Second Nature (When Seconds Count) (15 page)

“What are you going to do?”

Ignoring her for the moment, he grabbed ahold of one of the big cat’s front legs and rolled it onto its back. With the point of his knife he made a long slit in its skin, straight up the middle of its belly, careful not to cut past the flesh and fur. He pulled the skin away and emptied the carcass of its inner contents. He took the sat phone apart and removed the memory stick which held all the tracking data and then stuffed it and the phone inside the animal.

“Grant, why…?”

He turned and motioned toward his backpack. “There’s a bottle of water in the outer pocket. Get it and open it up for me.” He held out his hands as she poured the water over them, washing off the traces of the animal’s blood. “If we’re lucky, something bigger then she is will eat the phone whole, and Jauhar’s men will be chasing their asses out here long enough to give us time to get the fuck out of here.”

“What?” She looked at the cat and then back to him. Even in the darkness he could see her confusion. “
How would they know where to find it?”

He reached into his backpack and pulled out the
other satellite phone, keying up the GPS locator application. “Same way I found you.” He handed the phone to her and grabbed the bottle of water from her hands. Wiping down his knife, he nodded to the slain leopard. “We need to get moving. The smell of that blood will have this place crawling with scavengers before dawn.”

He slipped the knife back into its sheath and slung his rifle over his shoulder. Grabbing up his backpack, he handed hers to her and kissed the tip of her nose. The look of shock on her face was almost as entertaining as when she was angry. Almost. “You got your gun?”

Thalia nodded and took the backpack from his hand. He laughed and shook his head. Yeah, speechless was a damn good look
for her. If they weren’t mired in the middle of a shit storm, he might take a few moments to enjoy it. As it was, they’d be lucky to get through the next day alive.

He took her hand and
pulled her past the leopard, further into the brush, holding back a disgruntled groan as she pulled against his hand. “Where are we going? The compound is the other way.”

“Can’t go back there.”
He’d thought about it, but it wasn’t a smart idea. “It’s the only structure within forty miles in any direction. This close to the satellite signal, it won’t take them long to put two and two together and hit the compound.”

He hated leaving the chopper behind. It would be a hell of a lot quicker and safer than trudging through the brush
, but he couldn’t chance that Jauhar hadn’t already closed in on the place. Players like him had men everywhere, forces that could be mobilized and deployed in minutes to almost any location. If they’d been anywhere but out in the middle of nowhere he wouldn’t chance moving out at all, calling in for a pick up instead. As the first bright rays of the sun pierced the early dawn sky, he could already see the buzzards gathering overhead. He just might need to do that anyway. Telling her about her father would have to wait.

As she waited in the stolen, dilapidated jeep for Grant to return, Thalia reached up and scratched her scalp. Her entire body itched, and the funk wafting from her dirty clothes was nothing less than disgusting. She’d never craved for a shower so badly in her life. She didn’t once question her sanity as she imagined herself wrestling the crocodiles out of her way if they by chance passed a decent stream before they found a place to crash.

Her eyes
closed against the hot sun which had sliced its way across the sky and now teetered on the edge of the horizon, mocking her undeniable thirst and withered skin. She would have wandered around in that godforsaken brush for a month before eventually dying of dehydration at best if Grant hadn’t followed her.
Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
Depressingly, yet again, he had been completely right. The decision to leave was reckless on so many levels, but she had panicked and wasn’t thinking straight at all. Aside from her complete lack of wilderness survival training, he’d also pointed out that several of her wounds were still fresh enough to attract a predator’s attention from a mile away.
Thank you once again, Captain Obvious-To-Everyone-But-Me.

The terrain they’d hiked through
to get to anything even resembling a road was nothing like what she’d imagined when she map searched it on Grant’s computer. The brush was eight feet tall in some places with huge muddy ponds surrounded by animals she’d only seen in pictures. It was a wonder anything could smell their scent over the wild animal stench that permeated the open air, but Grant was careful to lead them in a wide circle around the gathering animals, which seemed to make their trek through the wilderness a never ending venture. She had been a nervous wreck when they passed the first pond, scared to even breathe. Of course, almost passing out from lack of oxygen every ten steps hadn’t worked too well either. She didn’t think she would ever miss that crazy monkey, but by the time they passed the third group of rhinos and Grant had pointed out a lion pacing in the not too distant brush, she craved Winston’s silliness and hint of domestication.

Voices in the distance caught her attention
, and she opened her eyes to see Grant approaching the car from the ramshackle roadside market, a man who she presumed to be the owner waving him off. Her eyes were drawn to Grant’s wide shoulders and thick chest. She studied how stealthily he moved. Even walking next to him in the brush, she had rarely heard him make a sound. How was that possible?

