“You’re going to have to come with me,” he told her.
For an instant she appeared blank, but as dread flowed into her eyes, he knew she understood what he asked of her.
He thought she would argue, but she drew a deep breath and nodded. Damon returned the nod and the concern he had over her reaction eased. He didn’t have to tell her to hang close; she stayed right on his heels.
Damon didn’t want to look at the bodies, but he pushed aside his aversion. It’s no different than war, he told himself. “Watch my back,” he said, his voice low.
Without waiting for Ravyn’s agreement, he crouched down and examined the first corpse. Even with the eyes gouged out and blood everywhere, he recognized his second in command. He remembered how happy Spence had been that the training mission would be over in time to get them home for his daughter’s first birthday. He thought of little Ginny with her shiny blond hair and her bright blue eyes. His goddaughter was going to be a heartbreaker when she got older. And she wasn’t going to have a daddy to protect her. His hands fisted. He couldn’t think like this.
Ruthlessly, Damon quashed his emotions and took a clinical look at the body. Along with the eyes, the tongue had been cut or pulled out, the chest ripped open and the heart removed.
Exactly the way the other nineteen had been mutilated.
It appeared the victims had been alive until their hearts had been torn out. A shudder he couldn’t quite repress went through his body. It was a horrible way to die.
The idea of searching his friends made him balk, but survival, both his and Ravyn’s, depended on it. Shaking off his dread, he checked for anything useful. After taking what he could, Damon picked up the chain resting on Spence’s left shoulder and removed one of the two dog tags. The tag needed to be embedded in the cranial cavity so that the body could be identified no matter what its condition when it was recovered. Damon hesitated, then forced himself to do it. He broke a tab off the tag, activating the nano-bore, and pressed it against Spence’s head. The sound it emitted as it entered the skull nauseated him, but he ignored it. He heard Ravyn gasp and saw her look away, but she didn’t say a word.
It didn’t become easier to be dispassionate as he did the same thing with the other bodies. He tried not to think of who the corpse had once been. Tried to put thoughts of wives, children, parents, brothers and sisters out of his mind.
The bodies had been arranged in some type of order. Damon didn’t understand the significance of the pattern, but he memorized its details. Later he would analyze it more closely. Some of the retrieved items he tucked into pockets, others he handed to Ravyn. She accepted everything he passed her without comment.
By the time he reached the last man, Carter, Damon moved quickly. Their exposure played a part, as did his need to finish the unpleasant task. Besides, Ravyn shook visibly now and looked a little green. As he straightened, he noticed Carter’s vest remained intact and didn’t have much blood on it. Respectfully, he removed it. The man hadn’t been dead long enough for his muscles to stiffen, making the task relatively easy, but of all the things he’d done so far, Damon hated this the most. “Come on,” he said.
When they reached the bushes, about ninety degrees from where they’d entered the clearing, Damon took everything Ravyn held and arranged the items in the many pockets of the vest. Although none of the equipment had protected his men, he wasn’t ready to write it off yet. With everything placed to his satisfaction, Damon took off his own vest and handed it to Ravyn. He knew he wouldn’t get her to wear Carter’s, so he didn’t ask. “Put this on.”
Silently, she complied, but he could see the relief in her eyes. Despite her height, his vest hung past her hips. He put on Carter’s and sealed it. The sergeant had been about his size, maybe a fraction bigger, and the fit was comfortable. As long as he didn’t think about how he had gotten it.
Ravyn hadn’t fastened her vest. He started to issue an order, but her attention was focused across the clearing. Something about her expression stopped Damon from speaking, and he reached over and took care of it for her, then slipped a canteen strap across her chest.
Of the six men, only one had still had a pistol. He could only assume that whoever committed the mutilations had the other weapons. The ammunition, however, had not been touched and Damon had taken all of it. This oversight made about as much sense as anything else he’d encountered today.
“Damon.” Ravyn had spoken his name in a soft whisper, but since it was the first word she’d said in a long time, she had his immediate attention.
“What?”
“Do you see the knapsack across the way?” She pointed directly to the other side of the clearing.
