“Who?” His hands melt into my shoulders as he lowers his face to my level.
“Reaper.”
“You killed him?” Unease and wonder reels through his voice.
“Yes.” I did kill him. I forced my way into his head then . . . “I pushed him.” I point to the cliff.
Tango stands up from my side and approaches the ledge where he found me. He leans over, looking for the evidence, but I’m not sure what he’ll find, and it doesn’t matter. After a second, I notice whatever he sees causes him to recoil. “I’m going to recommend you don’t look over this ledge. I’ve seen some shit in my day, and that’s bad.” He sits back down by my side and places his hand on the small of my back. “What happened before you pushed him?”
“I had gotten up to go to the bathroom last night. I only went behind the nearest tree. He captured me there and dragged me somewhere else that I don’t remember. He sent someone after you: Jorge, I think his name was. He said he was going to kill you. But I knew—“
“I’d win,” he interrupts me with a wry grin.
“Yes.”
“I did,” he says softly, tracing the pad of his thumb along my cheek, brushing off specks of dirt. “Then what?”
“I got in his head—like my dad always did to people. At one point, he became so angry he slammed my head into the ground, but I held onto my strength and kept feeding him what his mind wanted to hear.” Tango intertwines his fingers with mine and kisses me on the forehead. “He’s gone now. The promise I made to Krissy helped me to hang on.”
***
It took a few hours for me to regain my bearings and for the dizziness to subside, but clarity is catching up to me. Now I just want to find Dad and help Tango. I push forward, throwing my pack over my shoulders and hold my stride tightly behind Tango. He spent some time studying the map against the coordinates this morning and said we’re still hours away. I can’t help but to think this could all be for nothing, and I’m sure Tango has already considered this as well. He talks about dying like it could happen tomorrow and doesn’t mention a word of hope that all of this effort is for a purpose.
“Hold up,” Tango stops short in his tracks. He pulls his phone out and turns on the GPS, pointing the device in each direction. “Shit.”
“That sounded like a loaded—“ I burst out laughing at my pun, realizing I’m likely getting dehydrated again. Jokes aren’t my thing, but I guess they are when I’m losing my mind.
Tango stifles his laugh and quickly straightens his jaw. “Cali. Water. Now.” He drops his phone back into his pocket. “We have to cross over that bridge.” He points off to the end of an upcoming ledge.
“What bridge?”
He tugs on my wrist and pulls me closer to where he was pointing. The bridge is made of rope and loose planks of wood—definitely untrustworthy and not so secure. The rope is pale and brittle, and there are missing boards every few steps. I’ve already proven to be the weak link here, so I have to suck it up. I straighten my pack, pull back my shoulder blades and walk forward.
“Hold it!” he shouts. “I understand you want to take the lead, but are you going to check that thing out first?”
“I think I’ll know within the first step,” I say, giving him a duh look.
He holds up his hands in defense. “Fine, be my guest.”
I approach the start of the bridge, which is a foot below the ledge. I curl my fists tightly around the rope and lower my foot down, slowly applying pressure to check for sturdiness. My foot wobbles as if I were standing on a plastic swing. This should be fun.
I lower my other foot down and bare most of my weight throughout my hands. My knuckles are becoming pale, and the bones beneath my skin’s surface are becoming more apparent. I glide my right hand along the rope, careful not to shift my weight. The sprigs of the rope scrape against my palm like fine needles and the sensation mixes with my sweat, making my skin itchy. I step over to the next board, which is a bit firmer. I twist my head to look back at Tango, putting on my bravest face. “Come on in, the water’s fine,” I say, grinning like an idiot.
“God, you really need more water,” he shouts over.
With bravery acting as a sidekick, I move a little quicker over to the next board, which also feels firm. The next three boards are the same, and my confidence is at a high peak. This isn’t so bad. With my foot dangling over the next pane, I feel a shift below me. The board slides backwards about an inch, but the inch feels like a mile as I’m hanging hundreds of feet over boulders protruding from a rapidly moving river. I continue forward, anxious to move from the wobbly plank. I make it over the remaining distance and hop over the last missing plank. My heart is hammering against my chest as I look back to see what I just crossed over.
