
She wouldn’t look at him.
“Peanut.” He caught her chin and directed her gaze to meet his. “I don’t know if you’d be safer in New Atlanta or with me.”
Laila’s grief-stricken expression declared her emotional state loud and clear. Her eyes traveled over his face until their gazes locked again.
“So you’d leave me?” she whispered.
“Right now, I think leaving you is probably the safer option of the two.” He continued to withhold his emotions, not wanting to overwhelm her with his turmoil. But even that backfired, because his statement was so devoid of emotion, it seemed to add to her distress.
Her brittle composure snapped like a twig. “Please don’t. It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“Yes, it does,” he said gently. “There’s no future for us in Atlanta.” He stared down at her, reading the emotions as they flashed quickly and jumbled across her features. Her jaw dropped as she stood staring at him. “I can’t believe what you’re saying to me right now.”
He stepped in closer. The planes of their bodies skimmed against one another. With his lips close to her, he rumbled, “I’ll set up a safe place and come back for you.”
Laila shivered as the air from his words wafted over the curve of her ear. “Please don’t leave me, Rock. Please.” Her plea broke his heart. Tears trailed down her cheeks. “Please.”
He looked over his shoulder and caught the approach of the two guards he’d left behind at the museum. “Now is not the time for this discussion.”
“So when is a good time, Rock?”
“I don’t know, but now isn’t it.”
“I hate you for doing this to me,” she seethed. Laila swung her arm in a wide arc, and Rock caught her wrist, stopping the slap aimed at his face. He growled, squeezing her wrist tightly. “I know this is hard, but I’m right here. You have to trust me, trust what we’ve built.” His words were a low rumble, meant to soothe as much as caution. But when he looked in her eyes, he realized they’d done neither.
“Let me go!” she yelled as she attempted to yank her wrist out of his grasp.
“Hey!”
They both turned as Garret walked toward them.
“Step off, Garret. This doesn’t concern you,” Rock stated coolly. From the corner of his eye, Rock saw Laila ever so slightly shake her head. She was signaling Garret to let it go, treating him as if he could read her. And, he could, because Garret stopped in his tracks.
Rock turned away from Garret and Sydney, who’d just joined them, and strode in the opposite direction, dragging Laila behind him.
“Why are you giving him signals?” he hissed as he put distance between them and the man who was quickly growing to be his nemesis.
Garret caught him by the shoulder and swung around. “Let her go.”
Rock released Laila’s hand and stepped into Garret’s personal space. “You need to go away before I snap your neck.”
Garret took a step toward him. “You could try.” The words were barely out of Garret’s mouth before Rock rushed the man. Garret landed with a thud on the pavement, taking the brunt of the fall with Rock’s weight on top of him.
Laila yelled for him to stop, grabbing at his Kevlar vest, pulling him back. She whispered in his ear, “He’s Resistance, Rock.”
Rock stopped at those words, and Garret got in a good jab to the side of Rock’s face before Rock had the chance to scramble off the man.
Laila was on her knees next to Garret, presumably telling him the same thing. Sydney caught his attention as she advanced toward them, looking at Laila with contempt.
The best way to play this scene out was to leave. Nothing else could be said between them with Sydney present. He glanced at Garret and knew he would protect Laila from any aggressiveness on Sydney’s part. He also knew it was better if Sydney thought he and Laila hated each other, so he turned from where Laila sat next to Garret on the pavement and strode away.
When Rock looked over his shoulder to assess the situation before he disappeared out of sight, Laila stood there, jaw dropped, staring at him while Sydney helped Garret from the ground.
He gave Laila the signal to hold and kept walking.
Chapter 21
They’d lingered in their temporary encampment in front of the capitol for fifteen days, the last of them spent in a state of tense give and take between all the members of the team. Now, several days out from the incident between him and Garret, Rock was relieved to be heading back. He’d have to tolerate very little of the two Guards during these last hours of driving before he walked away. Even though he and Garret were on the same side, there was still no love lost between them. He wanted to flay Garret alive for leading Laila into dangerous missions while they were still in New Atlanta. His heartbeat thundered, raising his blood pressure. “Fucker,” he mumbled under his breath.
In an effort to fill up Sydney and Garret’s truck, Laila hurriedly readied a few items not on her original list for travel. He was happy for her. She considered the mission a success with the retrieval of eleven items from her recovery list. An hour later, Rock’s dour mood only intensified the pall cloaking their departure. The interior of the cab was thick with unexpressed conflict. Laila looked out the passenger side window. The slant of the morning sunlight set her aglow as they pulled away. She was beautiful even with sadness shadowing her features. As the miles from DC accumulated behind them, the words left unsaid between them hung in the air of the cab. It was a familiar, melancholy silence. One of missing and loving, and of reassurances they would see each other again. Rock didn’t even have the strength to pull her out of the funk settling around them. He was too deep in it himself.