It took him a moment to locate it because shadows and long, sweeping branches concealed the drab green bag. The distance and placement made it appear the pack had been thrown. Although it was difficult to be sure, he suspected it was the comm gear that Lopez had carried. When he hadn’t found it with his body, Damon had believed the killer had taken it. “I see it,” he told her. “And yes, we need it.”
The simplest, easiest way to reach it would be to walk across the clearing. Damon wasn’t willing to give up cover again, however, so he kept to the woods. He half-expected to hear Ravyn start complaining, but she didn’t and his admiration for her went up a notch.
The odds of the pack being a trap were low, Damon decided, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He might have been more daring if he were on his own, but he wasn’t. His jaw tightened. Putting Ravyn a safe distance behind him, he warily approached the knapsack and checked it out. When he felt sure everything was okay, Damon opened the pack and quickly scanned the contents. As he’d suspected, it contained the team’s portable communications equipment. He couldn’t tell how extensive the damage was, but they could figure that out later. He closed the pack and put it on, shrugging until it rested comfortably.
“Let’s go.”
*** *** ***
Ravyn had passed uncomfortable hours earlier. The canteen she carried banged into her thigh with every step and the vest seemed to grow heavier with every breath. As much as she wanted to collapse, she didn’t. She tried to close her mind to everything but following the man in front of her. It wasn’t easy, but sometimes she could do it for minutes at a stretch. When her ability to endure weakened, she would remind herself that Damon carried a lot more than she did. And when that wasn’t enough to keep her going, she would remember her family. She could almost feel them with her, prodding her forward.
Her father had been a scout. He had died doing the most dangerous job in the Alliance. It was a high-risk job today, but twenty years ago, it had been worse. Scouts were the first men down on planets able to support human life, and they determined whether a CAT team followed.
As her energy flagged, she reminded herself that few received a position on a CAT team and even fewer got off-world assignments. She had been given both. Ravyn forced her feet to keep moving. For a split second, she thought she saw her father nod his head in approval, but she blinked and he disappeared.
It was monsoon season in this area of Jarved Nine and patches of ground remained boggy from yesterday’s late afternoon downpour. Damon went around the small patches of muddy earth, but when they hit a big spot that would take too much time to avoid, they went through it. The one they tromped through now seemed unending. The mud sucked at her feet, trying to trap her. She had to pull her boots out of the muck with each step. If she’d had the breath, she would have been cursing.
Sweat ran into her eyes, burning them, but she didn’t have the energy to lift her hand and wipe her brow. Under the vest, perspiration soaked her shirt. Her muscles screamed, begging for her to stop. Maybe if she rested, just for a minute...
Marie Verdier Sullivan hadn’t raised her daughter to quit when things got tough. Her mother had been a doctor on the front lines of the Oceanic Wars and in the thick of battle. She had tended soldiers with bullets whizzing over her head. Ravyn could swear she saw her mother, heard her urging her on. On another day, that might have worried her, since her mother had died with her stepfather twelve years ago, but not when it took all she had to remain on her feet.
Damon glanced over his shoulder, not breaking stride. He’d done that off and on to verify she still tagged along behind him. The heavy humidity made her feel she couldn’t take a full breath. She gasped for air with each step, and he wasn’t even breathing hard. The man wasn’t human, she decided cantankerously.
No, he’s Spec Ops.
Ravyn stumbled and caught her balance. She’d lost it. That voice belonged to her stepfather. Muscle fatigue must be bringing on hallucinations; that had to be why she heard and saw dead people. First her father and mother, now her stepfather.
A louder squish than usual had her looking down. She grimaced when she saw mud oozing to the top of her boots. It took extra effort to free herself and then she had to run to catch up with Damon. She felt a stitch begin in her side. Think about something else, she told herself.
She’d been so young when her father had died that, except for a stray memory or two, her only knowledge of him came from pictures and the stories her mother had written down for her. She remembered his smile and how he would sit for hours with her playing tea party, but not much else.
Her stepfather, Gil, was much clearer in her mind. He had been Spec Ops too. She made a face at Damon’s back, still irritated by his tirelessness. Ravyn winced when she imagined she heard Gil laughing at her childish expression.