Tango hasn’t even left the ledge yet, which is best. I’m not sure this bridge could have held two people at once. He moves across, seamlessly, unafraid and unaffected. Everything he does makes me feel like I could never live up to his example. I’ve always been the most fearless person I’ve known until I met him. Compared to him, I look like a coward.
His chest is still rising and falling at an even pace, not even a bead of sweat more than when he left. He brushes the dirt from his hands and readjusts his pack. “Ready, princess?” His smirk tells me he knows what I’m thinking. He knows he’s better than I am. He knows he makes me weak.
Bastard.
It’s been two hours of an uphill trek, and my knees are starting to wobble. The sun is just as fierce and unforgiving as it’s been and my skin is beginning to feel like leather on top of the relentless ache in my shoulder. “Hang on,” I shout ahead.
I lower my pack and pull out the sunscreen and my bottle of painkillers—good thing I just refilled. I pop the pills into my mouth and then slather on the white cream, leaving it thick over the spots that burn the easiest. “How are you not getting burnt?” I ask him.
He shrugs while taking a closer look at his exposed arms. “I think my skin has seen its day in the sun—Iraq and Afghanistan’s rays aren’t too forgiving and we ran out of sunscreen early on.” He reaches his hand out for the bottle, probably just to appease me. “It wasn’t pretty for the first couple of weeks. A couple of the guys needed a medevac due to third-degree burns.” He slathers a bit on his arms and his shoulders, then tosses the bottle back at me. Men. “Your shoulder bothering you?”
“I’m fine,” I lie.
As I’m tucking the bottle back into the side pocket of my pack, I hear a couple of voices in the distance. I look over at Tango, who’s already searching in every direction. He pulls himself up against a nearby tree and waves me over.
He presses on my bullet-less shoulder, pushing me to lean down. My focus meets an opening in the trees, and I see two men looking at a map. They’re disheveled, covered in dirt, and have enough weaponry between the two of them to start World War III. I’m studying their mouths in hopes of determining what they’re saying.
Tango grapples with the back of my shirt and pulls me away from the trees. He drags me a dozen more feet until I pull myself out of his grip. I know he wants to put some distance in between us and them so we can talk, but I’m capable of taking a hint.
We end up near a small waterfall, but it’s loud enough to cover sound. “I don’t know if they might be with Reaper or if they’re with the Chinese Agency. There’s too many people looking for your dad, and if they’re after him, we won’t make it past them.“ He pulls out his phone, looks at the screen and pulls out another device to plug into it.
“This is why your dad was constantly telling you to leave wherever you were. These two groups of people have been after him and essentially you, for three years.”
“It wasn’t too bad before Krissy died, but after that, it was like I just became a target. I have not stayed in any location for more than a few weeks in the past year. I’ve been alone, very, very alone.” Alone doesn’t even hint at how I’ve felt over the past twelve months. I feel like I’ve lost two-thirds o
f who I am, and walking around as a third of a person, just doesn’t work.” His eyes soften and he reaches for my hand, but I hold it down by my side. “Don’t do that. Don’t feel sorry for me.”
He reaches down and snatches my hand up anyway. “Don’t tell me how to feel. No one deserves that shit, Cali. And yes, I do feel sorry for you—whether you like it or not.” He puts his phone up to his ear and waits for what I assume is someone to pick up the phone. “Sir, the job took me to the Copper Canyons. I’ll send you coordinates. I need two backups, fully-loaded, ASAP.”
Backup?
