by Rie Warren
Farrow was a family friend to Nate and his estranged brother, Linc, working all sides of this FUBAR situation with a feminine aplomb no one could pull off but her. She was to be my eyes and ears once I reached Beta. “My rendezvous is set up with her anyway.”
Cannon snorted.
“You got a problem over there?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’ve got a problem. In fact, I have issues with the whole stinking thing. For starters, I don’t see how a forty-five-kilo woman is gonna keep you walking the straight and narrow.”
I gave a snort of my own. “I’m surprised you’d know anything about being straight, lover boy.” Cannon blushed, making his hard and handsome visage appear sweet and boyish. I plowed on before he could stutter his way through his only vulnerability…Nate. “She’s not tasked with being my damn babysitter.”
Cannon’s face cooled with his tone. “Someone needs to keep a leash on you.”
My sidelong smirk slid to Darke. “The only one who’d know about the proper way to handle a leash is Darke. Let’s leave that to him and Leon.”
That was a direct hit, too. The brawny man’s crush on Leon was as obvious as the telltale russet flush under his smooth brown skin. I couldn’t even make another quip about their flirtation because his longing for the pretty-faced, twenty-year-old street hustler and his self-enforced denial was too painful to be comical. The man had lost his two life partners last autumn, casualties of this brutal war. I could only assume Darke had willfully decided not to put his heart on the line again, although it looked like he wasn’t being too successful with his emotional lockdown.
A few days before Farrow had left, Leon moseyed up to us, saying he was ready to sign on and join us in Beta. The sweet, sexy boy was getting his heart beat up and broken every day from Darke’s hot and cold emotions.
I figured that wouldn’t go down well between the overprotective pair of Darke and Cannon, both of whom had a vested interest in Leon, but I listened with mild amusement as he tried to con his way into our operation. Idling on the edges of our discussion, Darke appeared not to be listening, but his big shoulders had turned rigid as rock.
Farrow had smiled gently at Leon. “You’re gonna have to let me think about this now, Leon, but you might-could prove useful.” I had to agree. The kid was wily as hell as well as easy on the eye. “Ah reckon you’d be good company for mah brother.”
That comment had sparked Darke into action. Making the barest of excuses, he’d pulled Leon away from us, parked him against one of the outbuildings, and proceeded to kiss him with such heat, his hands running along Leon’s lean waist to settle on his hips, it was a wonder the building didn’t go up in flames. We’d walked away when Leon arched into the embrace, his loud groan carrying across to us.
Now, as then, Darke mumbled a few excuses and strode out of the meeting hall. Tipping my chair back, I looked out the window and, sure enough, he’d snagged Leon by the hand and was leading him down the dirt road.
Hills tugged on one of his long earlobes and cleared his throat. “Let’s talk strategy.”
I didn’t know what the old goat knew about strategy, but I’d go with it. “We’re planning a three-prong, long-term attack.”
Nate pulled his chair forward. “Infiltration first.”
“I’ve got that covered. Then I need to dig out the missing intel on my father, convince Linc to give up everything he’s ever worked to attain, and take Beta down.” All without letting on that I knew Beta Commander Linc Cutler’s identical twin and his mother closely, or that I was on friendly terms with the Freelanders and a Revolution sympathizer. In the civil war of the Rice/Cutler family, Linc had followed in his notorious father’s footsteps while Nate had finally freed himself from that man’s reins to return to his mother’s roots.
I couldn’t let any cracks show from the time I landed in Beta to the time I left, hopefully in a blaze of glory instead of with my carcass carried out in a body bag.
I decided to play it down even more when Cannon’s glower re-formed on his face. He didn’t need to know that I was feeling a few nerves, or that I hadn’t been sleeping, or that I was scared the truth would turn out to be uglier than the lies I’d been eating all these years.
I was a soldier after all.
“Just a day in the life, Big Papa.” I played his familiar line about our messed-up situation back at him.
Fist pounding the table in front of him, Cannon got ready to let loose when Eden cut in. “I want Lincoln out of there.”
I joined Cannon in grumbling under my breath while I thought, No added pressure or anything.