If things went as expected, they’d say goodbye to each other tomorrow. They’d avoided the topic since the blow-up when he’d made his final decision to leave Laila in New Atlanta. He’d spent most of his days shielding his own devastating emotions so they wouldn’t send her plummeting into a more serious depression. But now, in the privacy of the cab, they could speak freely without having to worry about being overheard. “I’m taking you back to New Atlanta.”
“I know,” she said, still watching the world go by. “You’ve been shielding your emotions from me. It tipped your hand.”
“It’s only for a few months.”
“Okay.” Her slumped shoulders and sad eyes made him want to make it all go away. “If you don’t come back, I won’t even know what happened to you.”
“Yes, baby, you would. Because if I don’t come back for you, I�
��m dead. And if that happens, Laila—” He reached over and grabbed her forearm, getting her attention. Her gorgeous brown eyes were filled with tears. “If that happens, you’ll move on. Find someone who will love you and make you happy. I want you to have a happy life, with or without me.”
She didn’t acknowledge his words, just broke eye contact and stared out the window again. They sat as if they were already separated, everything having been said. The misery-lined silence choked the small space.
He squeezed the little fingers lying limply in his hand. “It will be okay.”
She didn’t acknowledge the statement, just laid her head back on the headrest.
The brake lights on the truck in front of them flicked on. As soon as Rock got a glimpse of the roadblock ahead, he switched into survival mode.
“Laila!”
She snapped alive.
He slammed on the brakes. “Ditch on your side.” She met his gaze, and he saw her confusion. “When I say go, jump out. Don’t hesitate. You understand? Keep your legs bent and roll with your momentum.”
She popped the door open, looked down, and froze.
Gunfire rang out.
“Go, go, go!” he shouted a split second later. His heartbeat thundered as she tumbled into the dense vegetation clogging the side of the road. An instant later, he did the same.
As he jumped, an explosion sounded.
He found Laila quickly and pulled her to her feet. “Are you hurt?”
She looked down at herself, taking stock. “I think I’m okay.”
He took her hand. Together, they ran into the dense overgrowth.
“Was that our truck that exploded?”
He gave her the signal for silence and led the way as they continued to run through the forest skirting the road. Their clothes pulled at them, snagging on branches and thickets, slowing them as they tried to maneuver.
Laila tripped over a fallen tree and face-planted into the forest floor, almost taking him with her. In an instant, he caught her by her flak jacket and lifted her onto her feet again. “Let’s find our pace, peanut. We need to be miles away from here.” He slowed until they found their rhythm, weaving and jumping over fallen trees and rocks in the shade of the woods.
“I’m out of breath. I can’t go anymore,” she wheezed after thirty minutes.
“Yes, you can.” He snatched her hand and continued to drag her through the brush grabbing at them. “Just a little while longer.”
He slowed their pace as they neared a clearing. A suburban neighborhood with tightly packed identical houses spread out in a shallow valley below them. Rock stopped at the edge and surveyed the wide-open space. The houses were half hidden by overgrown weeds, making them look like gigantic turtles sunning themselves in tall grass. The air was choked with humidity and the rolling rumble of thunder sounded far in the distance.
He turned to Laila. She was red-faced from the run in the increasing afternoon heat. “We can’t go down there. It’s not safe.”
“Why not?”
“See the paths?” He pointed. “There and there.” Her gaze locked on the worn trails cutting through the tall grasses and weeds to the front doors of three of the houses. “Might be where the attackers live.” Rock took her hand again and shepherded her back through the tangle of vegetation.
They walked through the densest areas of the woods, using the brush as cover, keeping parallel to the road. Thunder boomed, vibrating his chest with the force of it. Laila glanced up as if to check the sky. “It’s much closer.” Under the dense canopy, they couldn’t see the encroaching storm, but the forest grew increasingly dark and eerie. The birds quieted and the only sounds were the crunch of their steps on the forest floor. The wind picked up, whipping her ponytail to the side. A deluge of bucket-sized drops fell loudly through the leaves. Within minutes, they were soaked to the bone. Still, they walked, keeping a steady pace.
The substantial downpour lasted an hour, and when it finally stopped, the air was cooler. Soon after, Laila’s teeth were chattering. Her eyes met his and she flashed him a radiant, blue-lipped smile. Her wet hair stuck to the sides of her face, and her saturated clothes hung heavy on her frame. In the excitement, she’d lost her sadness, and her beautiful, teeth-chattering grin melted him. It said more about her character than any word or action he’d seen since their first day together.
