Authors: Lisa Renee Jones
Hero
, he thought, smiling. He was going to be a hero. The most powerful man on earth. Satisfaction slid into his mind, and he allowed his lids to shut, allowed darkness to overcome that bright light.
Chapter 17
With Cassandra’s limp body in his arms, Michael reappeared outside the cavern wall of Sunrise City—barely able to breathe and certain he didn’t want to if Cassandra did not. Desperate to get her to safety, he stepped to the exact, invisible spot where a scanner tracked his body, identified him. The cavern split in two, dividing into an equally invisible entrance. In an instant, Michael was inside the massive warehouse that served as an entry pod to Sunrise City, the doors automatically closing behind him.
He set Cassandra’s dripping wet body down, feeling like a vise was clamping down on his chest as he stared at her pale face and realized his worst fear—indeed, she wasn’t breathing.
“No!” he screamed in his mind, even as he scrambled to save her, ripping away her body armor to the waist and beginning CPR. She had to live.
Had to live.
Wildness charged through him, defiance, pain, anger. He pressed his lips to hers. His mind raced with punishing thoughts as he worked to save her. Blame rushed over him. He’d done this to her. He had done this.
Reason tried to save him from the crushing blow—had he lifebonded with her, he couldn’t have been apart from her, he couldn’t have saved the other women inside Zodius, would never have known about Red Dart, would never have gotten the body armor. But had he lifebonded with her, he could have given her his full protection. She would not be dying. Or dead. He reared back and yelled at the top of his lungs. She was dead. She was dead. And so was he. Because losing her was the one thing he could not bear, the one punishment this life had given him that he could not endure.
***
A loud shout spiraling through the darkness consumed Cassandra, and speckles of white touched the black and gray in front of her eyes. She gasped awake, sucked in air, and sat up, head spinning, stomach twisting. But there was only one thing that mattered. The realization that Michael was shouting. Not just shouting. Roaring deep from inside his chest, pain etched across his face. For her. He was shouting for her. She knew it in every ounce of her being.
“Michael,” she whispered, reaching for her voice, grabbing him. “Michael. I’m okay. I’m okay.”
He looked down at her, instant relief pouring over his features. He grabbed her and held her, then framed her face with his hands. “Cassandra. God. I thought—”
She pressed her lips to his, needing that warm comfort that on some level she knew had brought her back to life. Those lips. This man. A memory—of those guns pointed at them, of being certain she was going to die—washed over her. One minute there were guns, the next… “We wind-walked.”
“Yes,” he said, pulling back. “I had no choice. They were going to—”
“Kill us,” she said. “I know.”
He studied her a moment, tenderness fanning his features. “We need to get you down to medical,” he said, already pulling her into his arms when an alarm sounded. Her heart jackhammered in reaction, and instantly, Michael’s gaze jerked to the cavern wall. Cassandra’s own gaze followed the wall as it parted, and Caleb and Sterling appeared in a gust of wind, shadowy figures in black fatigues that faded into the darkness outside the door. Sterling took one step forward and collapsed, blood pooling beside his body. The wind carried three more men to the door, two of whom were hunched over in pain, injured as well.
Cassandra’s face riveted to Michael’s, and she could see the conflicted emotion spreading across his face. “Go!” she yelled, pushing out of his arms. “I’m okay! Please. Go. Help them.”
He hesitated only a moment before he was running toward the injured soldiers. Cassandra struggled unsteadily to her feet, though she was gaining strength quickly. She watched in horror as Caleb threw Sterling over his shoulder and started moving toward the back of the warehouse in the direction of a row of elevators. Blood trailed in his wake. A lot of blood. Leaving no question about the seriousness of Sterling’s injuries.
Guilt overtook Cassandra as Michael grabbed another injured man, whose name she remotely remembered as Damion. She’d liked Damion, just as she’d liked Sterling. These men had been hurt protecting her.
“Please,” she said softly, her gaze lifting upward, calling on faith she’d perhaps forgotten too much lately. “Don’t let them die.”
