Saving secrets, p.17
Saving Secrets, page 17
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen. Nicky was six. Max was fifteen. He carried me from the barn to the house, but no one was home. He took the family pickup truck and drove me to the hospital two hours away while Nicky rode in the back.”
“He must’ve been terrified. Were you screaming the entire way?”
“Cursing and bleeding like you wouldn’t believe.” I grimaced at the memory. I didn’t see the fear in him that day, but years later he told me it was the scariest thing he’d ever faced. Max promised me that day at the hospital, he’d always protect me. If he couldn’t keep me from getting hurt then the least he could do was put me back together again.
His promise never faded over time. He still tried to glue the pieces of me together when I couldn’t manage it. It’s strange how fragile everything in life is, how easy it is to watch it shatter. If I spent my days thinking about it, I’d stay curled up in a ball under the covers. Instead, I chose to focus on the next moment, spending as many of them as I could in the sky. It’s where I belonged. Soaring amongst the trees and the clouds. Up there, I felt the most like me. I didn’t think I’d ever be normal. It’s like a switch was broken in me, and I needed the edge of danger to feel alive.
I cleared my throat. Reginn should know why I could never be with him. “Max was my husband. He didn’t return from a deployment. And his picture is my piece of paper I can’t fly without.”
Now we both knew each other’s ghosts.
Reginn kissed the hollow of my neck, running the backs of his knuckles up and down my leg. “I was hoping you’d tell me about him.” He turned my head to his. “Is he the reason you have nine lives up there?”
I breathed in the relief of his response. Reginn surprised me. I expected a barrage of question I dreaded, but not his acceptance of everything, in all its weirdness.
“I think I have more like forty at this point.”
“Don’t go wasting them. With the way you fly, you’re going to need all of them.”
I elbowed him in his sculpted stomach. “You aren’t anyone to talk, Wolfy. The number of stories Eli and Aden have told me about working with you, I would’ve asked for another partner by now.”
The love he had for his friends was written in his smile. “What have they been telling you, darling? They’re complete falsehoods, one hundred percent fiction.”
“The reindeer in Greenland? The stingrays in South Africa? The—”
Reginn placed his hand over my mouth. “Okay, those are true, but in my defense, my version has details that might shed some light on to why the stingray attack was provoked solely by Eli.” The determination in Reginn’s tone had me laughing so hard I snorted.
“So sexy.”
“Bite me.”
“Hmm, don’t mind if I do.” Reginn nibbled my earlobe untiled I melted against him again. “I’m addicted to your taste,” he whispered.
I snickered, ignoring the warning ping in my gut. Don’t get too close, Re. This wolf is not yours. “Do the women you sleep with normally swoon at that line?”
Reginn didn’t laugh at my jab. “Yes, the harem of women in my bed beg for more after those exact words.” The sarcasm dripping from his lips had an extra edge to it.
“Touchy.”
“Not touchy.” He sat up, running a hand through his blond spikes of hair. “Part of me is still inside you. Could you pretend for twenty minutes that we can stand each other, and I don’t know… cuddle and talk about us?”
“Us? There isn’t an us, remember?”
“Pretend. For twenty damn minutes, Rhea. Pretend that we aren’t broken, and we aren’t in some godforsaken country, and that we actually like each other.”
Hearing the ache in his voice, I remembered his need to forget the past, forget the pain.
“Sorry.” I crawled into his lap, searching for the words a lover would say. “I like the way you kiss.” It wasn’t a lie. “Actually, my whole body likes the way you do everything.” I pulled his chin down to me and swept my lips against his to prove my point, then eased back. “What do you want to talk about?”
“What do you do when you’re not flying?” Reginn’s heart beat against my back steadily while I thought about his question.
“I drive to the closest mountain range and hike until I can see the stars without the city lights dulling them. I have a hundred albums of random trails on my phone. It wasn’t a problem in Alaska, but it’s difficult to get the same view in Seattle. The trails are usually covered in snow or mud a good portion of the year, but all the wet makes it so unbelievably green year-round.” I drew circles over his tattoos. “What do you do for fun, Wolfy?”
“I take random vacations to places I didn’t research,” he said bluntly.
“And how does that go?”
“I meet new people, see new lands, and make stories people probably shouldn’t tell at the dinner table.”
“Like the feral camel?”
He smiled. “And the mountain lion.”
“Does your family know about what you do in your off time?”
“Some of it. Definitely not all of it.” He tilted my head back. “Sometimes it’s better they don’t know.”
“Agreed.” I sighed, looking down at our tangled limbs. “Nicky would be so proud of me if she knew about this, though.”
Reginn chuckled. “I like her already. Is she like you? Does Nicky enjoy the great outdoors, too?”
“Sometimes, if I drag her by her hair with me. She’s a beautiful book nerd who designs mansions, so she likes the look of the outdoors from inside. She’s not like me. She’s classy and always put together.”
“Sounds like my sisters.”
“How many sisters?”
“Two. Older.”
“Names?”
“Kya and Lily. Twins who love to prove they’re smarter than me. And we’re talking about us, not them. Would you like to come with me on a trip after this? Somewhere we’ve both never been.”
