Talon: Combat Tracking Team (A Breed Apart) (37 page)

Across the street. He saw the opening to the alley. Saw the laundry strung from balcony to balcony. The clothes draped the alley in darkness. No way to see if Aspen was there. Or still there.
Or alive
.

Oh man. He didn’t need that thought.

Chest burning, legs rubbery, Cardinal pushed. Hard. Harder.

A car burst from the left.

Cardinal dove over it. Banged his knee. Cursed but didn’t stop, despite the numbing pain. Couldn’t slow. Couldn’t stop. Aspen.

Weakness gripped him. Slowed him. His mind screamed not to slow. His body warred for supremacy.

A scream from the alley punched through his chest, ripped his heart out and bungeed it back to its owner.

“As—” Her name caught in his dried throat. He nearly choked on the gust of air and his parched esophagus.

Overhead the clothes danced like soulless ghouls hovering over the city.

Cardinal propelled himself the last dozen feet, the material flapping above. A fourth building behind the one with the satellites shielded the location from sun.

A blur exploded from that direction. Rammed into him. Knocked him backward, into the plaster wall of the satellite building. He clamped his arms around whatever barreled into him.

A scream blasted his ears. Another scream. Barking and tiny punches against his leg warned him of the dog. His mind reengaged as the curls bounced in his face. The fist drove forward. He narrowly avoided another jolt with her fist. “Aspen!”

The writhing, flailing frame of Aspen Courtland slowed. Terrified eyes stared up at him. “Dane?” Her confusion bled into sheer panic. She fisted his shirt. “Dane!” She glanced back. “They shot him!”

He guided her out of the sniper’s line of sight, his mind roaring at the sight of blood on her face and shoulder. “You’re bleeding.”

As if the words slowly brought reality into a violent collision with her nightmare, Aspen looked down at her clothes. “No…” She shook her head and swallowed. “It’s not my blood. It’s his. They shot him. He was right there helping me, and they shot him.”

“Who?”

She bunched her shoulders, as if warding off the pain, the trauma. She swiveled around and pointed. Aspen jerked. Looked to the left, the right. “He…” She covered her mouth with her hand then lowered it, her eyes glossing. “He…he was right there. He collapsed.” She slumped back against him, and he could tell she was about to lose it. “He was
right
there. Dead. He was
dead!”

“Hey, it’s okay.”

She jerked to him. “No. It’s not okay. They shot him. I saw it. Now he’s gone. But I saw it, Dane. I did!”

“Hey.” He tightened his hold very gently, just enough to give her some grounding, some reassurance. “Let’s get out of here, get you and Talon to safety. We’ll sort it out there. We have sat imaging, so we can scour to see what happened.”

Her vacant expression warned him of the shock taking over.

“Aspen?”

Pools of pale blue looked up at him. Her chin trembled.

Cardinal wrapped his arm around her and tugged her close. “Just…hold on. I’ll get us out of here.” He couldn’t let her fall apart till they were no longer in the open. He cupped her face, searching for recognition that she was with him. “Okay, Angel?”

He held her face. Did he know he held her heart?

Calling her Angel—the nickname her parents and grandparents had given her as a little girl—it righted her universe. Enabled her to muster the minuscule drops of courage left after seeing that man shot right in front of her.

Aspen lifted her jaw. She would not be a teary, whiny basket case in his arms. She swallowed, coiled Talon’s lead around her wrist once more, then gave Dane a nod.

Dane wrapped his hand around hers. “Okay, hold on. Don’t let go. We’re going to the safe house.”

“Got it.” And she did. She got it that Dane was there to help. That even though he said not to trust him, his actions demanded it of her time and again. And honestly, she had no problem giving it. No problem letting him shoulder the burden of this disaster. It was nice not having to carry the world on her back.

He stalked through the alleys at a pretty fast clip, eyes alert, tension radiating off his strong build. The moments before he showed up were like being on a Tilt-a-Whirl at a fair, where the lights, the images, the people all blurred into one frenetic mural of chaos. Then Dane stepped in, caught her, and made everything right again.

