Fists clenched, muscles now so taut they ached, as stress-induced hormones surged. Fight or flight response nailed him, in overload. The metallic taste of too much adrenaline exploded up from his stomach to coat his throat. He knew the snarl twisting his lips couldn’t get more primal. He blinked hard and his vision cleared and he saw red. He barely registered Kurt wrapping his arms around his shoulders. Trying to pat him on the back like he was a boy waking from a nightmare, not a man in full warrior mode—out of control—in a killing rage.
“Fuck,” Sam gasped. He thrashed his arms out, shoving Kurt aside.
Kurt reared his head back. The man’s lips were moving but Sam could no longer hear. His erratic heartbeat was so loud, he wondered if his eardrums were rupturing. He shook his head, clearing splashes of blood red fury away, and spit the words out. “Go. Away. Before I kill…”
Forget fighting like a man. Regress to flight. I’m a caveman. With a wife to protect
. “Jenna!”
“Easy, mate, easy. Just breathe.” Kurt inched closer and flung his arm back around him. “Kill me later. After you wake her.”
That made sense. And it felt awesome, to be able to feel the sensation of someone holding him. Sam sucked in a deep inhalation then exhaled. And again. To his relief, the crash of blood roaring in his ears began to subside. His heart rate lowered from gladiator-surrounded to just-ran-a-marathon.
“Jenna…” His forehead was coated in moisture, his vision blurred again.
Kurt released him. “Yes, yes, of course. Quit screaming. I’ll get her for you.”
Huddled on his knees, Sam grabbed at the blue sheet wrapped around his lower body and lowered his face to drag the edge across his cheeks. Tears and sweat streaked the linen. He raised his head to see Allen—the new WS guy—sitting on a sprawled Reese on top of the body bag. Reese’s skin was gray, sweat dripped from his chin. “Get off me, you dick,” Reese bellowed. Most likely as loud as Sam had called out for Jenna. He twisted his neck, looking…
“Sit tight and keep breathing,” Kurt told Sam and shoved to his feet. “I’ll get her down.”
“Overdosing on adrenaline”—Allen winked at Sam—“puts a man in a tizzy.” He eased off his partner and bounced to his feet. “Get it together, Reese. Help me babysit the pilots. I’ll take the pretty one.”
By the tall stretcher wedged against the hover wall, Kurt gently pulled the body off the top. A moment later, three people lay on the floor. Kurt watched Sam unzip Jenna, while the WS guys crouched over Tim and Lander.
Sam looked into Jenna’s unblinking eyes. “It’s gonna be okay, sweetheart. I’m here, holding you. In a second or two you’ll feel me.” Sam tugged the robe slightly open, nodded at Kurt, and Kurt pushed the syringe into Jenna.
Kurt scurried aside as Sam gathered his wife—chest heaving, gaze wild—into his arms and sat back on his haunches. Jenna didn’t come around swinging. But it took what seemed like forever for that frantic heartbeat to slow, his murmuring to penetrate and her chest to heave in deep breaths instead of shallow, frantic gulps.
“Sam…I… Oh God. You died. Again. Have to…stop—”
“Shut it,” the driver snapped. “Listen up, folks. We’re approaching the unload point.”
Jenna quieted. She burrowed into Sam as the rough male voice overrode the panting and gasps coming from the two government agents.
“You’ve got a minute to decide if you’re sticking with World Security or if you’re going to risk it all in WITSEC.”
“Witness protection?” Kurt grumbled. “Might as well fall on our knees now and eat a bullet.”
“Don’t be stupid. You think the WS is any safer?” Baxter’s authoritative voice from the front echoed off the narrow walls. “Allen, Reese and me will have our hands full saving our own asses. Allen—get those duffel bags—clothing for those we’re dumping off in two minutes.”
“What’s the deal?” Kurt stood, hunched in the low hover, staring at Allen.
Sam held Jenna tighter and jumped in to support his best man. “Who’d be hiding us and do they know the risks?”
Allen arched his brows. “Unsanctioned help and used only in cases of extreme emergency. Set up by agents I trust. And yeah, they agreed once they heard your name. No hesitation. You all damn well better be polite to these people, too.”
“Huh?” Sam grunted. He smoothed his hand along Jenna’s arm.
