“Annica,” he said, coughing out more water.
Two hands on his shoulders, rubbing his back. Annica saying something . . .
He finished the coughing and spun around, lying back down. But Annica tried lifting him again. “Keep going,” she said. “Cough it all out.”
His throat ached.
“Come on,” she said.
“It’s out,” Cole said, coughing again, and then looking around. Looking for the ocean. It felt like he had just been lost in its depths. He had drowned. But where was the water now?
Had she pulled him all this way up the shore?
“Can you breathe?” she asked.
“What happened?” he said, breathing quickly but effectively. The air retuning brought more alertness, like a gust of wind blowing away the fog. “Where are we?”
When he looked back at her face, it seemed like she was having a tough time coming up with the words to explain it. Maybe she drowned, too. Maybe she was still in the fog. “Are you okay?” he asked, reaching for her and pulling her into him for a hug.
Annica nodded against his chest. “There was a tsunami.”
“From the earthquake,” he said. God, it all seemed so surreal. The entire fucking day.
She kept nodding.
He was aware now that he was shirtless and without pants. He had on his boxers, but everything else had been swept away either by their passion or the wave that ended it. Annica, too, looked out of sorts, wearing nothing but her shirt and panties and a dull anxiety across her face.
“We need to move,” Cole said. “Tsunamis are never just one wave.”
They broke apart and he got to his feet first, eager to get to action. Eager to regain his role as protector and to help Annica. “Let’s get to higher ground,” he said, before pausing to look at her again.
She noticed. “What?”
Cole leaned in and kissed her. Quick and soft. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m assuming you just saved my life.”
“I’m assuming so, too,” she said, not smiling. “You were unconscious. I gave you mouth-to-mouth.”
Cole wanted to say something witty about it. But the urge to move and get to higher ground trumped even the best of jokes about her mouth-to-mouth. Maybe later they would have time for another take on it. It was a goal to strive for. Something to live for. What else could there be?
“Let’s go,” he said, wanting to rush off with Annica through the jungle. But she stood in place.
She said, “Wait.”
“For what?”
“We should go to the beach first and then run along the jungle to find the start of the path.”
He remembered the path. And his bike. Then he remembered the car that had been looking for them.
“You really think we can bushwhack through all that?” she asked.
He looked in the direction of the road. It was too dark and thick. In comparison, he could at least see the beach.
“How long until the next wave?”
“I don’t know,” he said, “but it’s better than getting stuck in there again.”
At this point, he just wanted to run anywhere, though he was glad to see her follow his stride toward the beach. Running there involved jumping over flattened vegetation and piles of water-strewn palm fronds. Trip obstacles left and right. It was like basic training for the army, high-stepping through the squares of a cargo rope. Only this time he had someone a little more attractive next to him. That’s where he liked Annica—especially in times like this. Not behind or in front, but right by his side, keeping pace as they both dodged over downed branches all the way to the clearing. On the beach now, he could see how the water had pulled back, far out to sea. It was a dangerous omen.
They followed the battered tree line to where their trailhead should have been. Everything looked different now after the tsunami, but he was sure where it was by the distance covered. He still had good senses for that, at least.
“Is that it?” Annica asked, both of them staring at the faintest trail of sand through the dark cover of jungle.
“That’s it.”
They started up the trail, moving in the same way as before, high-kneed and leaping, with eyes constantly scanning the ground. It occurred to Cole that he might be better off looking up more often, that there might be something more dangerous at eye level. Something worse than branches, or a wild boar, or another tidal wave. He kept this in mind when the path zig-zagged uphill, when the corners were close and blind. He checked back to Annica one last time, who was doing better on the path going uphill than down. He was glad for that. But up ahead, behind the next tight bend, he wasn’t glad to see the path blocked by more than downed foliage. It was two human shapes in low light.
Cole stopped immediately, absorbing Annica’s collision without taking his eyes off the people. Both of them were half-naked and darkened by the earth as if they’d also been swept up in the tsunami. He heard another wave crashing in from the sea, the next round blasting through the forest below them. Up here on the path they were safe. Safe from water. He wasn’t sure about the people.
He felt worse about it when he saw moonlight glint off the barrel of a gun. The black shine of a semiautomatic.
“Just hold it,” came a high voice. It was a woman, short and slender. And pointing a gun at his head.
He slid his hand over to his holster. To where the holster should have been.
“Hey!” the woman cried.
“I’ve got nothing,” Cole said, feeling more naked now than ever. Unarmed and vulnerable and at the mercy of whoever this person was.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Just hold it,” she said again. “Both of you.” She had pointed the gun at Annica.
“Don’t do that,” Cole said. “Keep it on me.”
“Then keep her from moving.”
Cole told Annica not to move, while his eyes were trained on this armed woman. He could see now that she wore a pair of athletic shorts and a sports bra. Her chest was heaving.
“Just calm down,” Cole told her.
“I am calm.” Her eyes stared at him, unblinking. Asian eyes, almond shaped.
He finally had time to look at the ground below her, to where the other figure lay. A larger figure, a man. He wasn’t moving.
