Torrent (Cosmic Forces Book 1) (4 page)

S
urely the privateer
wouldn’t shoot her, would he? Alyssa’s heartbeat was so strong and loud she thought it would drown out the privateer’s words. He leered at her, his hair scruffy and long, in a ponytail that wasn’t much thicker than the tails of the rats that overran their building. They were the only creatures that fared well in the new Texas, the new Houston. His goatee was hit or miss, the hair growth scant, and emphasized a jagged white scar that crossed his chin at a diagonal.

Beady eyes studied her, dark brows drawn in a vee. “You have two choices. Unconscious and painful, conscious and pain-free. Relatively.”

His men snickered at the word
relatively
.

Alyssa looked at the girls. Marie and Michelle, twin sixteen-year-olds, Hailey, their seventeen-year-old neighbor, and her now unconscious brother, Peter. She couldn’t risk their getting hurt. But what if the fate that awaited them was worse? Could it be?

While she measured her options, something dark, a silhouette, crossed behind the privateers. Alyssa fought the urge to look at the shadow. It couldn’t be a privateer; he’d be out in the open, with them, not lurking in shadows.

Was it a Leaguer? They worked
with
the privateers, not against them. They’d have no reason to hide, either.

She looked down at her feet to keep the privateers from noticing her curiosity.

A grunt made her look up. One of the privateers was on the ground. It was the one with the pistol, the leader.

He was clutching his stomach, his face a mask of pain. Blood gurgled out of his mouth.

Michelle started to scream. Alyssa reached for her, held her close. Marie’s scream echoed, bouncing off the buildings.

One of the remaining privateers looked wide-eyed at his leader. On the ground, the former leader’s limbs jerked twice, then stopped.

Alyssa gasped as she recognized the form attacking the second privateer, the one with the machete. It was the stranger who’d come to their home looking for Guillermo, the man she’d found on the rooftop.

“You.” The word escaped her.

The stranger cast her a glance, then with quick hand movements disarmed the man with the machete and turned the machete on him. One slash, and the man was bleeding from his throat.

The stranger moved with a speed and ease that could only mean one thing.

Soldier.

Trained in the art of killing.

And soldiers were not typically the friends of Texans. Not these days.

“Oh, God. You killed him. Oh my God.” Alyssa’s words escaped her before she could quell them.

The third privateer glanced between them, wide-eyed. “Oh man, you screwed up. Man—” He dropped the weapon he’d used on Peter. “You’re gonna pay for this.” With his final word, he ran away from them, looking back over his shoulder, a fearful look in his eyes.

The stranger glanced at the departing privateer, then back at Alyssa, as though he was making a decision.

“I didn’t have a choice. It was you or them.” He removed a hand that had been holding his arm. The moisture of blood glistened in the dark night, black against his skin.

“You’re wounded.” Alyssa let go of Michelle, squeezing her hand to reassure her. “Check on Peter,” she instructed the girls. “Try to wake him.”

Alyssa stepped closer to the man—the stranger—the soldier. “Who are you?”

“Just a man who thought he could help.”

“You saved us. The bodies will draw attention. A search, even.”

“Which is why you need to get on your way,” he told her, his face expressionless.

“You’re bleeding.” She stepped closer to him. There was something about him, something about his eyes, something about everything about this man. She couldn’t even think straight around him. “Let me help you.”

“Help yourselves. You need help more than I do. You’re risking your life to teach these…” His eyes traveled over the teens. “To teach them how to read so they can work in a factory. What use is algebra or history to them there?”

Fury burned deep within her, all-consuming and deep. She had been a teacher. She had given her life to teaching. Who was he to denigrate that choice?

“You don’t know if—” She balled her fists and glared into his light blue eyes, looked deep within them, trying to ascertain if this was something he really felt or if he was just being an asshole.

It didn’t matter. His reasons were irrelevant. She turned her back on him and knelt next to Peter.

“How’s he doing?” she asked Michelle.

“He groaned once.”

“That’s a good sign.” She shook his shoulder gently. “Wake up, Peter. We have to get you home.” She looped one of her arms under his, and indicated for Marie to do the same. “You take his feet,” she told Michelle.

Peter, coming to, struggled and wriggled in their grasp. “I can walk. Let me down.”

It would be quicker if he walked than if they carried him. Alyssa nodded to the girls, and they set him down. Peter steadied himself, a hand on her shoulder.

“What happened?” He glanced down, saw the two fallen privateers. “What the hell?”

“They attacked us,” Alyssa said.

“I know, but what happened to them?”

“One of Alyssa’s friends attacked them,” Marie piped up.

Alyssa gasped. “No. Not a friend.” She glanced back. The man was gone.

“You were talking to him.” Michelle frowned at her. “Who is he?”

“Just… just someone that I… that I’ve met. Once. More or less.” She ran her hands over her jeans to dry the sweat off them. “Can we go? This is really cutting it close.”

“What about the bodies?” Peter asked. “If the Leaguers find them—”

“Let them assume it was a squabble between the privateers. Let’s go. Now.” She ground out the last word and glanced back once more. The man was definitely gone.