Allen shrugged. “You, your wife and that purple-haired LC agent no one wants to wake up really shouldn’t hang with WS. Once the LC loses control, and the Net is back up for everyone, two faces, specific imagines of a pair of newlyweds, will be plastered on screens around the world.”
“They’re— We’re either on our own then or endangering innocents?” Kurt snapped.
Allen scowled. “Shut up.” He turned back to Sam. “There’s a Jeep. Older vehicle, but fast and inconspicuous. Coordinates are programmed in it. You’ll have about ten minutes to exit the city, another twenty to reach Amish country before your horse and buggy departs without you.”
Sam couldn’t help the wide smile breaking out on his face. Not many knew the obscure traditionalists who embraced a lifestyle with limited technology still existed. They’d be low in numbers. A quaint community surviving on small parcels of farmland without government assistance—and no threat to anyone.
“Brilliant. Thanks,” Sam said.
Jenna unstuck her face from Sam’s bare chest. She turned to peek toward Kurt, who was staring at the hover floor. “Kurt? You’ll help carry Lav? We can’t wake him because of that concussion.”
Kurt jerked his chin up. “You want me to come with you?”
Sam sighed. “Hell yes.” He smiled at his friend and turned to Jenna. “And hell no. We can’t wake Harding because he looks like a freak. No hiding that hair beneath a top hat. And if you insist on dragging him with us, I vote he stays in the body bag indefinitely.”
Jenna eased loose of his arms. She raised her hand to touch his forehead where he’d been shot. “You’ve a scar.”
“As do you.” Sam started to slide his hand into her robe, aiming for beneath her breast. She slapped his arm and he withdrew. “Fine. But remember, only your husband gets to rub that area.”
“You two are either with Dexter or us,” Allen told Tim, who was sitting beside Lander, holding her arm. “What’ll it be?”
Tim’s Adam’s apple bobbed. The man had yet to get any color back in his face. “I’ve a wife. A son. Drop me near the A-bullet train. I have to get home. Make sure no black suits are messing with them.” He released Lander. “If I or my family goes missing, my father’s a sergeant. He’ll kick up a ruckus. Whereas you…”
Lander scowled. “I’m expendable. That’s what you’re saying? Who’ll
miss
little ol’ orphan me without a wife or husband to complain?”
“Damn right.”
She punched him. Hard in the chest. His chest that certainly ached as badly as Sam’s did.
The man gasped. “Hey. Not expendable—vulnerable.” Tim matched Lander’s frown and raised it up a notch before falling backward to lay flat.
Kurt shuffled closer, his hands filled with a pair of black pants and what looked like straps to hold them up. “Come with us,” he told Lander. “Please. We need all the help we can get.”
A shy smile crossed the pretty agent’s face. She used her partner’s chest, ignoring Tim’s groan, to push off and find her feet. Short as Jenna, she could stand straight. “Since you asked so nicely. But I don’t need protection, understand?” She glanced down at her rumpled brown uniform. “Where’s my damn gun? My wrist phone?”
Allen rummaged through another bag. He pulled out an old-fashioned hunk of material, shades of dull brown that had to be an ankle-length dress. He threw it at Lander. “Cain’s probably still smoking. You gotta stay off the grid, sister, for as long as it takes.”
Lander caught the dress and laughed. “Wow. This looks…lame. Oh so lame.” She unzipped her uniform, stepped out of it sporting a lacy red bra and matching panties. “I can keep my own underwear, right?”
Sam watched the other men all nod fervently. For the first time, he saw a trace of light in Kurt’s eyes.
Kurt sidled closer to Lander. “Wait. Don’t put that sack on yet. You said you’d help. You know how these things fit? Suspenders? I mean, seriously? And the bonnets are for Sam and Harding, not you or Jenna, right?” He tossed Sam a weak grin. “I, obviously, get not a top hat—you got that wrong—but the straw hat with the wider brim.”
Sam jerked his gaze to a sight much more interesting than an agent blushing at a grieving widower as Kurt unbuttoned his formal white shirt. Sam grasped Jenna, and tugged her to stand with him. A gentle rocking, then a cessation of motion informed him they’d landed—most likely in some obscure parking lot. He didn’t take his stare from his wife, not even to look as his hand shot out to catch a brown bonnet before it bopped him in the head.
Chapter Seventeen
Seven weeks later
“Jenna,” whispered a deep voice. “Wake up.”