Darkness had descended by the time they made it out of the shops and tangle of street vendors into the dusty, abandoned section of Djibouti City. A million questions peppered her mind, but she stowed them. The night, the danger, the men—they all prompted her to follow his lead. If he wasn’t talking, she wouldn’t talk. If he walked fast, she walked fast. If he slowed, as he had now, then she slowed.

“Just a little more,” he said, sounding as tired as she felt.

As they strolled up the street, she spotted Santos’s home. Would Dane lead them there?

Almost as soon as the thought flickered through her exhausted mind, he crossed the street, slipping behind a row of crumbling buildings. “You don’t trust him.”

“I don’t trust anyone.”

The retort was so quick, so sharp, she wasn’t sure if that included her. She prayed it didn’t. But she was too exhausted to fight the sadness that encompassed her. What was keeping him locked up, his heart smothered?

She stumbled, her feet tripping over each other. She grunted—everything hurt. Her eyes burned, her feet ached, her back throbbed, her mind screamed…yet her soul was quiet.

I don’t understand, Lord
. She should be a cracked nut by now. But she wasn’t. Why?

A verse from Psalm 23 drifted into her mind:
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”
She had nothing to fear. Yet she had everything to fear—the man, whoever he was, warning her to get out before she got hurt. Austin—where was he? They were in this place, and it seemed everything was going wrong. Yet she had peace. The same peace that carried her into the dilapidated safe house.

Holding her hand, Dane shifted, bolted the door with all four dead bolts. Her shoes crunched over the dirt and debris. Talon padded along beside her, head down, shoulders drooping. In the middle of the building, a room had been walled in to prevent light from seeping out and giving away their position.

Dane gave a quick rap then eased into the room.

Two men dressed in ACUs stood with M4s aimed at the door—at them. Aspen remembered them from Candyman’s team, which made her wonder where he and Timbrel were.

Inside, Dane engaged the locks as he said, “Evening, gentlemen.”

Rocket let out a whistle. “You scared us. Nobody said you were coming.”

“Sorry. Didn’t tell anyone. Going to use the back rooms. You got motion detectors out there, right?”

Rocket nodded.

“Shoot to kill anyone else who shows up.” Dane started for the back then stopped. “How’d you get off base?”

Rocket shrugged with a cheeky grin that Aspen didn’t quite understand. “After that little diversion, word came down it was a false alarm.”

“Huh. Well, glad you’re here. She needs to rest and eat.”

“Scrip here can get something cooked up.” Rocket nodded to his partner.

“No,” Aspen said, her objection much weaker than she’d intended, “it’s okay.”

“Bring her whatever you can.” Dane strode toward the back with her in tow.

She peered up at him. Why had he countered her?

“You need the nourishment to rest well.”

Only as he turned did she realize they were still holding hands. He hadn’t let go. He hadn’t surrendered his position of control. And he was still asking her to trust him. Did he realize that?

In the back he led them into the rear room. A bunk bed, a table, and chairs hunkered in one corner against a peeling and cracked wall. A makeshift shower stood in the other with a curtain pinned to the walls that stood at right angles.

“Here.” Dane guided her onto the lower bunk and squatted in front of her, once again cupping her face. “Rest. I’ll be here. So will Talon.”

“Talon…he needs water.”

“I’ll see to it. Just rest.” With that, he slipped out and returned in what felt like seconds later with a bowl of water. He set it in front of Talon, who splashed it around as he inhaled the liquid.

Dane smoothed a hand along her cheek again. “Aspen, rest.”

Mutely, she obeyed. Curled on the gray mattress with the thin sheet wrapped around her shoulders, Aspen stared at the ground. At nothing in particular. Just something for her gaze to rest on. The replay of those terrifying seconds in the alley replayed over and over. She shuddered, her mind taking every element down to the microsecond. Talon had never hit or alerted to the danger. Strange.

