He moved closer, and when he did, she could see he held an automatic rifle, and though he shifted so he was against her, his gaze was still trained on the distance, watching, observing, never once looking down at her.
“We’ve got a problem,” he murmured. “We’ve been cut off from my men. I don’t want to engage. It’s too dangerous. You could be hurt or killed. I’ve told my men to stay put where they are. You and I will find an alternate route to where they are.”
“Cut off how?”
“There are men looking for you and they’re in between our position and where my men found cover for us. I sent them ahead to find a place where you could rest and hopefully heal enough that we could make it out.”
Some of the haze surrounding her lifted and she fought through the ghosts battling for control. She turned, searching out his profile in the darkness. Maybe he felt her gaze or it could be a coincidence that he looked down at the same moment.
“I can make it,” she said.
He shook his head. “You’re not in a good way, Grace. I won’t risk you.”
She pushed herself up to her elbow, ignoring the pain the movement caused. “I want out of here. You say you’re not one of them. Okay, I believe you. So I want as far away from here as possible. Nothing you can do to me can be worse than what’s already been done. I can make it.”
“I can’t carry you,” he said softly. “If it weren’t just you and me, I could take you like I did before. But I have to have my hands free to protect you, which means you have to walk.”
“I can do it.”
There was a fierce edge to her voice that reflected strength she didn’t have. It didn’t matter. She would find the strength. The will. If her choices were staying here and risking capture or crawling off the damn mountain, she’d do it on her hands and knees the entire way.
“Then we leave now and go through the night. It’s not going to be easy.”
She reached up and put her hand on his arm. He tensed beneath her touch and the muscles went rigid, giving her just a sample of the raw strength he possessed.
“I won’t die here and I won’t let them take me back.”
Rio put his hand over hers and curled her small fingers around his before squeezing. “You aren’t going to die at all.”
A tiny beacon of hope warmed her insides. There was such conviction in his voice. It sounded like more of a vow than a statement, and she grabbed hold of that promise.
“Do you feel any change yet?” he asked.
She glanced down at her arm, which was still splinted. She flexed her fingersy, her fi, waiting for the pain to shoot up to her elbow. Her fingers were stiff, but the pain had subsided to a dull ache. She wouldn’t know about her ribs until she attempted to get up.
“It’s better,” she said, not caring if it was a lie. It was her turn to give him a little hope.
“Okay then, this is how it’s going to go down. We’re going to move out together. You stay on my six no matter what.”
“Your six?”
“My back. You stay behind me. I want you to put your finger through the belt loop of my fatigues, and when I move, you move. I won’t go too fast and I’ll be careful. If I tell you to get down, you drop. No hesitation. If I tell you to run, you haul ass. Whatever I tell you to do, you are to do without question and without hesitation. Understood?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll rendezvous with my men but it’s going to take us longer than it will them because we’ll be moving so much slower. They’re going to have to cover more ground than us and do it double time so they can provide cover for us as soon as possible.”
She had a thousand questions but she knew the only thing that mattered was that they get as far away from here as possible. So she bit her lip and began preparing herself mentally for the ordeal ahead.
First she took stock of her most recent injuries. Breathing was easier even if still painful. Her arm was bruised, tender and still swollen, but it felt stronger, as if the break was already mending.
She knew it would take longer because she was so weakened, but she was gratified that even the few hours of rest had begun the healing process. If only her mind worked like her body.
She forced the weariness from her clouded mind and carefully pushed herself upward. Rio didn’t help her, and perhaps he wanted to see how she would do on her own. Or perhaps he just wanted to prepare her for how difficult the upcoming task was going to be.
While he eradicated all signs of their presence from the campsite, she pulled herself to her feet and sucked in deep breaths of the crisp air.
Her legs trembled and the weakness in her pissed her off. She curled her unbound hand into a tight fist and planted her feet firmly, refusing to allow her knees to buckle.
She could do this. She would do this.
“Ready?”
His voice was low and husky next to her ear. She turned to see that he’d secured his pack to his back and stood a foot away from her, studying her as if judging her ability to make it.
“I’m ready.”
He reached for her hand and pressed the stock of a pistol into her palm. “It’s loaded. Here’s the safety. If worse comes to worst, just point, fire and keep on firing.”
Her hand shook as she pulled the gun back. She looked down, not having any clue where to put it. Rio gently took it from her, turned around and slipped it into a leather holster attached to his pants a mere inch from where he’d instructed her to slide her finger through his belt loop. Then he moved in front of her.
She slid two fingers through the loop and took a step forward, wanting to be as close as possible without hindering his forward progress. There were no words for how much she didn’t want to be doing this.
Her body screamed at her for mercy. She needed rest. She was at her limit—beyond her limit. She had been for some time. But she couldn’t stop now. She had no choice. It was do or die, and she didn’t want to die no matter that she’d come so close to giving in.
“ th1em">I can do this, Rio,” she said in a
low voice.
He surprised her by reaching back, closing his hand briefly over hers in a gesture of support. “I know.”
CHAPTER 5
RIO’S goal was to get them to the plateau. His men would do their jobs and have transport there waiting. Rio’s job was to avoid engaging the enemy and get Grace safely under their radar.
It was a painstaking journey, one that Rio himself could make in a tenth of the time it was taking him to traverse the terrain with Grace slowly at his back. But she didn’t offer complaint and she hadn’t gone down even once. For that alone, she earned his respect.
