Cover of Darkness

by Kaylea Cross

  Some tiny part of her, a part that shamed her, wanted to watch the warhead go off and know Tehrazzi was being blown to bits. But mostly the idea of watching and knowing someone was dying shriveled her insides. Especially when innocent people might be involved.

  “Any civilians in there?”

  Dec went dead still. “No. Look, maybe you should—”

  “I’ll come with you.” She didn’t want to be left by herself, so she’d go with him and shut her eyes, pray with everything she had that no innocent blood would be shed.

  He hesitated. “I’d rather you didn’t.” It wasn’t a command, though.

  He didn’t want her seeing it. How did he cope with this part of his job? “I’m coming.”

  She shadowed him to the crest of the hill, where the village came into view, a cluster of five or six mud houses in the middle of the desert. She had to wonder what the lives of these villagers were like, what sort of existence they eked out in such a barren, lonely place.

  They waited in absolute silence for Luke to apprise them of the situation. When the report came Dec whispered, “Affirm,” into his mic. “Air strike inbound.” He indicated the house furthest to the left.

  Rather than cowering from what was going to happen, as she wanted to, an alarming excitement bubbled up inside her. Ashamed, she stared at the dimly lit windows of the target house and reminded herself that other people might be in there too. “Tehrazzi’s really inside?”

  “Yeah. When I tell you, get your head down and keep your eyes shut or you’ll toast your retinas.”

  The alien emotion intensified, roaring through her in a frightening rush of vengeance and glee. The man responsible for her father’s death and all her suffering was about to meet his demise. Her hands shook as she scanned through the built-in high-powered binoculars. Gotcha, you bastard.

  Dec glanced at her, then confirmed into his mic that there was no additional activity. He pulled a map out of his vest pocket and double-checked the coordinates with Luke. “Stay here,” he ordered her. “I’m going to go a little further and make sure we haven’t been spotted. Don’t move until I come back.”

  She froze in place as he crept forward and disappeared from view. Left alone on the cool sand, she lay there, afraid to move, her pulse beating a frantic tattoo.

  Then voices broke the stillness, barely detectible.

  Heart lodged in her throat, Bryn swiveled her head. Two shadowy figures had appeared in the distance. A young girl led a donkey by its halter, chattering to a child perched on its swaying back. What in God’s name were they doing out alone at night? They headed down the dirt road straight toward the house where Tehrazzi was apparently holed up.

  Every muscle in her body went rigid with denial. “Oh no…”

  Had Dec heard the kids? Did he know they were in danger? Could he alert the children before the air strike?

  Not if he hadn’t seen them.

  What should she do? She was too afraid to yell out in case someone started shooting, but no way could she sit back and let those children suffer. The breath shot in and out of her nose as she counted backward from ten, praying Dec would do something so she wouldn’t have to.

  Ten, nine, eight…

  The little boy laughed. Bryn squeezed her eyes shut.

  Four, three, two…

  No Dec.

  One.

  Bryn took off running. Her thigh muscles bunched as she scrambled down the rise, breath coming in jerky gasps. The ill-fitting helmet jiggled up and down, obscuring her vision, so she yanked at the chinstrap and shoved the thing off her head. And kept running. She had to get there before the air strike. Had to save the kids.

  “Bryn!”

  Ignoring Dec’s shout, she sprinted hard, fueled by adrenaline. Bouncing off rocks and boulders, she reached the road and scrambled to her feet, breath sawing in and out of her lungs in sobs. She could not let innocent children be caught up in this.

  “Bryn, no!”

  She ignored him. The children weren’t stopping. She opened her mouth and screamed the Arabic word for stop. It came out in a high-pitched wail, and both children jerked around to face her in fear. “Stop! Go back!” she yelled, waving her arms in a frantic effort to get them to move. “Run!”

  But rather than scurry away from her as she’d intended, the girl yanked on the donkey’s halter and hurried toward the house, probably terrified of the apparition screaming at them in the middle of the desert.

  “Go back!” she yelled again, slipping into English.

  The girl kept going.

