Saving secrets, p.13
Saving Secrets, page 13
I didn’t hear Reginn end his call. I was too intent on giving Victor a taste of his own medicine.
I could see out of the corner of my eye Tommy holding Eli to the wall. “They have to work it out between them, man. Same as all of us.”
“She’s half his size and not trained like us!” Eli yelled.
“What she lacks in skill she makes up for in rage,” Tommy said.
“Get off me, psycho,” Victor gritted.
“Make me,” I panted. “Better hurry. I’m a biter.” I clicked my teeth in his ear to prove a point.
“Ahh!” Victor ran toward the wall to shake me off him or to crush me into it, I wasn’t sure.
“VICTOR, STOP!” Reginn intercepted Victor between the wall. Victor paused. I peered at Reginn, who was now eye level as I latched onto Victor’s body. Reginn reached for me. “Ace, please unattach yourself from Victor and free his windpipe from your chokehold.”
I released my arms and slid down Victor’s back onto my feet, satisfied with the gagging and sputtering noises coming from him.
“Ace, why are you climbing Victor like a fucking orangutang and threatening to bite him?”
“He. I. We.” I panted. “Disagreed.”
Victor rolled his shoulders. “Some things needed to be said and now they have been.”
Eli threw Tommy’s hand off his shoulder. “Said? You attacked her from behind, asshole. You didn’t say shit.”
Victor crossed his arms, looking only at Reginn. “Ace wants to take Aden’s place tonight on watch.”
Reginn flicked his eyes to me then Victor. “Victor, get out. Take Tommy with you. Wait at the edge of the perimeter.”
Victor and Tommy left the building without a glance back. Good fucking riddance, asshole.
Reginn focused on me, ignoring Eli. “You are not taking anyone’s place tonight. You are not going any further than that fucking cot right there. Lay down and go to sleep.”
“I could fly tonight. Around the mountains. We can speed up everything if you let me start night trips.”
“Not tonight. We are approved for our current change. You are approved to eat, sleep, and be ready to go at sunrise.”
“I know how to watch a perimeter. I can at least do that for a few hours. Give Aden or Victor more time to sleep.”
“You’re willing to give Victor sleep?” Reginn turned to Eli. “Did he knock her unconscious?”
“I’m fine. I know he could’ve hurt me if he wanted. He was trying to protect me.” I think. “Not the best method, but his love language seems to be violence.” Which I can respect.
Eli stood back watching me and Reginn counter each other, a small smile pursing his lips.
Reginn shook his head. He mumbled something under his breath about needing whiskey while he reached a thumb out and feathered it across my throat. His touch was too tender, too soft, too intimate, especially in front of Eli. Reginn seemed to notice the same moment I did. He yanked his hand back and shoved me toward Eli. “Check out her throat. Make sure she’s good, then meet us at the edge of the tree line. I don’t want to explain to Conrad why his pilot suffocated in her sleep.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said to the door shutting in my face.
Eli wrapped his arm over my shoulder. “Hyena fits more than turtle. Don’t you think?” Eli unzipped the med kit already on his shoulder and handed me an ice pack. “Ice it. And take a sip of some water for me.”
I took a long swig. It ached only a little where Victor’s forearm had been. “All good.” But my chest was going to be purple where he crushed my ribs.
“Not all good, Ace. Victor’s about to wish you choked him out.”
“Because tonight is going to be bad?” What did the guys plan on facing out there? I knew they were dreading it. And not talking about it.
“Yes and no. If you were expecting Reginn to sneak into your bed tonight, don’t count on it.”
“Comedy isn’t your forte, Eli.”
He capped my water with an arrogant smirk and dropped his voice to mimic Reginn. “Rhea, your kiss tastes like sweetness. I need to know what the rest of you tastes like.”
“Oh, God, what’d you see?” I’m mortified. Was it possible to disappear into myself?
“Nothing. But, boy, the audio was quite the scandal.” Eli fanned himself, reminding me of something Stacy might do.
