Running on Empty (18 page)

The first two locations weren’t far apart but were at least twelve miles from the home base. If nothing popped at any of the locations, they’d have no choice but to accept Tyndall wasn’t in the area and return home. Noah felt in his gut that the man was close by.

“Okay, team, we know our mission, we know what’s at stake. Watch your back, watch each other’s. Let’s find our target and bring him home.”

He turned to Jake and Angela, who stood on the other side of the room. “We’ll keep our communication to a minimum unless there’s a problem.”

With her thick, black hair braided, fatigues covering her long, lithe body, Angela looked nothing like the over-pierced and tattooed receptionist and research assistant she’d once been. Now a full-fledged operative, she had proved herself more than once. Her dark, velvet-brown eyes showed none of the anxiousness he knew she was probably feeling as she said, “Godspeed.”

The tall, muscular man standing at her side was Jake Mallory, her fiancé and partner. A former Chicago cop, Jake was fiercely protective of Angela and would fight hell itself to keep her safe. 

Noah had a certain fondness for many of his operatives, but Angela was special. She’d been with LCR almost from the beginning and was like a little sister to him. On her very first op, she’d survived a brutal attack and had taken down a serial killer in the process. She was as capable as any operative, but knowing Jake had her back eased Noah’s mind.

 “Good luck,” Jake said. “We’ll keep the home fires burning.”

They traveled as far as they could in an old, beat-up, canvas-covered truck. Five of them sat in the back. Mathison drove, while McCall navigated. Once they reached the base of the mountain, they’d have to park the truck and head out on foot.

Talk was kept to a minimum. The expression on each person’s face was one of determination and resolve. From time to time, Declan caught glances or smiles passing between Sabrina and Thorne, but for the most part they seemed content to stay silent.

He tried to keep his own focus straight ahead. He had only one reason for being here. A distraction like whether or not Sabrina and Thorne had something going wasn’t something he planned to contemplate again.

Okay, yes, maybe he’d experienced some jealousy earlier. Actually, he wouldn’t even call it that. He just hadn’t liked that she’d gone off alone with a man while she was still legally bound to him. What man wouldn’t get pissed about that?

A human trait when he no longer felt human was probably some kind of a breakthrough. But the jealousy had passed. Sabrina was free to pursue other relationships, romantic or otherwise. It was none of his concern.

The truck slowed and then came to a loud, squeaking halt. Gathering their gear, they jumped from the back onto a pathway that had been created by their vehicle. The jungle surrounded them. Sounds he hadn’t heard since his rescue pounded incessantly in his ears. Declan swallowed back the bile gathering at the base of his throat. He was no longer a prisoner. This was just another step in taking back his life.

 While Mathison moved the truck deeper into the wilderness, McCall joined them. “Let’s get to cutting.”

With the exception of Declan, all operatives pulled knives from sheaths strapped to their thighs and went about cutting branches to hide the truck from the view of anyone who might pass by. Though it was hard, Declan squelched his resentment. They had given him no weapons. His gun had never been returned. Maybe their distrust was understandable, but it still infuriated him. Reminding himself that he didn’t need a weapon to kill did no good. Dammit, he felt naked.

“Here.”

Declan looked down at the soft, delicate hand holding a wicked-looking fixed-blade metal knife. Raising his gaze to her face, he looked into fathomless emerald-green eyes. “You trust me with this?”

A soft twist to her mouth and then, “If you wanted any of us dead, we both know you don’t require a weapon.”

Declan took the knife and joined the men cutting the branches. Though Thorne gave him a hard look, neither he nor anyone else objected to his help. For the first time in a very long while, he felt like he was actually doing something productive.

“Okay. That should be enough,” McCall said. “Let’s get it hidden and get going.”

With the branches they’d cut, it took barely ten minutes to completely hide the vehicle. Unless someone walked right into it, it should be here when they returned.

“Let’s move,” Mathison called out.

Without conscious thought, Declan slid the knife into his belt. It wasn’t until Thorne made a move toward him that he realized he’d done it. Before he could consider his options of either telling the asshole to back off or returning the knife to Sabrina, she grabbed Thorne’s arm and said, “It’s fine.”