Rubbing his mom’s hand for a moment, Nate swiveled to his man, calming the beast with a few quiet words and a quick brush of his lips until Cannon’s shoulders relaxed from their punched-up place near his ears.
Brushing his finger along Nate’s jaw, Cannon whispered, “I know, baby.”
Their apparent affection for one another would’ve given me another round of the sweats, except, if any two people deserved to be together, in love, it was them. They’d been through hell and back a few more times than anyone rightly deserved. Hounded on their trek from Alpha to the secure Outpost bunker, working through attraction, suspicion, sabotage, betrayal—you name it—just to end up with Cannon being arrested for wanton corruption of a Company officer. Not to mention finding out Nate was Alpha CEO Cutler’s son must’ve been a big kick to Cannon’s nuts.
But they’d come through it.
Aside from his blatant snit about my self-imposed assignment, I’d never seen Cannon so happy. A day in the life was never gonna be the same for him, nor should it be. He’d found contentment, joy. Hell, seeing Cannon like this made me wonder just how much pain he’d been in, hiding his sexuality all those years and fighting to maintain rigid laws that went against his very nature. It also made me wonder what I was missing out on. After my mom committed suicide, unable to cope with the fallout of a family torn apart, the Corps and Cannon had become my family by choice. I’d since given up on one and watched another move on while my past was littered with those hitting-it-hard hookups. I envied Cannon and Nate’s intimacy, craving companionship born of enduring emotion.
But thinking was for pussies, and I wasn’t one of those, even if I had one.
Cannon jerked his seat back from the table to loom over me. “It’s too risky.”
I stood up, too, forcing him back a step. “You’ve made your objections clear, sir.” I tacked on the sir just to placate his stubborn ass. He’d made his point clear, all right, about a hundred times in the past few weeks since finding out my plan to vacate and infiltrate. But no way in hell would I let Cannon risk his life fielding this operation. He had too much at stake. Displaced, transient, I didn’t have anyone waiting up for me at the end of the day, so it made perfect sense to go in alone.
“Fuck’s sake, Liz. You’re going in there with your balls hanging out.”
I looked down my body and back up his. “Good to know you think Linc will be more distracted by my hard-core gonads than by my feminine charms.” Charms I’d only just discovered.
Commander Linc Cutler was my starting point in Beta, my only link to the Corps. I hoped to get close enough to either him or his father, CEO Cunt Cutler, to hack into their high-clearance D-Ps, where I could search out info on my dad and the InterNations plans for the Revolution. Linc, well, his name is fitting anyway. He just doesn’t know it yet.
Letting me pass before him out of the building with a wry twist of his lips, half fond smile and half simmering sneer, Cannon caught up to me in two strides. We walked down the single road cutting through Chitamauga Commune side by side, falling into an easy, companionable march. Just like old times.
It was cold as a bitch out here, and Cannon’s ears, nose, and cheeks quickly turned pink. The Freelanders were preparing for their midday meal in the mess hall, and we stepped to. It was a large, brightly lit wooden structure with long tables sided by benches, where all the families and newcomers, refuge
es and Revolutionary stragglers, ate together. Most mealtimes were so noisy with chatter and laughter it was hard to hear myself think, which was always a good thing.
“Fucking hell.” Cannon grunted.
Peering past his shoulder, I looked into the open barn door of Smitty’s iron forge. The insides were as red as fire. It must’ve been hot, too, because Leon and Darke were stripped down to their pants, glistening male chests on show.
“What’s going on in there?”
“Darke’s getting a tribute to Tammerick and Wilde. What they used to call a moko, a skin tattoo made with a bone awl and black dye.” Hands running across his short black crew cut, he said, “It’s a testament of his love for them.”
“And he’s making Leon do it? Jesus. I didn’t think he was cruel.”
“Leon’s done it before on others, and he wouldn’t let anyone else. He’s too fucking headstrong for his own good. Maybe we should’ve let him rot in the brig back in Alpha when he was arrested.”