“It’s nothing. You think you heard something you didn’t.”
“I heard everything, Ace, so I’m going to end the game of clueless right now. Reginn was damn clear when he said no one touches you. Victor is going to be paying for every single finger he laid on you and more. But Reginn won’t dole out a punishment like a hypocrite.” Eli ran his fingers over his buzzed hair. “All I’m saying is if whatever happened in that warehouse was more than meditation, Reginn is going to be punishing himself up in those mountains right beside Victor. You can bet on it.”
“Punishing himself? I don’t. We didn’t.” I suffocated on the words. I had to stop them from leaving. I needed to make Reginn understand there was nothing to punish. I ran to the exit.
Eli beat me to the door. “You can’t stop him. I’ve never seen the man taken away from what he intends to finish. Going out there now will only make everything worse.”
“Will he listen to you?”
Eli looked like a man facing defeat. “No. I’d rather he not know I know about whatever you two are doing.” Eli paused. “Reginn deserves something good. Be the good thing for him, huh?”
“You’re not warning me away from him?”
“I’m stating facts. You choose what you do with them.”
I didn’t think I could ever be a good thing for anyone anymore. I was a walking disaster ninety percent of the time. I wished I’d asked what Eli meant. Why Reginn needed something good? But that would be selfish. And I’d done my share of selfish things tonight.
I reached for Eli and gave him a quick hug. “Please take care of all of them. And yourself too.”
“Don’t worry, Ace. We’re much better with our guns than our emotions. There’s nothing to fear but the snakes.” He squeezed me tight then left to join the others.
I wished I could believe Eli. Nothing about tonight felt stable. Things were shifting, and it wasn’t just the rebels changing course. Reginn altered directions faster than a spinning compass. And I wasn’t sure how to steady myself, or if I wanted to anymore. Maybe I wanted to fall, and see if Reginn would catch me.
CHAPTER TWELVE
RHEA
REGINN DIDN’T RETURN THE NEXT morning. Neither did Victor. Eli woke me up at dawn with a gentle shake, but I didn’t need his help. I hadn’t slept more than ten minutes at a time. Not even talking to Max, like an apparition laying in the opposite cot, helped ease my fears of the entire situation.
Spots of dirt combined with Eli’s camouflage paint over his face and neck. Redness lined his eyes, and I knew it was from exhaustion. I rolled off the bed, ready to help him and the others with whatever they needed. “Did it go well?”
Eli scratched at the paint on his neck. “It went as well as it could under the circumstances.”
“Don’t be cryptic with me. Where are the others? Why are you alone? Eli!” I couldn’t breathe right. “Where’s everybody?”
“Easy, Ace. Just another flip of the plans. Tommy is behind me. He will switch with Aden tonight.”
“Reginn and Victor?” Why hadn’t he said anything about them?
“They’re laying traps in the forest for the rebels to give us time in case they approach.”
“When will they be back?”
“Excited to see our resident Viking? Can’t wait to get a little one on one time in the sheets?” Eli was being crude. Something was off with him—or he was doing it for a reason?
“Where are Reginn and Victor?” I dug my fingertips into his arm. “When are they expected back?”
“I don’t know where they are, exactly. Somewhere on the northern side of the mountain range. It might be a few days, Ace. They’re going to do whatever it takes to keep the rebels away from here.”
“Whatever it takes, like engage them?” Two men against an army of rebels weren’t good odds. I didn’t care who Reginn and Victor were or what they had done before joining AMN. They weren’t invincible.
“It isn’t Reginn’s goal, or Conrad’s for that matter, to let anyone know we’re in this valley. Or why we’re here. But they’ll shoot back if the rebels engage.”
Eli pulled his arm back, leaving me faltering more than I thought possible. This was my nightmare. Being helpless, again, not knowing when the news would come. Not expecting anything, but wanting every detail of where he was. “Fuck. I’m getting to work. Who’s coming? You or Tommy on the helo?”
“Me. Give me a minute to get the cargo squared away with the Army Captain.”