  Something heavy slammed into Bryn’s back, tumbling her into the dirt. Dec, shielding her with his body, the air strike moments away. He pressed her down, begging her to stay still, but she couldn’t give up. Pinned beneath him, she raised her head and stared helplessly at the children.

  She was too late. As if in slow motion, the toddler atop the donkey looked back at her, shadowed eyes wide as he advanced unknowingly toward his death. The image burned its way into her brain.

  “No!” She couldn’t bear this. Couldn’t live with it.

  A quiet hiss reached her.

  “Head down! Close your eyes!”

  She struggled in Dec’s grip. Then the missile hit the building and exploded, the pulse of light blinding her. Dec tried to cover her eyes but the blast wave knocked him off her and slammed them into a rock. He cushioned the blow for her, but the air around them burned like a blowtorch as debris flew.

  Her lungs felt scorched, her face singed as she struggled to her hands and knees, fighting hysteria, the concussion of the blast driving the breath from her. The house was nothing more than a pile of burning rubble. She couldn’t see the children. Where were they? Maybe they’d been far enough away from the explosion. Maybe they were still alive. She had to find them.

  Her legs wobbled under her as she staggered to her feet. Dec was rolling to his hands and knees as she passed him at a jerky run toward the wreckage. Dec pounded over the sand behind her, coming up fast, closer and closer.

  She found a new burst of speed. Her heart and lungs screamed in protest as she forced her body to its limit, eyes fixed on the carnage before her. Gasping from the prolonged exertion, she stumbled to a halt where the children should have been. Kneeling, she began digging with single-minded intent, heedless of the sharp timber and rock slicing her hands and arms.

  “Come on, come on!” She grunted, hefting a chunk of wall out of the way. In the gap she’d opened, a foot appeared. Small. Unmoving. The little boy.

  Stricken, she sat immobile for a split second, mind refusing to acknowledge what was right in front of her eyes. A wail of grief tore from her throat and she clawed at the surrounding rubble, exposing more of the crushed body.

  Hard hands closed around her shoulders, dragging her up and away. She struck out mindlessly, screaming as she lashed out with a solid elbow to the throat. The hands released her immediately and she fell to the ground, scrambling back to the young body.

  Someone grabbed her again, tighter this time, around her ribs. Almost cutting off her air.

  “Bryn. Bryn!” Dec.

  She fought him like a madwoman. “Let me go!” she screeched, landing another blow to his face, but he blocked it, swearing. He tried to snatch her again, missed. Back on her knees she went, tearing at the rocks covering the little legs. If she could just free him, maybe it wasn’t too late. They could take him on the helicopter to a hospital.

  Someone else grabbed hold of her, far less gently. Spinning to throw a punch, she came face to face with Luke. Illuminated by the ghastly orange light of the flames, the look in his eyes should have scared the hell out of her, but she was beyond reason.

  He shook her once, hard, making her head snap back. “Get out of here, now.” He shoved her toward Dec.

  With a cry of outrage, she lashed out at Luke with the side of her hand. Quick as lightning he whipped her arm up and behind her, held it there on the point of pain, where he could snap the bones with one t
wist of his wrist. His expression was unyielding. “Don’t make me hurt you, Bryn.”

  “You bastard,” she wept, struggling futilely. “Let me get him out at least!”

  “No. You’re going to turn around and get your ass on that incoming chopper, and you’re going to do it now.”

  “Bryn, come on,” Dec urged. “Come with me.”

  “I can’t just leave him here! Don’t you understand?” Their callous indifference was unbelievable.

  “There’s nothing you can do,” Luke said tightly, hauling her toward Dec.

  “I won’t leave him like that.” She twisted hard, a wrenching pain in her elbow as she resisted Luke, not caring if she dislocated her arm.

  Suddenly his hands clamped on either side of her neck in a pressure lock. She squeaked and tried to break it, but he’d moved in too close and she didn’t have any leverage. Within seconds her vision went hazy, and she went down.

  ****

  Dec leapt toward her as she fell. “Jesus,” he exclaimed, catching her dead weight an instant before she hit the ground. He hauled her into his arms and shot Luke a glare. “What the hell—”

  “She lost it,” he said with a shrug, starting for the rendezvous point without a backwards glance. “I didn’t hurt her. She’ll come to in a minute.”