“What’s wrong with him?” he asked.
“I found him like this.”
“Like what? What’s wrong with him?”
“Come on,” Annica said, “Can you please put the gun down? We’re not going to do anything.”
“Then stop moving.”
“I’m not moving.”
“Hey,” Cole said, “What’s wrong with him?”
The woman kept her eyes trained on Cole as she said, “I found him down below in the lava rocks, all cut up. He’s bleeding bad, so I tried to carry him up to the road. But then I heard you guys running up.”
“Okay, so we ran up,” Cole said. “Why do you have a gun pointed at us?”
“I can lower it,” she said, “if you stay away.”
The gun must have been submerged under water for some time. He remembered how long it took for the water to rush before his memory went foggy. Long enough for him to lose consciousness. Then he began wondering about the quality of ammo she’d been using. There was a slight chance the gun wouldn’t fire, water-soaked as it was. Staring at her now, the way her gun hand shook, it was a risk he wasn’t too excited about taking.
Annica was looking at the man on the ground. He still hadn’t moved. She said, “Can we see him?”
“See him?”
“To see if he’s alright.”
“He’s not,” the woman said, backing away slowly. “But yeah, see what you can do. My objective was to just watch him. Not kill him.”
“Your objective?” Cole said. He was creeping up to the wounded man, making sure his movements were slow and steady and obvious. He tried to be as small and nonthreatening as possible, in case the gun could still fire. “What’s your
mission?” he asked her in a calm voice.
“I’m running security,” she said. “It’s another reason why I’ve got my gun on you guys.”
“Security for what?” Cole crouched next to the body. He could see the man’s chest moving slowly, a laboring breath. A pause. And then another. There was a low groaning wheeze of wind passing through his face. Cole looked at that next, getting a good look at someone who looked astonishingly similar to his old friend, his house-mate, Tommy. Longish blond hair that looked mostly darkened with mud and blood. Tommy’s crooked nose. Full face made even fuller with bruising and swollen lacerations. Cole thought about the lava rocks. He said, “Who is this?”
“I’ve got my boss coming here,” she said. “Maybe you can save your questions for him?”
“Who’s your boss?”
“I think I’ve already answered enough,” she said. “More than enough.”
“You’re not trying to hold us here, are you?” Annica said. Cole hid a smile. His woman was smart. His woman. The phrase slid through his mind with no resistance.
The other woman didn’t say anything. He kept searching for the man’s identity, checking his wet and darkened clothes. He checked his pockets, ignoring the blood. No wallet or ID.
“I already checked him for weapons,” the woman said.
Cole looked at his face again, wondering how he could open the man’s mouth. Tommy has a chipped front tooth.
The face alone, though, the shape of it, was Tommy. He was dark and red and disfigured, and still breathing. Would he really be here? Why?
Was it really Tommy?
Cole whispered his name into the man’s ear.
The woman with the gun moved toward him. “What did you just say?”
“Nothing,” Cole said, cringing as he slid his fingertips between the man’s wet, loose lips.
“What the hell are you doing?”
He peeled the man’s top lip back . . .
“Why are you doing that?”
. . . exposing a set of teeth with a large chip missing from the front left one.
Cole recoiled, his breath flooding out in one quick and loud whoosh.
Tommy.
Why Tommy?
Was he trying to help him?
“I’m guessing you know him?” the woman said, leaning against a tree now, several feet back, uphill.
“He’s losing blood?” Cole said, his mind reeling out of control. “Is that it? What else?”
“I don’t think he drowned,” she said. “He was conscious when I found him. But weak.”
Cole put the back of his hand in front of Tommy’s nose and felt a weak current of air.
“He couldn’t move,” the woman said. “I was worried to mess with him in case of his injuries, but I didn’t want another wave to come over him.”
“No,” Cole said, not feeling particularly relieved that Tommy been “rescued.” What the hell had he been doing?
“He wouldn’t survive another wave,” she said.
“No, he wouldn’t.”
“So you’re working for Jackson, right?” Annica said. “You’ve been watching over the house?” The woman didn’t answer. “And he sent you out to track this guy down?”
“His name is Tommy,” Cole said.
“How do you know him?” Annica asked.
“We rent a house together,” Cole said. “I warned him to pack up and lay low for a few days. And I guess he was . . . I don’t know.”
“He was trying to kill you,” the woman said.
Cole didn’t hear it right. He couldn’t have.
“I thought you couldn’t tell us anything,” Cole said, suddenly wishing that she was the one on the ground unconscious and covered in blood. “And what if the roles were really reversed? What if you were the intruder and he was the . . . security guard?”
Was she smiling? She was fucking smiling.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she said.
“Do you have a radio? How are you communicating with your boss?”
“I lost it. But I’m wearing a transponder.”
Cole turned to Annica. She shrugged. “Does that sound like Jackson?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Annica said. “It sort of does. I think she’s telling the truth.”
“No,” Cole said.
“I know it might be hard to hear it.”