Even as she said that little prayer, she charged toward the elevators, determined not to be left in the warehouse alone, determined to help anyway she could. She ended up in the back of one of the two, standing behind Michael and Caleb, the injured soldiers hanging across their backs. She looked from one pair of broad shoulders to the other, feeling a silent, yet kindred spirit between the two Renegades in a way she’d noticed back at Area 51.
Renegades
. They were both, and had always been, Renegades. How had she ever believed Michael would really follow Adam rather than Caleb?
The underground elevator moved slowly. Too slowly. A lifetime for these men, she feared, the silence thick with that implication.
“What happened out there?” Michael asked, his voice rigid and low.
“Damion was down, and I was going after him. But Sterling was gone before I could stop him. Wind-walking right into the middle of the fucking gunfire and took those Green Hornets meant for Damion. Damn fool. Damn idiotic fool. He knows the Zodius won’t kill me. He knows my brother forbids it.”
Michael glanced at Caleb. “They might not intentionally kill you, but that doesn’t mean you might not have died out there,” Michael said. “Your life is too valuable to risk losing. You have to lead us the hell out of this mess. Correction. You’re destined to lead us the hell out of this.”
“Spare me the talk about the grandness of my life while Sterling is bleeding to death over my shoulder, Michael,” Caleb hissed. “My life is no more valuable than—”
“Like hell it’s not,” Michael countered, “and Sterling knows it even if you don’t.”
Cassandra squeezed her eyes shut. Shaken. Feeling more guilty. A lot more guilty. Could she have prevented any of this by seeing her father for what he was back when Project Zodius began? Wasn’t she here because of him? Weren’t they all here because of him?
“This isn’t your fault, Cassandra,” Caleb said, shocking her with the certainty that he had read her mind. Though nothing should shock her about the GTECHs any longer.
“No,” Michael added roughly. “It’s mine.” Cassandra’s heart leaped wildly. “It’s mine.” Was Michael talking about being the one to bring her here tonight? She regretted that. God, how she regretted coming here, allowing these men to be hurt.
Or maybe for Michael, this was about her father. About allowing him to live. He regretted that, she knew it. That was between them, a wall bigger than any other he’d ever drawn between them, and there were plenty of those.
The elevator doors slid open. Sterling and Damion were quickly placed on the rolling beds that awaited them in a long, narrow stone-covered foyer. Cassandra followed the men and saw other soldiers exiting the elevators on either side of her; all were being attended to or helping others in need.
A whirlwind of activity followed, and Cassandra chased the gurneys down a long hallway that led to the medical facilities. She saw what resembled a large emergency room with a center desk and curtained-off rooms.
Cassandra found herself sandwiched between Michael and Caleb in front of a large window outside a surgical room. And Kelly was inside with Sterling, operating.
She hadn’t even known Kelly was with the Renegades. She’d selfishly shut out everything when she’d fled Groom Lake. Shut out a war that wasn’t going away. Refused to fight while Adam became more dangerous. And right now, watching Kelly in there fighting for Sterling’s life, as Sterling had fought for all of them—Damion, Caleb, and yes, her—she hated herself for that. She vowed she would make it up. She would find Red Dart. She would destroy it. She’d help get those bullets, too. She wouldn’t allow Adam to get more of them. If confronting her father would make a difference, she’d be out in that canyon right now; she’d be charging back to demand he make this all right. But it wasn’t that easy, and she knew it. God. If only it were that easy.
She glanced up at Michael, at the hard set of his jaw, the stiff posture. Waves of turbulent emotion rolled off him and crashed over her. Whatever was behind his words in that elevator seemed to be eating him alive. The walls between them had crumbled while he’d worried for her and had rebuilt in seconds as he worried for his friend.
She yearned to strip those walls away, to touch him, to comfort him, but for the first time since she’d met him, she felt she should not. They stood shoulder to shoulder, but it seemed as if he were on the other side of the world, lost with no way home.
“He’s crashing!” someone yelled, a moment before a warning buzzer pierced Cassandra’s mind.
A harsh breath of air ripped through Cassandra’s lungs, and her hands flattened on the glass. She watched as the medical personnel prepared to shock Sterling. And deep in her core, Cassandra knew that this gut-wrenching minute would change this war. Because this moment spilled blood and cut deep in the hearts of those on the front lines. They were not, nor was she, going to sit by and let it be for nothing. These men had saved her life. She owed it to them to fight by their side, to make their sacrifices matter. She stared through that window and willed Sterling to survive, so she could tell him so herself.