Thorne gave him a hard look of warning but backed away. Good thing, that, but Declan knew at some point there would be a reckoning between the two of them. He looked forward to that day.

In silence and an odd but telling formation, they moved forward. Declan had McCall on one side of him, Mathison on the other. The young, solemn-faced Riley Ingram walked behind him, along with her partner, Justin Kelly. Both Ingram and Kelly had been eyeing him with equal parts distrust and hostility. Sabrina and Thorne walked in front. The positioning of each operative was deliberate. If he’d had any illusions that he was a trusted member of the team, they dissolved the moment they’d started their trek.

He told himself they were right to be wary. They’d allowed him to come along to help locate the prison, but he’d made no secret that he had his own agenda. If the two didn’t mesh, he wouldn’t hesitate to walk away and go off on his own.

Sabrina was the only oddity in their seeming unanimous distrust. Something had happened over the last couple of days, because she’d been treating him as if he was a member of the team. The knife had been a deliberate move to show him that trust. Not that she was playing the wife, but she seemed to have lost that edge of resentment she’d been carrying with her. She actually was acting as if life was almost normal.

If she believed that, she was delusional on top of being a traitor. 

Aidan could feel Steele’s hostile eyes burrowing into his back. The man didn’t trust him, but since the feeling was mutual, he had no issues with that. What did concern Aidan was Steele’s purpose in the group. He’d made it clear he was only here for himself. Even if Aidan could identify and understand his need for retribution, it didn’t belong on an LCR op. But McCall had made the decision to bring him on. Aidan disagreed with a lot of things in life, but he rarely disagreed with his boss. The man had his priorities straight. If he felt Steele should be on the team, he wasn’t going to argue with him. Didn’t mean he wouldn’t watch his back, though—or the backs of his fellow operatives. A man who’d had his humanity beaten out of him could be damn dangerous.

To be fair, he knew some of his ire was directed toward Sabrina. Why the hell hadn’t she told him she was married…and thought she was a widow? He figured the couple of months she’d taken off and then returned looking like a shadow of her former self must’ve been when she’d thought Steele had been killed. Dammit, he had even teased her about having a hot and heavy love affair. She’d just smiled. And now he felt like an ass.

“I know you’re angry at me.”

Sabrina’s words broke into the silence. She had kept her voice low so only he heard.

“You should’ve told me.”

“You’re right, I should have. I actually planned to tell you about him right before we got tapped for the Elite team. But then—”

 “That’s when you thought he was killed?”

“Yeah.” Her voice went even softer. “I couldn’t talk about him then. Hurt too much.”

“I don’t understand why you kept it a secret in the first place. Hell, LCR has a lot of married operatives.”

“True.” Her shoulders lifted in a defensive shrug. “I just don’t like to talk about myself.”

He snorted. “You got that right.”

Instead of apologizing again, she shot him a hard look. “And you’re an open book? You’ve told me all there is to know about Aidan Thorne, right?”

“I’ve told you—”

She cut him off with a wave of her hand. “Cut the crap, Aidan. You’ve told me what you could, just like I told you what I could. Noah doesn’t hire people whose lives have been full of sunshine. So either quit giving me your bullshit line of an uncomplicated and happy past or spill all those secrets you hide behind that Prince Charming demeanor.”

Aidan slammed his mouth shut. Hell, she was right. He had no right to expect her to reveal her secrets when he had so many dark ones of his own. Acknowledging the well-aimed arrow with a slight nod, he said, “I still trust you more than anyone I know.”

Showing him once again that grudges weren’t her thing, she shot him a smile. “Right back at you, partner.”

Declan heard the soft whispers of the two people in front of him. Their voices were too low to make out their words, but he could tell from their tones that there had been irritation and then an almost amused affection before they’d gone silent. That reinforced his belief that Sabrina and Thorne had more than just a working relationship going on. Why that bothered him, he had no idea. He told himself because it was just damn rude and tried like hell to make that opinion stick.