“But it doesn’t make sense.” Cole looked back at the pathetic pile of Tommy. No. He couldn’t have been out here stalking him and Annica. Helping, maybe. Cole, feeling an all new rush of stupid rage, said to her, “How do you know he wasn’t just . . . How do you know he was up to no good?”
There was a soft thudding sound of someone walking down the trail, from the top. From the road. And then a man’s voice cut through the strewn foliage, answering, “Because we had him under surveillance.”
Cole could see the shape coming down, closer.
“Oh, my God,” Annica said. “It’s Jackson.”
“Kalani,” Jackson said, “it’s okay. You can ease up.”
Immediately, the woman, Kalani, holstered the gun, slipping it somewhere inside the waistband of her shorts. Cole looked back up to the path and saw Jackson, followed by Macy.
“Are you guys hurt?” Jackson asked. “We saw what happened.”
“We got roughed up a little bit,” Annica said. “But we’re okay.”
Kalani said, “He’s not doing so well,” motioning to Tommy.
“Drowned?” Jackson asked.
“Blood loss,” Kalani said. “I found him in the rocks. Lava rocks.”
“I’ve got my truck just up on the road,” Jackson said, stepping down to Tommy. He placed a hand on Cole’s shoulder. “You alright? Can you carry him with me?”
“He knows him,” Annica said to Jackson.
“He’s my friend,” Cole said. “Housemates.”
“I know,” Jackson said. “That’s where we followed him from. I’m not sure if he was ever your friend, though. Come on, grab his legs.”
Cole was frozen.
“Come on,” Jackson said. “Either way, we need to at least get him medical attention. Right?”
He was slow to start moving to Tommy’s legs, his hands grasping the man’s ankles and lifting while his brain sluggishly accepted the possibility that his friend may have been tracking him through Hilo, and now through the darkness of the jungle. And damn it, through the waves and into the lava rocks that might have possibly killed him.
Through the jungle again now, uphill, with Tommy’s legs bundled under Cole’s arms. They carried him up to the road, limp and bouncing until they slid him in the back bed of a pickup truck. Someone shined a flashlight and Cole wished they hadn’t.
“Oh, God,” came a woman’s voice. Annica’s. Cole felt her at his side, holding on to his arm and saying softer, “I’m sorry.”
He shook her off and immediately felt badly about it. He also felt badly about Tommy and whatever had happened to him.
Another soft female voice came from nearby. From Kalani. “I tried to help,” she said.
Cole looked at her and nodded. “Thanks.” He didn’t know a thing about her. But if Jackson was cool with her . . .
Tucker was behind the wheel. He stuck his head out and told everyone to hop in or stay the hell away from the truck. Macy took up shotgun while Jackson and Kalani crawled up into the bed of the truck. That left Cole and Annica, and his dirt bike.
“I’ll meet you at the house,” Cole told him before turning to Annica. “You okay?”
“Are you?”
The truck tires squealed a chunk out of the road, engine roaring. Taillights shrinking. Annica shrinking in Cole’s embrace.
22
Annica
One relief in all of this was that Ethan could be kept occupied. He had a story to cover now. And there was also a juicy subplot for him—or so he’d probably like to think. Annica could tell, watching him sitting close and serious with Kalani, Ethan taking notes without breaking
eye contact with the young security guard. Annica could tell things were quickly becoming personal for him. Better Kalani than her.
“Looks like Ethan has a new angle,” Jackson said, holding a towel. “The water’s back and running again.”
Annica turned to him and took the towel into her arms. It felt warm and clean. She was careful not to let it touch too much of her beach-covered body. She was warm and most definitely not clean.
Jackson said, “Maybe she’ll take the heat off you?”
“I thought the tsunami would have done that,” she said. “But he’s tenacious.”
“In hunting down a story?”
“And other things,” Annica said. “Where did you get her?”
“From the island.”
“I mean, how? You put an ad in the paper?”
“Wherever I go, I’ve always got my feelers out for extra help. It’s rare that someone passes all the tests, but when they do, I give them a call. Normally it’s just to see them in person, to see if they’re qualified. But this time, we actually needed the help, and we needed it in a hurry.”
“I’m not sure if Cole thinks she’s qualified.”
Jackson shrugged and said, “I heard there were some pleasantries.”
“He doesn’t trust her.”
“It’s understandable. But I don’t trust his friend, this Tommy person. I was happy to just dump him off at the hospital.”
“Cole wants to go.”
“He can’t,” Jackson said. “And we can’t let him.”
She tried to imagine a world where Cole would ask for that sort of permission, where they would be in charge of letting or not letting him do whatever his mind made up. A world like that didn’t exist.
“What’s wrong?” Jackson said. “Worried you can’t convince him for us?”
Annica shrugged. There was a joke to be made, but she didn’t go for it. She looked at how nice and clean the towel looked. A shower was so needed . . .
“He’ll believe us,” Jackson said, “when we can show him the proof. When it’s all said and done.”
“But how can you believe this girl so easily?”
Dark Salvation (DARC Ops Book 7) Page 18