I jolted out of his arms. “What?”
“Calm down, Rhea. We’re pretending. There’s nothing wrong with imagining something.”
I struggled against his hold. “There is a lot of wrong that can come. Imagining is a dangerous game, Reginn. You can become attached to the dream, and when you wake it’s worse than never having the dream at all.”
Before Reginn could answer, three loud pops echoed outside the helicopter.
Gunfire.
Close.
Closer than the mountain range.
“Stay here.” He handed me the sidearm from my pants. “Use this if you need it.”
He threw his rifle over his shoulder, slipped on his pants, and ran out into the darkness.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
REGINN
“DON’T MOVE.” TOMMY HELD HIS rifle up to the Captain who was now on his knees, his hands behind his back.
“What’s going on?” I yelled.
“The Captain and his men decided they’d had enough fun with the mosquitos and wanted to dip out,” Tommy said, pointing his rifle at two of the other men on the ground beside the Captain. Tommy had fired warning shots at the men. And it’d worked.
I glanced around us. Their vehicle was still parked outside their tent, but the men weren’t planning on leaving via the only gravel road out of here. They were going to leave by foot. They had packs on their backs.
“Where were you going?” I asked in Spanish.
He didn’t reply, keeping his eyes on the ground.
I asked again, this time going eye level with the Captain.
The man stared at me as if all of the hope had been drained from his life years ago. And now nothing remained. “Kill us now. Or let the Spiders do it. Either way, no one will live past sunrise if we stay here.”
“What do you mean? Why? No one is going to make it through those mountains.” I’d laid enough traps on the north side to make sure we knew who would be coming if they tried to traverse the trail into our valley.
“These Spiders swim in the darkness,” the Captain said.
“They have a long fucking hike through those mountains even if they come up the coast.” Aden was posted on lookout. He would’ve reported to the team if there had been any movement from the rebels.
“He doesn’t mean the ocean. He means the storm that’s coming,” Rhea’s voice echoed behind me.
Damn it. Why doesn’t she ever listen to me? Stay put. Avoid the bullets. I kept my eye on the Captain. “How close is the rain?” I asked Rhea. I didn’t doubt she knew what she was talking about. She spent more of her life looking at the sky than any of us. I was positive she’d learned how the clouds moved over the mountains and the way the winds changed. I knew the people of this country, but the weather still surprised me.
Rhea looked up at the night sky as the wind whipped at her face.
“Rhea?”
“I’m thinking,” she said then tilted her head back to me. “It’s not just rain. It’s going to be violent. Can you feel that drop in the temperature?”
Victor shifted his gun. “An answer, Ace. How long?”
“An hour at the most. The winds are picking up. I don’t doubt it will be here before sunrise,” she said.
I dipped down to stare into the Captain’s eyes. “How did you know the rebels were coming, huh? You work for them? You told them when to attack?”
“They knew the cargo was here since you arrived. They were waiting for a way to get it out.” I saw the man’s eyes flick toward the right. “When it rains. The creek through this valley floods. The water will rise. No need for multiple trips in your helicopter. Only one trip is required.”
“The rebels are going to send the cargo down a flooded creek? On what, a canoe?!” Tommy asked.
No. I’d seen villagers float miles on nothing more than a few sticks tied together. They wouldn’t need a canoe if they’d built large rafts. They were resourceful people living in rich lands. Either way, we were screwed if the skies were going to open up. We’d all be underwater.
Eli ran up behind me. “Aden’s on the comms system, Reginn. I need you for a minute.”
“Victor. Take their guns, their ammunition, and send these men on their way. Let them try to outrun the rebels. Eli, Tommy, stay with Victor.”
“Sure thing.” Eli flicked off the safety on his rifle.
“Rhea, with me.” For the first time, she followed my words without fighting back, and I was fucking grateful.
She fell in step with me as we raced to the communication link in our living area. I turned the switch and spoke through the mike. “Command to Echo 1. Talk to me.”
“Rebels. South. Southeast. Two miles and closing fast. I count four groups. Twenty in each. They plan on walking right through the front door to say hi. I can move in to intercept. But I don’t think we could hold them.” We’d planned on the Armed Spiders coming from the north, where they currently occupied. Instead they’d gone around the entire valley, and now circled us.
“Don’t engage. Get to command. Haul ass, Aden.” I yanked the system out of the wall and stowed it into a bag as the others joined us.
“The Captain and his men are tucking their tails and heading west toward the capital on foot,” Victor said.
“Good. Pack your supplies and as much ammo as you can fit. Rhea, is the bird fueled up?”
I slid my eyes to Rhea who appeared apprehensive. “Yes, it’s fueled. But I need to run preflight diagnostic checks in the daylight. I don’t know if anything of significance was hit on our last flight.”
“No time. Get it ready to fly over those mountains in… ten minutes.”
“Uh. Perhaps we take the Captain’s vehicle out of here?” Eli asked.
“Then we take the only road in here, and that’s where our rebels will be waiting,” I said. We’d been so focused on them ambushing us from the north, Conrad didn't believe they would make it past the villages and local government checkpoints to attack from the south. But I trusted Aden. If he said they were there, then it was time to leave.