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
TANGO
THE BURN is catching up to me. It feels like there’s a layer of sand caked up in my lungs. I try to cough it up, and while it feels like I’m coughing up sand, it’s not sand. I sweep my arm across my mouth to clean up the spattering of mucus, and when I pull my arm away, I see another smeared red tinge. It’s happening more frequently, just as warned. I realize I haven’t taken my inhaler since yesterday, and maybe I can assume that’s why. I pull out the inhaler and suck in as much of the medication as I can, hold it for as long as I can, and blow the shit out as hard as I can—hoping I’m blowing the cancer out too. I clean my arm off on my camo shorts, ridding myself of the bloody evidence since I don’t need to deal with a concerned Cali on top of all this shit. I’m so close. So damn close.
As soon as these guys arrive, things are going to intensify. My boss promised me they’re good men, but I don’t trust mercenaries. They all have a story and they aren’t always good ones. Although, they’re probably saying the same thing about me right now. And my story is not a good one. I doubt they’d be too happy to hear I was dragging them here with the hope of saving my worthless life.
CALI
My head is pounding. I want real food. I want to take a real shower, and I want air conditioning. Tango is looking at his phone again, just as he has at least ten times in the past hour, tracking the backup.
He drops the phone into his pocket, stands and stretches his arms from side to side. He points his head toward the downward direction and starts walking. I follow closely behind. “They’ll be here in two hours. They’re probably being dropped from a helo.”
We round a few more corners and find a gully to plant ourselves in. Tango unclips his pack and meticulously pulls various metal pieces out and lays them on the ground in perfect order. “More rifles?” Actually, I’m assuming he has a lot more than that in there.
“Check your pack. Bottom left. I assume you know how to put one of these together?” His lip pulls up into a snide grin.
“I think I can manage.” I pull each piece of cold metal out and place it down on the ground before attaching the pieces in the order in which my dad taught me. The one thing he didn’t fail at was teaching me about weapons, how to use them and how to protect myself with them. That might actually come in handy today. If only he wasn’t the reason for it, I might feel a little prouder.
Tango stands up after he finishes putting his rifle together and watches me adjoin my final pieces. I think it’s cute that he’s looking at me with amazement, like he’s proud. “That might just be the hottest thing I’ve ever seen,” he says.
His words send a rush of heat through my cheeks, and I’m fighting against a smile, since we’re supposed to be in a serious situation right now. “We should probably separate business from pleasure, Tango.” I stand up and walk to him, then wrap my arm around his back, slowly lowering my hand to his ass, and I squeeze. “Glad to know you can maintain control at all times, Marine,” I say softly into his ear.
His stiffness below responds to my words and he fists his hands into the material over my chest, pulling my body in firmly against his. “If you want to play rough,” he says, his voice dour and gravelly, “save it for later.” His teeth clamp down over my bottom lip, and it takes everything inside me not to make a noise. He’s learned what those little nibbles do to me and he’s totally taking advantage. But I need to show restraint for the sake of this situation. Business and pleasure. Business is pleasure. The lines are becoming blurred, and that’s okay with me.
We hear a low buzz in the air and I know it’s the helo arriving. The heat between us sizzles and we both regain a firmer grip over our weapons to appear ready and waiting for this backup. It goes without being said that from here on out, this has to be only business. No more pleasure.
Tango pulls out his phone and I can see some kind of navigational system display across his screen. “Let’s go. They’re over here.”
We arrive at a small opening on a flat piece of land. Two men are descending with parachutes from a helo that has already disappeared. They make a soft landing, seeming as though they’ve had plenty of training in this area. Tango helps them with removing their parachutes, and they stand up to readjust their belongings.
The first one introduces himself to Tango. “Hey man—Seaver. Nice to meet you.” He’s tall, taller than Tango by about three inches. He’s dressed from head to toe in desert camouflage—short blond Mohawk and same firm jaw and cheekbones as Tango. I’m guessing ex-marine. I’m thinking they all look the same. His diesel Oakley sunglasses cover his eyes, and the straight line across his mouth tells me he’s here to accomplish this job, and that’s it. “We hunting someone down?”
“Yeah. It’s her dad. He has something vital to someone’s health,” Tango explains cautiously without stretching the truth too much.