  For Christ’s sake, he could have broken her neck. Or strangled her. Bryn hung limply in his arms, face streaked with grime and tears. Ali was gaping at them with his mouth open, backing away to give him room to move her. Shifting her carefully onto his shoulder, Dec hustled them down the road into a clearing to await the helo.

  “Bryn? Baby, can you hear me?” He set her on the ground and took her face in his hands, reassured by the steady throb of her carotid pulse in the hollow beneath her ear.

  “She’ll be fine,” Luke said.

  Dec aimed a lethal glare at him. “Don’t fucking touch her again, do you hear me? I could have handled it without hurting her.”

  Luke stopped in the midst of reloading his rifle, gazing back at him with unnerving, icy eyes. “Yeah, I saw how well you were handling it.”

  Dec looked away, feeling dirty. Would he end up like Luke if he stayed in the Teams long enough? Only to wake up one day and not recognize the man staring back at him in the mirror?

  The thump of the inbound helo’s rotors saved him from thinking about it anymore. When it touched down he lifted Bryn to one of the crewmembers and climbed aboard, pulling her inert form into the cradle of his lap. When Ali and Luke swung in beside them, she moaned and stirred, eyes flickering beneath her closed lids.

  “We’re on the helo,” he told her, keeping his voice low and soothing. “Just a while longer. We’re going to land near the closest city and get you to a hotel.”

  Her lashes fluttered, then she was looking up at him with dark, confused eyes.

  “Hi,” he said. “You feeling okay?”

  She winced. “My neck hurts.”

  “Yeah. Getting knocked unconscious will do that to you.” His fingers moved to massage the knotted muscles where a bruise was already forming. He sent another dark glance at Luke, who was manning the doorway as they flew over the target to reconnoiter. They made another pass when he commanded it.

  “Clean-up crew’s on its way,” the pilot informed them. “They’ll get DNA to ID the tangos.”

  Bryn stiffened in his arms, and he knew she’d just remembered the kid buried in the wreckage. Dec didn’t know what to say so he simply held her, willing her to take what comfort she could from him.

  They flew to a point outside of Najaf, then used a borrowed pickup to drive to a small hotel. Bryn remained silent throughout the hour-long journey, staring stonily ahead through the windshield, holding herself rigid between him and Ali.

  He wet a spare t-shirt with some water and scrubbed most of the camo paint from her face, as gently as possible, but she still wouldn’t look at him. Maybe she thought he was a murderer now. The idea hit him square in the gut.

  When he helped her down from the truck at the hotel her legs buckled. He and Ali held her up between them, trying to draw as little attention to them as possible as they crossed the darkened parking lot. They waited in the back stairwell until Luke came to give them their room keys, and pretty much carried her up the stairs to her room. Dec went in with her while Luke disappeared down the hallway to their shared room.

  Ali took off after him and the door shut behind them with a thud. Pushing away, Bryn headed to the bathroom, but not before he saw her slim shoulders quaking with silent sobs.

  “Bryn—”

  She shook her head. “I need to…be alone,” she quavered. “Please.”

  And so he stood there like an idiot while she locked herself in the bathroom to cry her heart out.

  God, he hated this. Hated that she’d gotten involved in the first place, and that she’d had to witness the awful things she’d seen today. There was nothing he could say or do to erase them. The least he could do was let her grieve in private. He dragged his hands over his hair, down his face.

  With a heavy heart, he made sure her door was securely locked and went to his own room. As he entered Luke grunted in greeting, cell phone in hand. The hiss of the shower running made him assume Ali was in the bathroom. “Clean-up team got the samples. They’re at the lab now. Damage was too bad to confirm whether Tehrazzi was in there.”

  Yeah, well, when a Hellfire missile hit a mud building, there usually wasn’t much left afterward.

  “Don’t think we got him, though. I took a shot at someone on horseback leaving the scene. Might have winged him. We’ll find out soon enough.”