Eli was struggling to put words together. He needed rest. “No. I’ve got it. You take a minute. I can work with the government studs to get everything situated.”
I met the man who pointed the rifle at me the first night by the warehouse. They called him Captain, and Reginn had told me he was in charge of the four Army men left in the valley to help load the cargo. I noticed they stayed in a tent structure half the size of our living area, toward the northside of the forest.
After the run-in on the first day, I kept a wide space around the men, and they did the same with me. Only speaking to Reginn or Victor if they needed something, if not, they didn’t speak. They watched. They were up before dawn and sealed in their tent before sunset.
When I approached the Captain, I waved for him to follow me, then indicated the stacks of cargo to be loaded into the helo. He didn’t like me. That was obvious by the way he ignored my request.
I took another step forward to ask again, but he put up his palm, spoke quickly to his men, then waved me off. As they began working, I turned to head to the helo, but the Captain spoke first. “Your men have gone to the mountains?”
The question loomed in the air, thick with intention. He speaks English. And the rifle in my face the first day was not a misunderstanding.
I pivoted on my heel. “You might not see their faces, but they see you, Captain.” If Reginn didn’t trust this Army Captain and his men, then neither did I.
“The rebels know these lands like a man knows his lover. Your men shouldn’t fear the snakes, but the nest of Armed Spiders. When your men return, you should leave.”
“Why? What do you know?” I asked.
The Captain’s eyes searched the mountains. “The rebels are everywhere, moving, hunting, waiting, growing stronger every day. Don’t fly today, girl. Prepare to leave.”
“Where are the rebels now?”
His eyes filtered across the mountains. “I do not know.”
Enough lies. He was trying to scare me, believing I could convince the others to leave. Tough shit. No one told Reginn what to do. We weren’t going anywhere. “Tell your men the schedule changed. We’re flying today and tonight. I’ll need them to be ready to load when I return in the dark.”
The Captain nodded in agreement, but his dark brown eyes held a different story. I couldn’t tell if the ping in my gut was from missing Reginn, worrying about the rebels, or fear the Captain might be right.
I flew all day, getting six trips done like the day before. On our last trip before dusk, I convinced Eli to communicate with the cargo ship so it would move further toward the coast for our night trips. Eli agreed, stumbled from the helo, and Aden took his place as a sailor’s sky of red and orange set the clouds on fire.
Aden appeared refreshed from his catnap during the day. “Ace, you don’t need to be doing this.”
I ignored his comment. “Do you see this sunset, Aden?”
“Yeah, Chloe would kill to watch this.”
“It means we’re flying on a good night. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in morning, sailor’s warning.” I flashed him a smile. “We have full illume from the moon. With this weather, I have decent visibility, so get comfortable. We’re going for four more trips.”
Aden kept his way-too-serious stare on me. “Reginn will be back soon, Ace.”
Aden was the quietest one of the group, and seemed to prefer spending most of his time looking through a scope rather than talking to people. Reginn was the exception. They spoke to each other like brothers.
I wanted to ask how soon? When? And what the hell was taking him so long to get back here?
“How do you know? Have you talked to them?” I asked.
“No. But he won’t leave you alone for long.”
“You mean, us? As team leader he wouldn’t want to leave us alone for long?”
“Not what I meant,” Aden said, smiling just enough with his eyes for me to be worried.
I pretended to be scouring the clouds for something. “Well, he’ll probably come back with a leash and shock collar when he figures out about the night trips. Then he’ll go on a rant about responsibility, blah, blah.”
Aden smirked. “He’ll have something to say to me. He’ll have more than words with you.”
“I’m not afraid of disobeying Reginn.”
Aden shook his head. “Take it easy on him. He’s had a rough past year.”
“You’re not the first person to say that. How rough has it been?”
“I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“Then why did you?” I snapped, soaring through a patch of low-laying clouds.