Mom had met Gil when he’d helped bring in the remaining members of an ambushed patrol. All of them had been injured. Gil had always downplayed his part in the rescue, but Ravyn had looked up to him with awestruck eyes anyway. No matter what he said, she knew he’d been a hero.
Just like her father.
They reached dry land again and Ravyn could have dropped to her knees and kissed the ground. Her heartfelt relief didn’t last long. They started going uphill. It wasn’t steep, the terrain around the facility was mostly flat, but after all her body had already endured, it might as well have been a mountain. The thick undergrowth grabbed her ankles and slapped at her body. Ravyn ducked under the branch Damon held for her and barely kept from groaning as she straightened. As soon as she was clear, he continued on. She bit back a whimper and followed.
Good girl.
Thanks, Gil.
Ravyn decided to go with the hallucinations. They helped and she enjoyed “seeing” her family again anyway. Gil had been a great dad. She had been as devastated by his death as that of her mother. The only family she had left was Alex.
Thinking of Alex brought a smile to her face. Guilt quickly wiped it away. How could she smile? Tears started to fill her eyes and Ravyn blinked hard until she’d beaten them back. Think of something else, she told herself. She couldn’t remember. Not now. Not when falling apart could endanger Damon’s life.
Ten years her senior, Gil’s son hadn’t wanted a little sister. It hadn’t taken long, though, before she’d had him playing dolls with her. If her stepfather was home, he would join in. Ravyn’s lips twitched. Just thinking of sixteen-year-old Alex and Gil, the grizzled warrior, sitting on the floor with dolls in their hands made her want to laugh. When she recalled the time Alex’s friends had shown up and caught him, she wanted to roar. He had been sitting alone, surrounded by all her dolls and their accoutrements, while she had run up to her room to get another outfit. She knew he’d been harassed unmercifully after that day, but he’d still played with her when she’d asked.
Big brothers like that didn’t come along every day.
And eight years later, when her mother and his father had died, Alex had finished raising her. It would have been easier for him to let strangers take her. He had followed his father into Spec Ops and though they’d been between wars, there had still been skirmishes and clandestine missions.
She wondered if Damon and Alex knew each other.
Her smile faded completely as she questioned whether she’d see Alex again. Just as he was the last of her family, she was the last of his. It would kill something inside him if she died too. With renewed determination, Ravyn grit her teeth and followed Damon. She wasn’t going to die. Not from physical exertion and not from some monster murderer. And when she heard Gil say “good girl” again, she nodded her head sharply and continued walking.
*** *** ***
Damon looked at Ravyn and frowned. She lay flat on her back, taking deep breaths. The wheezing had stopped, thank God. He wasn’t angry with her, but she sure as hell should have told him she was having difficulty. He’d pushed them hard, wanted them as far away from the carnage as they could get, but they could have taken a few rest stops along the way. When she hadn’t complained, he had assumed she could handle the pace he’d set.
He should have known better.
He had a good eight inches on her. What he considered a brisk pace would have been close to jogging for her. And she’d kept up with him through the rough terrain without complaining, without whining, without slowing them down.
She was one hell of a woman.
“Think you can sit up now?” he asked when her breathing approached normal.
She did it without his help, but he didn’t miss the way she flinched. Hell, he thought, he’d already screwed up and a full day hadn’t passed. Apparently, he hadn’t learned a damn thing. Wordlessly, he passed her his canteen. She sipped the water slowly. When she passed it back to him, he drank too, then put the cap on again.
“You should have told me you were having trouble.” He kept his tone even with effort.
“We needed to put as much distance between us and the facility as possible.”
“Yeah, we did,” he agreed, “but we could have done it without pushing you to this point. You’ve got to be able to walk tomorrow.”
“I will.”
He admired her determination, but she’d be lucky if she could stand, let alone walk, by morning. Damon knew he wasn’t going to push her any more today, even though they had enough daylight left to add a couple more kilometers to their total. Running a hand across his mouth and chin, he considered the situation. They needed food and they needed sleep. He took another look around and knew they couldn’t stay here. There were too many ways for someone to approach them undetected.