***
Michael stood by the surgery window, watching as Kelly worked on Sterling, holding his breath. The instant the monitor by his bed began a steady, stable rhythm, his shoulders relaxed, relief filling him. Those bullets, those Taylor Industry manufactured green bullets had not stolen a good man’s life. Nor would he let them. Beside him, he could hear the sighs of relief from both Cassandra and Caleb, the tension in the small enclave of the waiting area immediately easing.
“Caleb.” The male voice came from behind.
Michael turned to find Dr. Walker, one of the half-dozen doctors who’d followed Caleb from Groom Lake. A tall, human male with short, dark hair, he was casting Michael a suspicious look. Caleb didn’t miss the look. “He’s one of us. He’s always been one of us.”
Michael wanted to bare his teeth and watch the man jump, damn him. Like he didn’t feel like crap enough right now without being made to feel he didn’t belong here. But then, maybe he did not.
“Do you have something to tell us?” Michael barked irritably, barely keeping the growl out of his voice.
Dr. Walker cleared his throat nervously. “Noah, Cooper, and Jacob have avoided major organ hits. I’m about to take Damion into surgery to remove a bullet near his heart, but I don’t anticipate any complications. It wasn’t a direct hit, so he should be fine. His body will heal quickly.”
Caleb gave a sharp nod, but apparently wanted a few minutes alone with the man, motioning him down the hall as he followed for a little one-on-one private time. And Michael had no doubt that it was about him, which only served to make him more damn agitated.
His gaze settled on Cassandra’s mud-smudged pale face, and he motioned to a nurse. “We need medical attention.”
Cassandra shook her head, motioning the woman away. “Let them deal with the men who are in life-threatening situations. I’m not.”
“No,” he said in instant rejection, thinking of those moments when he’d held her lifeless body in his arms. “You stopped breathing. You need to be checked.” He raised his hand again and motioned to the nurse who was staring at him as if he were Freddy Krueger from
A Nightmare on Elm Street
. He scowled. “Holy hell, woman. I’m not a Zodius. I’m a Renegade. And we bloody well need medical attention.”
“Easy, Michael,” Cassandra said, shaking her head at the woman. “I’m fine. I don’t need help.”
“Like hell you don’t,” he grumbled.
“I’m okay, Michael. Thanks to you.” Her hand wrapped around his arm, gentle, calming. He couldn’t afford gentle. He couldn’t afford calm. Not when people were damn near dying. The wrong people. Cassandra. Sterling. Not Powell and Adam.
“Don’t thank me, Cassandra,” he hissed vehemently, anger forming within him like a swiftly thrown blade. He didn’t want her thanks. He wanted… Well. He didn’t know what he wanted right now, besides Adam’s and Powell’s blood, and her beneath him, pressed close, and moaning his name. Giving him a little piece of heaven, an escape.
But she couldn’t be that escape any longer. Not without the consequences of lifebonding for her—to a man who wasn’t even a man. He told himself to pull his arm away, to break that connection between them, so he wouldn’t forget that. Again. He always forgot with her.
But he didn’t pull away, and neither did she. Instead, she stared up at him with those beautiful green eyes—eyes that he wanted to remain beautiful and green. Not black. Not spiraling into the depths of obsidian hell with him as they would be if he claimed her fully.
“I cannot imagine what it must be like to be treated like the enemy,” Cassandra said softly. “As hard as it was for you to be gone those two years, I want you to know how proud I am of you for everything you did.”
His chest tightened with her words, and he cut his gaze to the window. “If you knew what I had to become inside that place, you would not say such things.” He’d played his role of Adam’s personal bodyguard, of tyrant and terrorist, all too well. All too easily. Sometimes he’d almost forgotten he wasn’t that person. But he had prevailed. He’d stayed on his path, reminded himself he did those things, walked those lines because he was capable of doing so, and so that Caleb would not have to. So Caleb could remain a leader of honor, untainted by the likes of his brother and those around him. Someone had to be that person.