Rhea didn’t look to Eli, or Victor, only me. “This storm is going to be bad, Reginn. The winds have doubled in the valley. On those mountains they could be gusting ten times worse. I won’t know until I get up there, and then it could be too late.”
“Now you want to play it safe? When there isn’t another way?”
“I’m telling you the realities, Reginn. I will do whatever you ask me to,” Rhea said with conviction.
“Get us out of here, to the southern farming village Conrad marked as extract,” I said.
A glimmer of disagreement filtered across her face, but she nodded. “Ten minutes it is.” She turned and ran out of the room.
“Aden should be here in five. With any luck we’ll be out of this country before tomorrow night, boys. Cheer up.”
I dialed Conrad’s number on the satellite phone to inform him our mission was over.
#
RHEA
TEN MINUTES WASN’T ENOUGH TO check anything but the basics. Everything else I’d have to watch carefully, and be ready for it. The cloud ceiling was descending fast; once I made altitude, my visibility would be down to zero in the mountains.
I saw a shadow out of the corner of my eye and slid my gun from my holster. I aimed it at the figure who continued to creep closer. “I thought you were leaving, Captain? Reginn will shoot you when he sees you’ve come back.” How the hell did he get past Victor?
“You should leave with us. We can get through the mountains. There are caves to shelter from the rain.”
“I’ll take my chances in the sky.”
“You fly in a storm like this, you don’t fly again, girl.”
“Goodbye, Captain. Good luck in the mountains.” He disappeared into the forest at the base of the hillside pass. I spotted Aden running from the opposite direction. He slung his rifle over his back and entered the wooden shack that would be nonexistent by dawn.
I was halfway through my basic checks when each man in Echo team exited the structure, two bags over their shoulders, a rifle, and rucksack on their back. Eli slammed the door shut behind them all.
The blackest clouds I’d seen in years covered the sky, a prayer away from unleashing themselves onto the land. “Everyone get in and hold on,” I yelled over the rotor.
“Gladly,” Reginn said.
All right, Max. Go time, my love. Keep us safe. I thumbed over the picture in my left pocket.
The bird soared up, fighting the winds from the very beginning. Eli gripped his med kit across his lap, and everyone turned their eyes to the lush mountains meeting the ominous black clouds looming down upon us.
“We’re not flying into that, right?” I heard Tommy ask Reginn on our internal comms.
“We aren’t,” Reginn said. “She is.”
“Fuck.” Aden and Tommy swore at the same time.
“It smells like sex back here,” Eli said. “I swear, you better have wiped this thing down, Reginn.”
I bit back a shit-eating grin as Reginn answered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, man. This helo is clean.”
“But was there sex where I’m sitting?” Aden asked.
“There definitely was sex there. But did it happen here, too?” Tommy asked, pointing where he sat.
“What disinfectant did you use? This is not kosher!” Eli said.
“You two animals are fucking disgusting,” Victor said.
“I’m concentrating, boys. Can you keep the pillow talk to a minimum?” Four separate retorts were simultaneously heard through my speaker about the things I could do to myself. In my best airline attendant customer service voice I said, “Thank you for choosing AMN airlines, we know you didn’t have any other options tonight. While the sexual position of our passengers is not our priority, we will take note of your suggestions for future flights. Now buckle up for one hour of non-stop turbulence.”
Reginn managed a grin despite the tension in his eyes. He was worried about the rebels. About his decision to leave. About everything. I saw it in the way he held himself, even if he didn’t say it. And now, I had to tell him I was defying Conrad.
“Reginn, I can’t fly by visual flight rules; my visibility is already less than three hundred yards. I’m switching to instrument flight only.”
“How can I help?”
“Read me the altitude indicator here and heading indicator here, and umm, shout it out if you see a cliff or a tree too close for comfort.”
“That’s not funny,” Reginn said.
“Yeah. I wasn’t joking.”
“How many times have you flown in a storm by IFR?” Reginn asked.
“Hundreds.” It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the entire truth. I’d flown by instrument only in a bird with GPS mapping and most had an automatic flight control system. Some things are best left unsaid.
The strong winds rattled every part of the helicopter, making the normally small vibrations violent. I fought the random straight line gusts from slamming us sideways. As soon as I climbed in altitude, I continued to monitor my heading indicator. I knew I had to make it to 18,000 feet to clear the entire range, but the wind would be too rough, so I’d have to aim for the lowest peak and clear it closer to 14,000 feet.
“Flashes, gunfire. Three o’clock. Back right, Ace,” Eli said.
I had a strict path to hit the crevices between the large peaks, but I swerved right.
“Returning fire,” Aden said.
“No. Don’t. Maybe we can disappear in the cloud cover,” I said, pushing the bird higher.
“Hold fire. Call out the shots though, boys,” Reginn said, hanging out of the side as the rain began to pelt down from above. Even through Chloe’s communication system, I could hear the thunder rolling in.
I pulled up, needing at least five thousand more feet to clear the approaching peak. I checked the altimeter, but we weren’t gaining altitude.