“Say no more, man. We have your back.”
“There’s a couple of groups of people after him, and we think we ran into one of the groups earlier. Reason for my call.”
“Sure. Got it,” Seaver says.
The other man, clearly the weaker of the two, is still adjusting the straps of his bag and retying his boots. Definitely the follower. His hair is long for a military cut. It hangs low, sweeping over his eyes. The stubble along his chin looks groomed—on purpose, rather than a five o’clock shadow. In contrast to Seaver, he’s wearing a black v-neck T-shirt, ripped jeans and combat boots. He extends his hand out to me first. “Kacen. Nice to meet you.” His eyes stare into mine intently and then slowly and shamelessly gaze down to my chest. His lips and his eyebrows arch with an agreeable look. “Nice,” he whispers.
Great. Another asshole.
Tango shoves his hand out to him, probably to distract him. “I’m Tango. Let’s go, lover-boy.”
Kacen’s cheeks redden and he clears his throat. He turns around to lift his bag and swings it over one shoulder like a high school student. What an idiot.
Tango nods his head to Seaver. “What years were you in?”
“2003 to 2011. Operator. You?”
“2008 to 2014. NBC for the first two years, then an operator for the remaining time. I was recently discharged,” he emphasizes with air quotes around the word discharged.
“Figured. Lack of information on your background gave that away,” Seaver says.
Kacen jogs up to their side and plays into the conversation. “I was in from 2006-2010. Never deployed, though. Mostly office work.”
“Yeah,” Seaver grins. “We can tell.” He laughs softly and it’s the first time his lips have even twitched since they landed. “Carolina can probably tell.”
“Cali,” I chime in. “You can call me Cali.”
“My apologies.” He nods his head slightly. His attention redirects to Tango and matches his pace.
Since Seaver’s interested in Tango’s background, the two engage in a comparison conversation, which gives Kacen the opportunity to try and make more conversation with me. “You enjoying the canyons?” he asks.
I give him a look that clarifies my feelings on this situation.
He scratches the back of his neck with one eye squinted shut. “Where you from?” His fingers loop around the straps of his bag as he repositions it over his shoulder.
“The United States?” I quip. “Maybe you should put your bag over both shoulders. Less strain. Ya know?”
He shrugs his free shoulder and chuckles at my advice. “You have a boyfriend at home?” Well, that escalated quickly.
“Eight of them and two husbands.” My sarcasm doesn’t carry as much vigor as I hope, because he smiles. This one is going to get on my nerves. Quickly. “Why are you here, exactly?”
“Orders. Why are you here?”
“If you don’t know why I’m here, you clearly weren’t briefed. You’re being used as a tool, huh?”
“You gotta mouth on you huh, girl?”
Beyond annoyed with the conversation, I speed up my pace to join Tango and Seaver. I can hear Kacen’s footsteps behind me, following like a child. “Why did they send you with a broken wheel?” I ask Seaver.
“Wow, you’re kind of a bitch, aren’t you?” Kacen yells at me. “For your information I was the top ranked marksman in my company.”
Tango stops dead in his tracks and turns around, placing himself directly in Kacen’s path and about three inches from his face. He places his finger so close to the tip of his nose I’m wondering if he’s actually touching him. “I don’t give a shit if you can put a hole into something a mile away. Call her a bitch again, and I’m going to use you as a target to prove my marksman skills.” He doesn’t give Kacen an opportunity to respond. He turns back around and continues his conversation with Seaver. It’s clear they’ve both dealt with people like Kacen before.
We’ve been hiking for a couple of hours. Everyone is silent and the only audible sound is the noise of dirt crunching below our feet. If I could smell danger, the fumes would have knocked me over by now. I know we’re nearing the location where we spotted the two-armed men, but I can’t imagine they would still be located in the same place. Tango takes a few longer strides ahead of the rest of us and nestles his back against a large tree. He curves his neck to look around the bend and immediately straightens his posture.
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