Darke tenderly cupped Leon’s face, giving him a long, slow kiss. They were so beautiful together, Leon’s sinewy build and tawny gold skin against Darke’s rich brown body. Bits of their conversation drifted across to us, Darke’s rumbling voice counterpoint to Leon’s higher-pitched accent marking him for what used to be the Cajun people.
Darke pulled away. “You don’t have to, angel.”
“Mais, I wan’ to, cher. Let me do dis for you.”
When Darke lay down with his face buried in the muscle of his biceps, tears stood out on Leon’s lashes, glittering in the hot red light.
A sharp spear of sympathy for the two men twisted through me. “Leon’s getting his heart slayed over there.”
“Doesn’t have enough smarts to put that tattoo tool down and walk away.” Cannon turned his brown eyes to mine. “Which is why I’d prefer him to stay out of the Revolution.”
It was too intimate a scene to watch. One man devoted to his lost lovers, the other determined to give whatever he could. Their plight reinforced what this Revolution was about. Lives were not the only thing at stake but the freedom to choose whom you loved, how you loved no matter what gender. Freelanders, their very name was a call to arms.
Ambling on, Cannon asked, “Getting an early start in the morning?”
“Sure as the cock crows.” I winked at him.
He barked out a laugh before getting his serious face on again. “Blondie and I are flanking you, at least part of the way.”
I started to interrupt when he shut me up, pulling me into his arms, and through his strong embrace I felt him shaking. A giant tower of power and strength, he’d always been my steadfast comrade. Now I was getting ready to go it solo.
“Caspar.”
“Keep that damn mouth shut and let me hug you for once.” His gruff voice ruffled the short tufts of my black hair.
Surprised by the suddenness of his emotion, tears burned the back of my throat.
He leaned back and attempted a grin. “There. Now when Blondie and I have to turn you loose, no goodbyes.”
“No goodbyes, Caspar.” I kissed his cheek and spun away.
* * *
Still in the grip of winter, March’s icy wind ripped through my flak jacket, eating through any warmth the torn material had afforded me. I’d made it through Beta’s four-meter-high walls fortified by bayonet-sharp razor wire, sneaking in through the west gate Farrow had promised would be open. I owed her some flowers or something when this was all over.
The northeastern gale howling in my ears, I’d hustled to Sector One without any mishap. This was one time I was thankful for the Company’s strict adherence to homogeneity. Each of the sixteen InterNations Territories was gridded the same, so I didn’t need my decommissioned D-P’s navigation system to lead the way. I’d lived here before, too, and not much had changed except from the destructive forces of war. The poorer sectors hugged the outskirts so the select didn’t have to hobnob with their poverty-stricken citizens. Closer in, tenements for civilian and Corps grunts alike transformed into shiny high-rises and affluent businesses toward City Center and the heart of operations, the Quadrangle.
I’d gone rogue, been reported MIA, and was presumably wanted. Now I was getting ready to walk back into a Corps stronghold. Maybe I am a little reckless.
Clusters of soldiers roved the streets like packs of hungry dogs. It seemed like the curfew was well in effect and the fighting held at bay, at least on this night, but the ragged war-torn evidence was everywhere. Rubble lining formerly pristine streets, buildings with blast holes, sandbagged trenches, and armies of tanks screamed the Revolution was alive and well. On the other hand, the barred gates, the impenetrable fortress of the Quad, the wire, watchtowers, and giant building-wide Data-Paks spewing the latest CO promos all looked like an unstoppable iron fist.
After the commune with its colorful glory even in the dead of winter, with its celebration of life even when they’d suffered harsh losses of their own, Beta was freezing cold, not just because of the minus-zero temperature. I might’ve been raised a city girl, but I’d been shaken and taken by the Freelanders ideas, and I wouldn’t ever be the same.
Keeping my head down, I fell in step with a patrol, laughing along when they traded jokes about the shit-smelling wildling Nomads and too-dumb-to-fuck Revolutionary rejects. I didn’t let my hands shake or my shoulders stoop, thankful they must’ve thought my less-than-stellar uniform was due to a hard day slogging it out on the warfront. I’d spent most of my career learning how to blend in and stay off the radar, shining only in my role as first lieutenant.