Alyssa couldn’t get her mind off the man’s wound as she escorted the children home.

“Don’t tell anyone about what happened tonight. They’ll be worried, and they’ll put a stop to our studies.”
I don’t need it getting out that I know some stranger who could to be a soldier.

“No problem,” Peter said. “I’m not going to tell anyone that I was knocked unconscious like that. What did he use on me?”

“I’m not sure.”
And where would privateers get it? Leaguers, of course.
Alyssa burned anew with hatred and fury at the League of States. They’d ruined Texas, and now they were supporting criminals.
Bastards.

She stopped in front of their building and put a smile on her face for their parents’ sake.

“Everything okay?” Michelle and Marie’s father asked. “You’re late getting back. We were worried.”

“All fine.” Alyssa made her smile wider. Her face hurt from the effort and her heart hurt from the deception.

The kids hustled in, and the parents deposited tokens in her hand. She shoved them into her pocket and took off at a quick pace, eager to find her home, safety, Gillie’s sweet little boy scent.

And she’d like to get the man off her mind. She couldn’t stop reliving the image of his attack on the privateers. The ease and expertise of the way he moved, like a predator, like a jungle cat in the videos she’d seen when she was younger, when they were still a part of her life. The blue gleam of his eyes, intense and honest, pierced the walls around her heart. Damn him.

She ran up the steps to her apartment, more flights than she wanted to run up, but it was safer up here, Jesse had always said. Safer not to be on ground level where the apartment would be easily broken into.

She wanted to hate the stranger. How she wanted to hate him for the way he’d entered her mind and senses, making her trust him, feel a connection to him. Him—a stranger who might be a threat to Gillie.

She opened the door to the front room and closed it quickly behind her as if she were being pursued by the devil himself. A blue-eyed devil.

M
orning had already arrived
, technically, when she’d entered the apartment, and the alarm that sounded to wake the rest of the family began its irritating beep less than five moments after she’d closed the door behind her. It was Omar’s day off. Everyone else had to go to work. She made them breakfast, then gave Gillie his favorite, soft-boiled egg and toast.

She couldn’t get blue eyes, full lips, and broad shoulders off her brain. The stranger preyed on her mind. She hoped he was okay, that his wounds weren’t too serious. He’d risked his life to save them. She couldn’t overlook that. No matter how much it worried her that he’d come here asking about Melissa and Gillie, he’d risked his life for them last night.

She slipped into the room Omar and Jesse shared. “Hey.” She jostled Omar, shaking his shoulder. “I need you to watch Gillie. I’ve got an errand to run.”

He grumbled, groaning. “What the hell, Alyssa. I’m tired. I need to sleep.”

“I already fed him. All you’ve got to do is watch him. Come on, grumpy.” She pulled on his arm, bringing him to a sitting position.

He rubbed his eyes. “You’re a pain in the ass.”

She caught a glimpse of a tattoo on his forearm. “When did you get that?” She reached for his sleeve.

“Don’t worry about it.” He pulled his sleeve down, then glanced at the clock. “I need to leave in an hour. Be back by then.”

“What? You’ve got a business meeting you can’t miss or something?” She laughed at how ridiculous that was.

Alyssa made short work of returning to the scene where the fight had taken place. The bodies were gone. She glanced around to see if anyone was watching her. Whoever had moved the bodies would be looking to see if anyone came back. She walked past the place where the dead men had lain, and tried to avoid looking at the dark spots on the dirt and concrete fragments. She didn’t want to be seen paying too much attention to it.

Looking around, she didn’t see any signs of observers. This street was relatively empty, mostly because the buildings weren’t occupied. If anyone was on this street, it was usually because they were passing through toward another block.

She saw some blood near one of the doors at the end of the block. Veering right, closer to the dark and dried remnants, she pulled the door open.

She bit back a scream. Then she wondered why she’d almost screamed. What had she expected to find?

The two dead privateers had been carried in and dumped in the corner of the room. Their bodies had continued to drain blood, creating a little pool around them.

Him. He’d done this. He’d hidden the bodies. That was why the Leaguers weren’t storming from block to block, building to building, to find out who had committed murder. No one knew yet.

She breathed a sigh of relief.

“What are you doing here?”

She flinched, whirling around.

1
0

Torrent watched Alyssa come in the building. Why was she so hardheaded? Couldn’t she leave well enough alone? Did she have to return to the scene of the crime? Yet a part of him was happy to see her. The other part of him was pissed that she was taking risks by coming here. If she was found, they’d assume she’d been a part of the crime.

“What are you doing here?” He couldn’t keep abruptness from his tone.

She jumped, then made a quick about-face. Her shoulders slumped. Relief? To see him? He found that hard to believe.

“I…” She twirled her hair around a finger, bit on her lip. “Truth?”

“That’d be nice.” He felt like a hypocrite saying that, since he hadn’t been very forthright with her from the moment they first spoke.

“I was worried about you.”

Surprised, he was taken aback and speechless for a moment. “I thought you hated me.”

She clenched her jaw, muscles working, then shook her head. Her cheeks were flushed. Was that because of him?