The sun was high in the sky, and though the foliage above blocked much of the direct heat, it was still hotter than blazes. The only sounds besides their trudging, determined strides were the normal jungle sounds. All-too-familiar noises to Declan. How many nights had he lain awake listening to the roar of predators and the squeal of victims? Life, whether in the wild or in urban cities, was much the same. The strong devoured the weak.

The sounds opened up more memories. The pounding of fists into his gut, the slash of a whip slicing into his skin, the awful, insidious voices telling him things he couldn’t bear to hear.
She’s responsible. She betrayed you. Hate her, hate her, hate her.

“You okay?”

He was jerked out of the darkness.
Sabrina.
How could she pull him away from the horror when she was the one who’d put him there? Her concerned, searching expression was one he bitterly resented. “I—”

“Let’s take ten, everyone.” McCall’s voice cut off what would have been Declan’s snarl.

Unwilling to admit his weariness, Declan glared at the LCR leader. “You don’t need to stop on my account.”

Not one to pull punches, McCall snapped back, “Carrying your ass for the next six miles isn’t my idea of a good time. It won’t hurt any of us to take a break.”

Protesting any more would only make him sound petulant. Besides, with sweat dripping down his body and his breathing escalated to pants, it’d be an obvious lie. As much as Declan resented the extra concession, McCall was right. Collapsing at their feet wouldn’t do any of them any good.

Declan dropped his gear and sat down on top of it. He noticed that he wasn’t the only one who looked ready to drop. Everyone was sweating profusely.

Setting her gear a few feet away from Declan, Sabrina took a long swallow of water from her canteen. She had done her best to glance his way only occasionally. Showing him concern was only going to put his back up. Many things had changed about her husband, but that fierce Scottish pride was still intact. When she had glanced at him that last time, her concern had overridden her need to protect his ego. He’d looked ready to keel over. He was in just as good shape as any of the other team members, so she knew much of his fatigue had to be mental. How difficult it must be to return to the hell you thought you had escaped. 

She pulled a pack of moist towelettes from her backpack and slid one out. Giving little thought to how it looked, she handed the pack over to Declan. He took it from her, pulled one out and then handed the pack back. They both wiped their faces, and then Declan held out his hand for her soiled wipe. She handed it to him, and he tucked them both into a vinyl pocket in his backpack. 

Then, as if it was just as natural, he pulled an energy bar from another pocket and tossed it to her. She caught the snack with one hand and threw him a smile of thanks. Unwrapping it, she bit off a bite and then froze as she realized that everyone’s eyes were on her and Declan. She swallowed her mouthful and said, “What?”

Justin Kelly tilted his head toward Declan. “I take it you two worked ops with each other?”

They had unconsciously reverted back to being partners, their routine as familiar to her as cleaning her gun. She glanced over at Declan to see if he realized what had happened. By the fury in his eyes and the bitter twist to his mouth, he had and obviously didn’t like it one bit. Well, tough shit. 

“Declan and I were partners for two years before I left the Agency.”

“Why’d you leave?”

The question wasn’t a surprise, the questioner was. Riley Ingram rarely took a personal interest in anyone beyond what the mission required. Despite her delight that the young operative had done something that showed she was actually more than an emotionless robot, Sabrina found it difficult to answer with any degree of honesty. Her reasons for leaving EDJE were intensely personal.

“She had to stop killing.”

Her head whipped around. “Stop it, Declan.”

“What?” His voice held a mocking amusement. “Is that something your LCR chums don’t know? You think they’ll think less of you if they discover that you were an assassin?”

“I’m not ashamed of my former occupation.”

“Why should you be? You were born to kill.”

Wearing identical expressions of barely concealed fury, both Aidan and Justin went to their feet. Declan arched a dark brow and stayed seated, but the mocking glint of amusement stayed. It was obvious he wanted to fight. So different from Declan, the peacemaker. Her heart ached at the change.

“I know a thing or two about killing,” Cole Mathison’s deep voice broke into the tenseness. “There are some who kill for entertainment…for pleasure. Sabrina might have been good at her job, but she wasn’t born to kill. I’d say each kill took something out of her.”