Anonymity was second nature, but damn, I was feeling twitchy.
It’d taken two weeks to cross the Wilderness—land left to Mother Nature’s hands and husbanded to fresh fertility by the Freelanders—from Chitamauga located in the lower Appalachians to this northeastern colony. We deviated from Alpha-Beta Route Two, and it would’ve taken a lot longer had it not been for the bitchin’ snowmobiles Farrow had delivered for me, Cannon, and Nate, thanks to her family’s scrip, which she siphoned off to help fund the insurgency. That ride was as sweet as my motorcycle left behind months ago in Alpha.
Seemed I’d left just about everything by the wayside since this war started, perhaps long before that. Family, friends, thoughts of a fulfilling life…
Caspar Cannon. True to his word, he and Nate had kept pace with me, our snowmobiles running on fancy fuel cells only the elite could afford. Turning back three days ago, Cannon had maintained his “no goodbyes” policy while Nate gripped me in a long hug.
“I want you to know, Lizbeth, you’re not obligated to bring my brother back.”
“Nate, I’ll—”
He’d rocked me side to side, his gentle arms and gentle drawl quieting me. “Hush up now. You have a mission of your own and a duty to the Revolution. If anythin’ happens, you make sure to get yourself out. You are priority number one, darlin’.”
“Fuck.”
“Now, now, none of that language. You know what my momma would say.” Pressing away from me, he’d swiped a tear clinging to my cheek before Cannon could see it.
“Take care of that big bastard for me, will you?” I’d asked.
He’d nodded and stepped back, linking hands with his husband, whose somber features were too familiar for me to look at. I’d raised my hand, a salute me and Cannon shared, before speeding away through the snowy nation.
The commune—Nate, Cannon, and Darke—had become Central Ops for the entire Revolution, but only Darke could answer my call for help henceforth. Cannon and Nate had been branded enemy number one. They’d be killed on sight. In addition to the cool warrior who would be my point man when shit got ugly in Beta, I had Farrow as my liaison to the commune and the other side of the war, because I was about to go deep cover. My rendezvous with the woman was scheduled for tomorrow night, and I was cutting it close, especially if Commander Cutler decided to stick me in the brig for being AWOL. I had to make sure he bought my story.
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By now I was downright itchy.
The double-reinforced steel gate in the sky-high barricade of the Quad opened before me and the other soldiers. My pulse pounded as I squared off with the four cornerstone buildings where InterNations business was beaten out: Company HQ, the hospital, the Tribunal—home to RACE, Repopulation and Civilization Enforcement, the court, jail, and killing grounds for those who committed homosexual crimes—and my former home away from home, Corps Command.
Walking into another one of CEO Lysander Cutler’s lion’s dens, the flat titanium heels of my lace-ups rang on the polished marble floor. My cap in place if a little filthy, an unemotional mask on my bruised face, I canvassed Beta Corps Command, waiting for my retinal scan from the outer doors to send up the expected alarms. Wearing a shredded uniform more dirty than dark blue, my first lieutenant insignia smudged and hanging off the breast of my shirt, I looked like I’d had an orgy with about a dozen dynamite sticks.
I’d figured the surest way to get Commander Cutler’s attention was to serve myself up. It might not have been the smartest move in my arsenal, but I waited for my latest date with disaster without a nervous tic on my body.
Not until the rapid-blast guns—pathetic pieces of shit compared to my pair of Desert Eagles—of the five troopers I’d clocked lounging against the black pillars locked on my location. I strived not to flinch when their sights found me. Cannon may have been my commander in the Elite Tactical Unit, but he was the hothead while I’d been his cool, severely controlled second in command. Unless my mouth ran away with me.
Gun muzzles met my temples, their cold barrels promising chambers of pain if I so much as twitched as I was marched wordlessly through the halls into a soundproof gymnasium. I knew immediately what the strategy was. Lock her up; then make her sing for her momma.
Steeling myself for the blows, I sucked in a breath as I was disarmed. The breath exhaled with a whoosh when the first fist hit my stomach. Doubling over, I bit my lip, just stupid enough to stand tall, meeting the second and third knocks with my face.