He halted in his tracks when Grace yanked on his belt loop to stop him. She pressed in close to his back, her body flush against his as she strained upward so her mouth was close to his ear.
“There’s someone out there,” she whispered. “I know you probably think I’m crazy, but I can hear him. Just ahead. He’s cold and angry and he’s thinking that he’d just like to kill the little bitch and be done with it.”
Rio stiffened. He didn’t think she was crazy. He wasn’t sure what her abilities were. From what he’d gathered, Shea’s were random and not controlled by her at all. Her telepathy wasn’t something she could aim or even use at will. But was Grace more stable? How the hell was she picking up on someone in the distance?
“How do you know?” he asked. It wasn’t that he doubted her, but he needed all the information at his disposal.
She leaned her forehead tiredly against his back. “I can’t pick up on everyone, but this particular guy is broadcasting loudly. He’s an open book. No shields. No natural barriers. He’s pissed off, and the angrier he becomes, the more I pick up on his brain waves.”
“What else? I need to know how many are with him. If he’s armed. I need to know exactly what you see.”
She went quiet, resting against him. One hand curled against his shoulder and she seemed to be concentrating hard.
“He’s on post,” she said quietly. “He’s pissed because it’s just him and one other guy who he thinks is inferior. They were told to take position. Their goal is to form a triangle and pin us in. I don’t know how many, but there must be enough to stagger men over a wide area.”
“That’s good,” Rio said approvingly. He reached behind him to squeeze the hand that had dropped down his back. “That’s information we can use. I can take two out before they ever know what hit them. We punch a hole in their line and slip through.”
He felt her sudden surge of excitement. She straightened against him, her hand squeezing his. It was as if his matter-of-fact way of laying out his plan had infused her with confidence and renewed hope.
“I’m ready.”
The quiet tone was far different from the defeat he’d heard earlier in her voice. This time there was fierce determination.
“How far, do you know?”
“No. I’m sorry. Not far, though. He’s very loud in my mind.”
He turned and eased her into a sitting position against a large aspen. “Stay here. Don’t move.” He took the pistol from his holster and handed it to her. “Use this if you have to. I’m going ahead to take care of the two men. I’ll be back, ten minutes tops.”
She nodded and a9;ssccepted the gun. Her hands no longer shook and she gripped it like she was well acquainted with how to use the weapon.
He turned then, not wasting another moment. He melted into the darkness, heading in the direction that Grace had pointed him. Stealthily, he moved through the trees, able to move faster and more quietly now that he didn’t have Grace behind him.
Slinging his rifle over his shoulder, Rio quickly shimmied up an aspen that was sturdy enough to bear his weight. More than midway up, he paused, locked his legs around the trunk and pulled his rifle over his shoulder to do a quick scan of the area.
He was quickly rewarded when he found the first target in his sites. Before disposing of him, he found the second, made sure there were no others in the immediate area and then squeezed off the first shot.
It was easily a three-hundred-yard shot, but he was deadly accurate. The first victim dropped like a stone. Within two seconds, Rio had the second man in the crosshairs and dispatched him just as swiftly.
He slid down the tree and hurried back to where he’d left Grace. She looked up when he approached and he was pleased that she leveled the pistol in his direction.
“It’s me,” he called softly.
She lowered the gun and shot to her feet. “Are they dead?”
There was no regret, no anxiety in her voice. Nothing but hope that he’d accomplished what he’d set out to do.
“They’re dead. Let’s get moving. We’ll only have a short time to get beyond them before they’re discovered.”
As soon as he turned, she grasped his belt loop and all but pushed him forward. He picked up his pace, trusting that she’d keep up. She didn’t disappoint him. They hurried through the trees, descending the mountain once more.
He took her directly by the downed men, not to horrify her or cause her distress, but because he dared not take a wider circumference. He didn’t want to engage with Grace at his back.
She didn’t flinch. She didn’t react. She didn’t even slow her pace. He began to wonder just how much she’d endured. He knew it was bad, but he was beginning to think he had no grasp at all of the horrors she’d suffered.
They didn’t slow, and in fact, once past the dead men, Rio put on more speed, pushing Grace relentlessly. She stumbled more frequently and he knew she was tiring, but he pressed on. He’d push her to her limits and then he’d carry her the rest of the way if he had to.
He slowed to check his GPS when suddenly Grace shoved him hard. A shot sounded as they both went down, and the handheld unit went flying. Before he could react, another shot sounded in his ear and he realized Grace had yanked the pistol from his holster and had fired.
Instantly, he rolled, taking her underneath him even as he positioned his rifle to pick off any threat. Only silence greeted him and then the soft groan in the distance.
Holy fuck. She’d shot someone.
He scrambled up, keeping his rifle trained as he crept forward. He barked a command for Grace to stay down as he headed away from her.
Fifty yards away, a man lay sprawled on the ground, his rifle just inches from his fingers. Rio bent and did a quick assessment in the dark, but the man was no longer breathing. Grace had nailed him right in the neck.
He glanced back in Grace’s direction, stunned that she’d just saved his life. He hadn’t heard the man, and with Grace holding on to him, his reflexes wouldn’t have been as quick. He would have likely gotten shot before he’d have had time to react.
Instead, Grace had shoved him down and taken out the target with a single pistol shot.
He hurried back to Grace, kneeling to help her up.