  Horseback? Why the hell would Tehrazzi be on a horse? He stalked over to the sink and grabbed a washcloth, ran the faucet and scrubbed at his paint. Luke tossed him a bottle of Head and Shoulders—he’d be damned if he’d say thank you—and Dec squeezed some onto the washcloth without a word. As always, the camo came off like magic. For good measure he splashed handfuls of cold water on his face, wondering what in hell to do about Bryn.

  Shit, she was going to be so traumatized, PTSD was going to seem like a picnic. He knew those kids’ deaths had ripped a hole in her soul. His wasn’t feeling good at the moment either. He’d never been responsible for a child’s death. God, he felt like puking. He dried his face, Luke watching him in the mirror.

  The older man leaned back in his chair, laced his hands behind his head. “So, how’s our girl doing?”

  Dec rinsed the sink out. “She’s locked herself in the bathroom.”

  A beat passed. “Better not leave her alone too long. She’s probably damn sore.”

  He gave Luke a scowl via the mirror. “Ya think?”

  The other man ignored him, went to pick up the remote from the nightstand and started flipping through the channels. He decided on a news program and settled back against the headboard, crossing his ankles and looking for all the world like the most relaxed guy on the planet. Without taking his eyes off the TV, he asked, “So, you gonna leave her in there by herself?”

  “She said she wanted to be alone.”

  “Bad idea.”

  “Really.” He’d love to tell the guy what he could do with his unsolicited opinion.

  “Yeah. Leaving her alone right now is a piss-poor idea. Gives her too much time to think.” More flip-flip with the remote.

  Yeah, well, after today any chances he had with her were pretty much over, so what did it matter? And even though he longed to go to her, he couldn’t cross that line until this mission was over.

  He’d already come close a few times, so he damn well couldn’t be trusted alone with her. His rational brain would shut down, rendering him a mass of primitive male instinct, dying to comfort her any way she’d let him. And he knew she would let him.

  Luke sighed. “Look, McCabe, this is off the record. I’m not worried about you compromising our mission because of the way you feel about her.”

  “I don’t—”

  He held up a hand. �
��Save it, son. I wasn’t born yesterday, and my eyesight is just fine, even if I am an old turd. So here it is, Lieutenant. You want her, you better get your ass in there within the next two minutes, or it’ll be too late.”

  Dec could hardly believe his ears.

  “Yeah, I’m getting fucking soft in my old age. Just go already,” he continued, checking the cell phone on the nightstand. “Trust me, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life if you don’t.”

  Dec had no idea what that cryptic comment meant, but understood the wisdom behind it. Even if the sight of him turned her stomach right now, she shouldn’t have to deal with the aftermath alone. “Don’t wait up.”

  Luke’s lips curved, but his eyes were fixed on the TV. “Get your ass out of here.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  A few minutes after Dec left, Ali emerged from the bathroom and mumbled something about going out for a while. As the door shut behind him, Luke sighed and flopped against the pillow, suddenly tired to the bone. The day’s operation was just one in a long line of missions he’d undertaken in the name of duty, but in some ways it felt like the one that would seal his fate in hell.

  On the backs of his closed lids, he could see Bryn’s face as she took off after those kids, her expression when she’d crawled through the rubble to dig like a desperate animal for the small foot poking out from the debris.

  He thought of Tehrazzi. Tried to figure out what he would do now. Right after the warhead had exploded, some sixth sense had made Luke double back to the edge of the village. Through his NVGs he’d seen the outline of someone galloping away on horseback.

  Without a doubt, Tehrazzi. He’d taken a shot even though the rider was well out of range, and thought he might have clipped one of them—Tehrazzi or the horse—but then he’d heard the yelling over his radio and had to run interference with Bryn to get everyone on the helo before anyone unfriendly came looking for them.

  In his mind he replayed the moment he’d fired his weapon, staring through the scope at Tehrazzi’s fleeing back. He could have sworn the horse stumbled an instant after he’d pulled the trigger. Yeah, he might have hit it. Talk about putting a hitch in your giddy-up. Tehrazzi would lose it if anything happened to his horse.