She blinked her eyes open, reaching for her husband…who didn’t lie beside her. She sat up so fast her head snapped back.
“Shh, dearie, it’s just me.” Lav grinned down at her, looking as if he’d swallowed an entire flock of canaries. “I’ve news. Wonderful news. Trouble should be on the way. There’s this guy who’ll guide by plane, then Jeep, then horseback.”
“Your boyfriend’s coming?”
“I hope so.” Lav winked. “And I do mean to both here and in my bed. If he feels welcome, I know he’ll say yes to more than a visit.”
“Where’s Sam?”
Lav snorted and lost his doting smile. “Your man—that man—is so irritating. It’s been almost two months since H-day, hiding out in one strange place after another, until this cabin in the mountains which I actually love. It’s so quaint. But the prickly dolt who thinks he’s king of this cute little nest still won’t take a walk with me, let alone let me shave that ugly face or cut his hair.
Everyone
loves me. So why does
he
hate me?”
“H-day?” she asked.
“Yeah. Kurt said it’s what everyone’s calling the day honeymoons became as obsolete and deadly as marriage can be. Jenna, what’d I ever do but take a bullet for him? Twice?”
“Ha. That first bullet had
your
name on it, not mine,” Sam called from the doorway. “Get away from my…Jesus, nude wife, you bastard.”
Jenna yanked the sheet up to her chin.
Lav scowled. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.”
“Did I hear right? You’ve someone taking you out of here by horse, Jeep and
plane
?” Sam stomped closer and slapped Lav on the back. “Didn’t think you had the balls to get in the sky again. Leaving soon? This morning?” Sam exaggerated his eager smile and Jenna scowled at him.
“No,” she said. “We weren’t talking about anyone leaving. It’s not safe. Not until we get a better set of identities in a new city.”
“Cities, right?” Sam quipped.
Lav snorted. “As if I haven’t had enough of you too, dearie. Not like I asked to be kidnapped by a blogger turned terrorist, held and tortured until I gave testimony for and against ex-co-workers over and over until I threw up, and on the run farther and farther from my friends and my life.”
“Tortured? Ha. I’m the one subjected to the constant whining. And, pretty boy, there’s no time for walks. You could work the garden, help repair the far wall, do anything but cook and complain and never wash a single dish.”
“You
love
my cooking. Fine. Asshole. I’ll break my nails on manual labor, instead of tapping away, tweaking signals and wrist phones so you can blog without pissing away our locale or getting Cained.” Lav chuckled. “Get it? Fried like the guy I never met. I just laid about in his home almost dead, while the rest of you hatched the dumbest plan ever. Anyway—on topic—you’re too stupid to understand simple bounces using mere thousands of satellites…”
Jenna tuned the pair out, pressing her face against the pillow and wondering why she felt so tired. The glow of terror from H-day had long faded with the bliss of night after night of sleeping and waking in Sam’s arms, but this morning found her again with her bones aching as if she’d parachuted yesterday. Maybe because the repercussions, ripples and effects continued without an end in sight. Or could something more parasitic and permanent than worldly troubles be draining away at her? How wondrous and perfect would that be?
Stop. Don’t even think it to yourself or you’ll jinx paradise
.
Despite the weight of eight billion humans, the world still turned, but it’d shifted on its axis with confusion and the persistent threat of more chaos flaring up. Considerably more time and resources, by hopefully honest authorities, were needed to sort out the politics of leaders worldwide being indicted, processed and charged or not, while underlings stepped up to prove they could govern with more integrity than their bosses.
The sudden silence between the bickering men she’d come to love as thoroughly as a human could another—more than life itself—drew her attention to the one who melted her into a lump of lust every time she looked at him, which was as often as possible while awake and consistently in her dreams. That darkening in Sam’s deep green eyes wasn’t good. She sighed as he shoved his hand into his hip pocket and pulled out…a switchblade?
Large violet eyes went huge and Lav’s Adam’s apple bobbed.
“Sam. Leave his hair alone,” she snapped.
“But…”
“No buts. If he doesn’t want to cut it, he doesn’t want to cut it.”
Sam slumped and retracted the blade. “Yes, dear.”
“Hey. I call her dear, not you.” Lav dropped his chin, hiding his face with his hair. “And…Dexter, you’re serious? Really want me to leave?”