“Reginn has a good reason for being protective of you. He won’t risk you, or anyone on the team. The man can’t breathe without reliving the past. Keep pushing the limits with him, and you won’t like what you find.”
“What happened last year?”
“Something he can’t take back. You two have a lot more in common than you might think. He was Army special forces, like Conrad. Reginn thought when he left the Army he could leave behind the man he was. And it didn’t work out that way.”
“What kind of man was he?”
“He did the dirty work for his platoons, going door to door with little to no backup or intel. He did five tours back to back. I can’t even imagine how many friends he lost.” I could hear the thickness in Aden’s voice. “But I never explicitly asked him because I know how shitty it must’ve been. I was in his same shoes for the Marines.”
“I’m sorry, Aden. I didn’t know.”
“Reginn doesn’t want people to know about then, or about Payton. But just understand, every thought you have had about Max, he gets it.”
“You know about Max?”
“Just me. Reginn suspects he was your husband. But I am Chloe’s husband, and Lena told Chloe. Chloe told me. And I’ve told no one. Your secret’s safe.” Aden sighed so deeply I thought he was going to tell me he couldn’t keep my secrets any longer. But he didn’t. He said something I didn’t expect from him. “Can you do all of Echo a favor and sleep with the guy before he rips everyone to shreds out of frustration?”
I smiled. “There might be some attraction there, but we can’t stand each other.”
Aden let loose a booming laugh through the intercom. “Reginn isn’t a possessive man, but he practically branded your lip the other day. He might deny it, and you might not understand it, but there’s a whole lot more than attraction there. More than a kiss worth, anyways.”
“That’s not true.”
“Personally, I can’t wait to see him blow a gasket when he realizes what you’ve been up to. It’s fun to see Reginn lose his shit once in a while. Just keep the violence pointed at you, for the sake of all other poor souls in the area.”
My thighs almost clenched in anticipation of Reginn’s fury. “He’s going to have to return first.”
#
I FLEW UP UNTIL A FEW hours before sunrise. Each trip I varied the route only slightly. I didn’t try to traverse the highest peaked mountains, but stayed along the coast for as long as possible. It took twice the amount of time I anticipated. My eyes blurred, my concentration began to waver, so I called it a night after three trips. I couldn’t bring myself to safely perform a fourth. In the back of my mind I knew if I was solo, I’d go for it; however, I flew with Aden. He had someone waiting for him back home. A fourth trip wasn’t worth his life, or Chloe’s grief if something happened.
I decided to rest for a few hours while the Captain and his men refueled and loaded the helo. The humid-filled hut only amplified the horrible sleep. When I laid my head on the cot, drifting in and out of consciousness, I reached for images of Reginn, needing him, instead of my ghost tonight. The only picture in my mind was Reginn, covered in mud from the riverbed, waiting in the darkness as the rebels surrounded him and Victor. I caught myself asking for him when I woke, his name on my lips, his blue eyes cutting through the emptiness of the night.
Reginn didn’t come back after sunrise. Nor the next day.
I flew eighteen or nineteen hours and catnapped while loading and unloading. On the third day, the only motivation I had to get back into the helicopter was the distraction it provided from Reginn.
Eli expected the lack of communication from Reginn and Victor. The comms system didn’t work well under the shelter of the mountains, something about the precious earth metals mined in the rock causing interference. Yet, it still worried me, with each passing hour.
Eli flew with me on our last run before sunset. Lifting off from the cargo ship, I made a quick path across the ocean, intending to cut up the center of the forest in an L-shaped pattern. It would keep us over the sea for most of the trip, giving us a breathtaking view. The downside—we could be seen for miles because there was no tree growth or canopy to hide us. I figured this route, once in a blue moon, couldn’t hurt.
Across the clear blue waters, a red streak sparked in my periphery. “Eli, did you see a vessel in the water?”
I did a quick turn across the ocean and spotted a forty-foot boat as a whitecap slammed its side. Another streak of a red meteor flare appeared above the vessel. “Ace to command. V.D.S. spotted twenty miles off the coast.”