“No. I guess not. You did risk your life to save ours.” She glanced up and down his body. “Are you hurt? Need medical attention?”

He smiled, enjoying the way she made him feel inside and her discomfort. What about him made her uncomfortable? Did she feel the same reaction to him as he did to her? He thought so, based on their encounter on the rooftop, but he’d like to have it confirmed. “Are you trained in medical attention? Which are you? A nurse or a teacher?”

“Neither, really.” She smiled back, thawing, if only a little. “I wanted to study chemistry. That was a long time ago.”

She didn’t have to say it. He knew she meant before the war and the sanctions.

“What about you? You’re a soldier?”

That hit too close to home. “What makes you say that?”

She let out a scoffing laugh. “What you did last night. That was soldiering. I’m guessing you’re a former Leaguer?”

“I’m not a soldier. Not anymore.” Not technically, since Cosmic Forces was considered the security arm of CRBE, and was available to anyone CRBE wanted to loan or lease them to.

“Why not anymore?”

“Is that really any of your concern?” He had to get her off the topic. It was too close to home. He wasn’t proud of the side he’d fought on in the war, and he wasn’t thrilled at the outcome. He especially found that the sanctions on Texas, now that he’d seen them up close, were unconscionable.

“Guess not.” She shrugged, but her disappointment was evident in the set of her shoulders. She stiffened, her back straight. “Why were you at my home, asking questions?”

Torrent didn’t want to lie, but did he really have any choice? He needed to complete this mission. Staying in this city was dragging him down and making him question everything he’d fought for.
Think quick. Think.
“I used to know Melissa.”

Her mouth dropped open, forming a perfect O, eyes wide. “Were you involved with her?”

This didn’t sit well with him, compounding a lie with another lie. Worse, her reaction made him feel bad. And yet, she’d given him the perfect out. He nodded, but he wouldn’t confirm it verbally. He couldn’t get those words to come out of his mouth.

“So you could be…” Alyssa took a deep breath, wrung her hands over and over, then caught herself and stopped, shoving them into her pockets. “She never told us his father’s name.”

“His father’s name?”

“Her son’s. Gillie’s.”

Jackpot. That had to be Guillermo. “Can I meet him?”

“Are you sure you’re not hurt?” She stepped closer.

Close enough that he could smell the clean scent of her hair, something flowery and completely out of place in this desolate, smoke-colored city. She was changing the subject. Would she deny his request?

“I’m sure.” He raised his shirt, showing her the laceration that he’d sutured himself. “It wasn’t deep.”

A small gasp escaped her lips. She put cool fingertips on his stomach. His flesh felt like it was on fire where she touched it. A few inches lower, his body responded with a twitch.

She frowned. “This doesn’t look good.”

Torrent found himself holding his breath. A wave of emotions washed over him, confusing him. He took a step back to break the spell. He’d done a decent job sewing himself up, but he didn’t want her eyeballing it too closely. The component CRBE had put in might show. It had deflected the blade, kept it from his vital organs. He’d have to talk to CRBE. They shouldn’t have put in him parts that clearly didn’t seem like they were human flesh, blood, or organs.

“What do you say? Can I meet him?”

She looked up at him, her eyes trapping him in a brown gaze that sought the answers he knew he couldn’t give her. Answers that would not only sever the fragile thing between them, but also kill his chances to make his mission a success.

“I suppose it’s the right thing to do. Let me talk to my family first, break the news to them, otherwise it won’t go so well. Come by this evening.”

“I will. After dark.”

“What’s your name?” She cocked her head.

“Torrent.”
Shit.
That had escaped his lips before he could think.
What the hell
.

“Torrent?”

He liked the way it sounded, the Rs rolling off her lips, like a verbal caress.

“She never mentioned you.”

“Guess I never mentioned her to anyone either.”
Damn my soul for these lies.
He’d never intended to do these kinds of missions when he’d agreed to sign up with CRBE. He hadn’t signed on to be the kidnapper of toddlers. He thought of his family back home. This was for them, he reminded himself. For his mother. His brother.

He was filled with self-loathing. He kept his eyes on the floor, unwilling to let her see the emotions swirling within.

She turned to leave, then looked back. “What about the bodies? If they’re found…”

He knew if they were found, the shit would hit the fan. “I’ll take care of them. I’ll be there tonight.”

“Be careful.” She turned and strode across the foyer, stepping over fallen beams and cracked granite. He watched her walking away, the curve of her ass, the sway of her hips.

He was in trouble.
Shit
. He wished he could talk to Vector.
Why? What would I tell him?

Who knew, but he felt like he needed to talk his thoughts out.

At the very least, he should tell Control that he’d found the package. That he was going to set eyes on it—him—this evening.

He reached for the radio in his front pocket. Flipped it on. “Torrent to Base.”

Nothing.

He fiddled with the controls. “Base, come in.”

Again, nothing.

No reception.

Was his team okay? Wouldn’t they be on the radio, reaching out, at least talking to him, even if they couldn’t hear him?

He had a few hours before he had to be at Alyssa’s place. He wanted to leave the radio on, but couldn’t risk an unexpected transmission while he was traversing the demolished streets of Houston.