She lowered her gaze to her lap and shook her head at her own
clumsiness and naivety. For the last year and a half she’d known what it was like to be hunted and stalked by Jauhar and Hamisi. Even compared to the leopard they were amateurs. When measured against Grant, they were more like schoolyard bullies. If she’d ever had a doubt, it was now buried with what was left of her long lost pride. Whatever target Grant set his sights on wouldn’t stand a chance, not even her. 

When he opened the driver’s
side door and slid into the tattered seat beside her, she turned her face back to the window. She could feel the heat bloom in her cheeks when the still vivid memory of the night before skittered into her thoughts. Had she really admitted to being in love with him? What did that even mean for her… for them? They had barely spoken at all since that moment. He’d been too focused on getting them to safety, and all of her concentration had been on not screwing up and attracting another carnivorous beast.  Now that they were crammed inside a small tin can together with no radio or any other distractions, she could feel the awkwardness of it all creeping between them.

She
didn’t know the first thing about being in
love
. The only thing she knew for sure was that if she lived beyond killing Jauhar, she would never be the same without Grant. Is that what it meant to him? She’d thought that was what she had seen in his eyes, what had sent her running, yet he hadn’t said it back. What if he had been expecting something different than what she had confessed? Was his silence something more than simple determination to get them to safety? Dammit! This kind of confusion was exactly why she needed to push him away. She simply couldn’t find the will to do it any longer.

“Drink up.”

Grant’s commanding voice snapped her out of her thoughts, giving her a temporary reprieve from her emerging doubts.
Greedily she reached for the canteen in his hand as her long forgotten thirst came roaring back to life. They had exhausted their meager supplies earlier that morning. She’d successfully pushed the need for more to the back of her mind, ignoring the scratchy itch at the back of her throat and the raw, chapped skin along the edges of her lips. It did no good to complain about what they didn’t have. Now her mouth was suddenly on fire.

“It’s
not bottled water, but it’s clean.” She was so thirsty she wouldn’t have cared if it had been filtered through a rotten sock. Tilting her head back, she slowly poured the clear, cool contents over her face. Her dusty, parched skin tingled back to life as it drizzled down her neck, beneath the shirt Grant had given her, and trickled between her breasts. She opened her mouth to quench her fiery thirst as she reached up and lifted her hair off her shoulders, clearing a path for the water to run down her back.

Far too s
oon the canteen ran empty. She lowered it to her lap as she licked the remaining drops from her lips, savoring every one as if it were her last. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she paused. Feeling the sudden weight of Grant’s silence, she opened her eyes and turned to see him staring at her, his fists clenched in a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, his eyes languid pools of heated…something. Was he still angry with her?

“What?”
She shrugged. When he glanced at the canteen in her hand, then back to her, she cringed. “Oh, crap. Sorry. Did you want some?”

Did he want some?
Holy hell, he wanted it all! The water, her, all of it. Just like that. Forget the canteen. He’d lick what he needed right off her skin…and…and…
fuck!
He shifted in his seat to relieve the building pressure in his pants. Jesus! His dick had been hard for what felt like an eternity. It was certainly on board with the idea of fucking her right there in the front seat. Hell, he could almost hear it screaming in protest as common sense flooded his veins and worked its way to his brain.
Right question, shit timing, fossa.
He wavered for a moment between his carnal need for her and his instincts demanding he get her hidden away from the two parasites who were hunting her. He had to get them to that goddamn thumb drive, then on a plane to Chennai to meet Daniel. They were going to be a day late as it was.

He shook his head and turned the key, surprised when the hunk of junk turned over on the first crank. “There are a few packs of crackers and another canteen in my pack
if you want them. I’m sure the crackers are a few years past their expiration date, but it was either that or a rusted can of sardines.”

He’d garnered enough information from the roadside merchant, if you could truly call the pile of shit he was pedaling merchandise, to know they had surfaced near the A-5 about five kilometers south of
Kadoma. He couldn’t take the chance of being seen in the larger cities like Harare. They would have to stick to the secondary roads which would add several hours to the otherwise twenty hour drive to Mozambique to retrieve the thumb drive.

They were both exhausted and in dire need of a showe
r and food, but he needed to get at least twelve hours of the drive behind them before he could even think about stopping. He would call Daniel from wherever they crashed and fill him in on the delay. Hopefully somewhere between here and there he’d find a way to talk to her about her father. He took one more wistful glance in her direction before pulling onto the empty road. Damn, he wished like hell they’d had one more day at the compound.