Rock stopped and pulled her to him. Their flak jackets emitted a soft, bubbled squish as he hugged her. She shivered in the circle of his arms. “Can you keep going?”
She kicked up her chin. “Yes.”
“Good girl. We have to get as much distance as possible between us and them. In about an hour, I’ll start looking for a place to stop.”
“I’m getting hungry.”
“It shouldn’t be too hard to find something to eat after we find a safe place to spend the night.”
She looked up at him with her enormous trusting eyes. “Okay.”
He took her chilled hand in his and squeezed it. “Everything will be all right.” Rock kissed her and started walking again.
A misty drizzle settled over the forest. There were no wild places like this in New Atlanta and even after a year of missions in the Onyx Zone, the atmosphere was a little spooky and a bit unnerving. Just as Rock was beginning to wonder if they’d find a place to rest, they walked up on a hole-in-the-wall truck stop and diner. He tried opening the heavy glass door guarding the store and registers. It was locked. He unsheathed his knife and broke the glass with the hilt then pulled Laila inside.
“This area should be safe. Nobody’s been in here since the pandemic.”
They split up, looking through the little store filled with dusty aisles of candy and still-bloated bags of chips.
“Here.” Rock grabbed a pink oversized T-shirt with a cartoon cat and I’m not rude. I have catitude scrawled underneath and tossed it to her. He picked one with a blue UNC Tarheels logo on the front for himself.
“Take your clothes off. We’ll hang them to dry.” He stripped off his wet clothes.
She watched him undress with admiring eyes and a tilted head, just like she did when looking at the art she loved so much. He leaned, lowering his head so it was in her line of sight to snap her out of it. “Strip.” He pulled the dry T-shirt over his head and hung his wet clothing off the side of the checkout counter, listening to the splat of Laila’s hitting the floor.
“Come here.” He held out his arms, and she stepped into him, folding her arms between them and nuzzling her cheek into his chest. To him, she was as small as a child with her dainty form completely surrounded by his body. “You did good today.” His voice was husky, revealing the emotion he finally allowed himself to feel.
She nodded, saying nothing. He knew his girl. She was feeling him, maybe trying to gauge where he was emotionally so she would know how much trouble they were in. “We’re not in trouble here, baby. Everything’s going to be okay.” He squeezed her tighter and stooped a bit to meet her gaze. “Okay?”
“How are we going to travel? We don’t have any additive for gas.”
“I’ll go back tomorrow and check if they left any additive in the trucks. If they didn’t, we’ll ride bikes, or walk. It’s easily doable.” He lifted her chin so their gazes met. “I don’t want you to worry.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
He released her, and she sat cross-legged on the tile floor, pulling the over-sized T-shirt down and stretching it around her knees.
He went about finding food.
After a quick scan of the aisles, he returned with an armful of cans he let tumble to the floor.
“How you going to open them?”
He shrugged, looking around, and her eyes sparkled. She seemed amused he hadn’t thought of it. It was nice to see her old self in there.
He grinned at her and pulled a can opener from behind his back. “Aisle two.”
Her smile faded. “Darn. I was hoping to see you bull
y those cans into submission. Is any of that stuff going to be okay to eat?”
“Yep. All of it, probably.” He worked at opening the cans of fruit cocktail and corned beef hash.
“Maybe not Emerald quality food, but edible.” He handed her a plastic fork. “Dig in.”
They ate like rabid animals, and when their bellies were full, Rock pulled Laila onto his lap. “You okay?”
She sighed. “Yeah. More than okay. It’s nice to be able to be ourselves again. No more pretending.”
“Never again, peanut.” They sat there, glued together, for a long time while he warmed her with his body and assessed the contents of the store for something soft to sleep on. There wasn’t much. A shelf contained packages of diapers, toilet paper and paper towels.
When he finally let her go, he gathered a two-pack of paper towels, tossed it on the floor, and kneed the package until the rolls were flattened. He lay down, using the towels as a pillow.
Rock caught her wrist and Laila giggled then squealed as he pulled her on top of him. It took only a moment for her to settle in.
He was content, lying there stomach to stomach, their breaths synced. He rubbed her back. “Sleep on me tonight. I’ll keep you warm.”
“And you’re softer than the floor.” She sighed. The sound of it made him smile even though he was drained past the point of exhaustion.
His eyelids were heavy. “Tired, baby,” he whispered.
“Then sleep. I’ll be right here.”
He tightened his grip around Laila and dropped into oblivion.
Chapter 22
A feeling of distress grabbed Laila and pulled her out of her sound slumber. Her attempts at pushing up from her hunky mattress were met with resistance. Rock’s heavy arms constricted her movement and held her snugly against him.