She must’ve drifted off to sleep because when her eyes opened next, Dane was gone. Aspen drew herself off the mattress and sat propped against the wall, her knees pulled against her chest. She tugged the sheet around her. Not that she was cold. She wasn’t. Couldn’t be—not in one-hundred-plus-degree weather. But there a chill coiled around her bones. From the stress. The anxiety. The man calling Talon by name.

“You okay?”

She turned, feeling numb and out of touch with reality. Dane eased into a chair in front of a computer, the side door ajar. She pushed the curls from her face and drew in a long breath, her mind hung up on the man in the alley. “I think I knew him.”

Dane sat back, expectation hovering in his handsome features. “Yeah?”

She shook her head and shrugged at the same time. “I don’t know. It’s ludicrous to think someone I might know or have met is here in Djibouti, the armpit of the world.”

“But…”

“There was just…something.” She sighed. “I can’t explain it.” As she extended her legs so they draped over the edge of the mattress, Talon pushed himself upright and cast those soulful brown orbs her way. His gaze darted to the mattress then to her as if begging for permission. Like he needed to. “Hup,” she said and held her palm out over the mattress.

He leapt up and slumped against her side. She wrapped her arms around him, finding familiar strength and warmth in his pure devotion and loyalty.

“So, he felt familiar? Or something?”

“Yeah.” Aspen dug her fingers into Talon’s fur and bent to kiss his head. “Even Talon never made strange with him.”

“Is that unusual?”

“Think about when you first met him.”

Dane nodded. “Noted.”

“A total stranger, and Talon doesn’t warn the guy off with a throaty growl?”

“Do you think it could’ve been Austin?”

“No. He didn’t look anything like my brother.”

“You’re sure?”

She laughed. “Trust me, I know my brother.”

“Disguised, maybe?”

Searching her memory banks, she scoured the mental notes of the man. “No,” she said slowly. “He didn’t look anything like my brother. Black hair—”

“Could be dye.”

“Brown eyes—Austin had blue like mine.”

“Contacts.”

Aspen wrinkled her nose. “Wrong nose. Austin’s was aquiline. This guy’s nose was hooked.”

“Broken nose?”

“No, it was wide and hooked—what is this? I told you I didn’t know this guy.”

“I know, but sometimes it’s those things that feel familiar, that we can’t quite finger, that are the biggest connectors. Can you think of anything else that seemed similar or familiar?”

She sought more differences, but it stopped there. “No.” And thank goodness. She couldn’t grapple with the thought that the man could have been Austin and now he was shot and killed, right in front of her eyes. A shudder wiggled through her spine.

Dane stood and came to the bed. He perched on the edge next to her, making her stomach squirm. “But you said he felt familiar.”

She nodded as she traced his profile and frowned when his jaw muscle popped. “What are you thinking?”

His steel eyes rammed into hers, sending a silent, intense signal of warning. “I have to go back to the alley.”

“No!” She shoved off the wall and scooted to the edge of the bunk bed. “Are you crazy? Someone was out there
sniping
at us, and you just want to walk back into the middle of that?”

“Not want, have to.” He remained undeterred. “Two things need to be ascertained—whether the man is dead and who he is. Why he knew what he knew.”

“Maybe he knew Santos. There are a thousand explanations. But you don’t have to go.” Her heart pounded at the thought of him out there, exposed and getting shot at. “Please.”

He hesitated, watching her. A war seemed to erupt within him, dancing in his blue eyes. It was something deep, something…dark. “I
have
to do this.”

Somehow Aspen knew that this moment was a new one for Dane. In all the times they’d been working on finding Austin, he had rarely taken the time to explain what he was doing or justify it.

He was opening up to her. Something told her to give him the room to do it. To give him another reason to trust her. She almost smiled as that
word—trust—sneaked
into their relationship again. “Okay.”

Dane’s eyebrows danced for a second. “That was easy.”

She laughed. “I’m never easy.”