Nearly twenty-four hours later, the last five or six of them spent in blissful sleep, Thalia stood at the open window of their musty hotel room. Dressed only in a bath robe, she looked down onto the overcrowded street below and ran her fingers through her wet hair as she breathed in the smells of the food being offered up by the street venders. It seemed the locals were holding some sort of week-long celebration. This particular evening’s festivities began with a parade that slowly wound down the narrow road they’d followed into the small town. Her empty stomach rumbled with the expectation that Grant would return soon with something that smelled as good as what was wafting on the gentle breeze flowing through the window.

Leaning against the
battered window frame, she watched as natives in full tribal dress filed by. She couldn’t help but be mesmerized by the colorful peacock feathers adorning their head dresses. Towering several feet above their heads, the teal and gold hues reflected beautifully off the setting sun in the distance and the bright flashes of fire that streamed through the air as they waved the heavy torches they carried in a rhythmic, synchronized dance the men were performing. It was a wonder the feathers didn’t catch fire, coming precariously close to the flames of the other marchers as they dipped and swayed in unison.

When the loud
cracking sound of a whip echoed through the night air, she startled and took a step back, her eyes drawn to the next set of men marching toward her. Barefoot, they were dressed only in bright yellow loin cloths and wore black hooded masks that concealed their faces from the unruly crowd of onlookers. Against the darkness that surrounded them, she could barely make out the slits cut into the fabric for them to see through, transforming them into soulless demons as they wielded their long, leathery whips toward the crowd around them. Another crack filled the air, then another. Her hand lifted from her side to pull the curtain closed, but paused when one of the hooded men turned his face up from the crowd. His black, soulless eyes stared straight at her as he marched slowly by her window, another loud crack snapping at her nerves with an effortless yet purposeful flick of his wrist. She couldn’t contain the involuntary shudder that ran through her body and she jumped away from the window, pulling the curtain closed. Caressing the sudden unexpected chill from her arms, she stared blankly at the billowing curtain.
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

Mutare
wasn’t the small village Grant had been hoping for. He certainly hadn’t been keen on the idea of staying in the middle of town where so many people had gathered, but after thirteen hours of muddy dirt roads riddled with pot holes, they simply couldn’t go any further. The clerk at the front desk had been distracted by the mid-morning festivities and hadn’t asked for any identification. Paying with a wad of cash he pulled from his backpack, Grant scribbled an
X
on the piece of paper and quickly shuttled them to the room, locking the door behind them and shoving a chair beneath the door handle.

Despite their wariness
, hunger, and the cramped space, they’d made love in the shower before they collapsed into the dilapidated bed and slept tangled together until the noise from the street party below had roused them. She glanced at the bedside clock, wondering what was taking Grant so long, an uneasy feeling tingling its way up her spine.

He’
d pulled on his clothes, shouldered his backpack, and dashed out the door for food, telling her to keep her gun ready and not to open the door for anyone but him as if she was the airhead in a B-rated slasher flick. In a way she felt like she was exactly that. Since she’d met Grant, she had become completely dependent upon him. Not only did her body melt every time he looked at her, it seemed as if her IQ had dropped a few points as well. She’d had a plan, dammit! How could she have let things get this far out of her control?

Both hungry and
exhausted, she slumped down onto the bed and pulled her knees into her chest.
Think, Thalia. What would Issa tell you to do?
As if in a paranormal answer, a knock at the door had her reaching for her gun. She stood, barely daring to breathe as she waited for Grant to let her know it was safe to open the door. Nothing came but another set of forceful taps on the frail thin door.
Shit!
She’d forgotten to put the chair under the doorknob after Grant had left. Just as she glanced at the chair, considering if she had time to move it back into place, the knob rattled with force as a heavy wave of pounding began.

“
It’s Gregory! Open this damn door! Is she in there?”

Gregory
?
Who the hell is Gregory?
Thalia threw open her bath robe. Gun in hand, she silently poured herself back into her crusty shirt and pants, pulling her wet hair back into a pony tail. Whoever he was, he was after her. She needed to get the hell out of there.
Now!

Sitting in the window sill, she tucked the gun into her pants and studied the side of the building.
The distance to the street from the third floor window was too far to jump from, but to her left was a ledge barely wide enough to grab on to. Just beyond that was a second floor balcony. If she could reach it, she could hang from the bottom and drop the shorter distance to the street below. The noise from the crowd on the street drowned out the banging on the door but, just as she leaned out to test the distance to the ledge, she heard a woman’s voice calling from inside the room behind her.