Her enemies never hesitated. Each and every one of them hunted her through the labyrinth with only one intention. She read people. She felt the cruelty in them, or the indifference – or most especially, revulsion. They were eager to kill her. Every single one of them. She hadn’t done anything to them nor did she want to harm them in any way, but if she wanted to live, she had to make the decision to kill. Whitney had forced that on her. That choice. Now he sent another team for the same thing.
She moved through the trees, following the feeler. The closer she got to the soldier, the more she knew about him. Her senses reached out along the silk. He was average height. Not nervous. If anything, he was giving off supremely confident vibrations. That gave her pause and she sank down exactly where she was. Anyone going into battle, even seasoned veterans, were cautious when facing enemies like the pararescue team – all enhanced soldiers. The termination team had to have been briefed on what they were up against. One of them had come into the little boutique and obviously recognized the men inside. They knew. So why would he be so confident?
She wasn’t careless and she didn’t have anything to prove. She could take her time and assess the situation. The soldier had disturbed the silken thread, but he hadn’t moved.
He hadn’t moved.
He knew the feeler was there. He had to know. That meant they were looking for her silk. Which meant he was the bait to draw her out. Their sniper had to be in the trees somewhere with a clear line to the soldier’s position.
Cayenne began to move again, this time circling around behind the soldier. She couldn’t get to the sniper. He could be yards away, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t take down the bait. There was no whisper of sound as she used a rabbit trail to make her way behind the silk.
She spotted the soldier, his back to her, his automatic weapon in his hands, ready to use. He kept sweeping the area alertly and several times he nodded his head and moved slightly to his left. A footstep, no more. Clearly following instructions. This team had telepathic communication. Not all of Whitney’s supersoldiers had been capable of that.
The sniper was lining up his shot for the maximum coverage. The soldier had chosen to disturb a feeler more exposed than the others. They thought she would have to expose herself to a bullet in order to take him down.
She took a deep breath and allowed the vibrations the soldier gave off to swamp her. He was eager for the kill. Eager to be the one who finally was able to kill the poisonous spider they all dreaded so much. She’d killed so many teams, and yet he would have the glory and bragging rights once he drew her out.
She concentrated on his legs, from his knees down. Silk shot out and began to wrap him. Loose at first so he couldn’t possibly feel it. The sniper wouldn’t be looking at the soldier’s legs. Not at first. She wrapped him fast, tightening the threads with a vicious snap. He toppled instantly, going over backward. At once she spun more silk, wrapping his arms and the weapon he held, taking care to clog the trigger to prevent him from firing.
A bullet slammed into the ground six feet behind her. The marksman was firing blind, trying to save his spotter. She didn’t even flinch. She kept spinning the silk until the soldier was completely wrapped from head to toe like a mummy. He couldn’t move. He could barely breathe. Two more bullets hit in rapid succession, each one closer. The sniper was guessing where she was by the way she’d wrapped her enemy.
Report in.
Trap’s voice was sharp, pouring into her mind.
Perfectly fine.
She delivered her news abruptly, closing down the path between them. She couldn’t think like a human. She couldn’t be emotional. Trap made her that way. With him, she was all about feeling, and she couldn’t risk it.
Cayenne moved then, retaining the strongest line, woven with several strands. As she slipped to her right, in denser cover, she flattened herself behind two larger cypress trees, staying inside the “knees” protruding from the ground all around. At some point the area had been underwater and the tree had grown the knees in order to survive. She was able to fold herself in one of the knobby barrels.
Cayenne was enormously strong, especially for her size. No one would ever attribute that strength to her, but even though she felt the heavy drag of the soldier’s weight, she knew, from experience, that she could move him. She yanked hard and the body slid toward her. Not a lot. A few inches. But that was enough, all she needed. Instantly another shot rang out. This one clipped the tree, showering the area with splinters of bark. She already had the soldier where she wanted. His head and neck were in the shadows. In the foliage and behind the ring of cypress knees, she delivered the fatal bite and slipped away, leaving the soldier staring with lifeless eyes up at the sky through the leaves.
Before Trap could make an enquiry, she hastened to assure him.
Still fine.
The moment she opened the path, she caught a glimpse of the “iceman.” She knew his team members often referred to him by that nickname and she knew why. She’d experienced his ice, but that little glimpse enlightened her further. Trap was completely removed from what he was doing. He moved like a wind of sheer death through the trees, taking the hottest location and using a knife, getting in close and going for the throat just as she’d advised.
Her heart stuttered, realizing what he was doing. She didn’t like the fact that he put himself in danger without so much as flinching. He simply took point and went after the other soldiers aggressively. She wasn’t a woman to swear, but she managed a few curse words as she moved locations, crawling along the ground until she was well back in the cover of the swamp where she could stand and begin to run.
She went on the hunt now. She knew the sniper would have to move, but she had a good sense of where he was. She could determine where he would go. In the distance she heard a gun go off, and her heart nearly stopped and then began to pound.
Trap.
She had to know. She had to be human in spite of her resolve, because the thought of him injured was more than she could bear.
Fired at Gino. Missed. Gino was already on top of him. You don’t want to miss Gino when he’s coming at you. Two down.
Three. I’m going after the one in the trees with a rifle.
Gino says a five-man team hit us. That means with the sniper we’ve got one other man. Be careful, Cayenne, their focus is on getting you.
She knew that already and she wasn’t afraid of them. Spiders didn’t have fear, just purpose, and she was hunting now. She ran fast, making no sound, not even allowing a whisper of movement against the brush. Where she could, she used silk to aid her, swinging from branch to branch to cover greater distances above the denser foliage.
When she was close to the tree where the sniper had set up shop, she climbed high, going up the trunk fast, flattening her body against the bark to keep from presenting a target for anyone to see should they be looking. Again, because she was so slight and didn’t weigh much, there was no movement of branches or leaves – and that was what saved her.
The breeze was slight and it shifted just enough to warn her. He was still in the same tree. He hadn’t moved. She cursed again, silently this time.
Very
silently. The sniper, the moment he knew his spotter was dead and he’d given his location away, should have moved. Would have moved. She’d walked into a second trap. This time the sniper was the bait.
Breathing very slow and evenly, she stayed very still, flattened against the tree trunk, hidden in the crotch of two branches. They were thin, barely there, but large enough to shield her body from view – if she didn’t move. Whoever was on the business end of a rifle had a scope and he’d be able to see her quite clearly if she moved. This close, it was a huge risk to reach telepathically to Trap. Sometimes just that psychic energy could draw attention with an enhanced individual.
She closed her eyes and drew in another shaky breath. The sniper was just out of her reach, but so close if he turned his head and looked up he could possibly see her. She could use silk, but even that was risky. The shooter had to be close enough to ensure he wouldn’t miss, with a good view of the sniper and tree. The tree didn’t have much foliage. The sniper was hidden from view below due to the way the trunk split. He was in the very lowest point, his rifle set up along the thickest branch. He could almost lie down, and clearly he was comfortable.
He wasn’t nearly as confident as his first spotter had been. He didn’t like being the bait. He was used to lying up somewhere, far removed from hand-to-hand combat, and taking out his enemies from a distance. He certainly wasn’t used to being the one drawing out his foe. She smelled sweat on him. Determination and that same revulsion of what she was. He especially disliked her after what she’d done to his spotter.
She had always relied on herself. She went over every move she could make in her mind. She was in sight. The wrong breeze. Her hair moving. Anything at all might draw attention. Just being in such close proximity meant eventually the marksmen would look up and spot her. She practiced jumping on him in her mind. Jumping, biting and rolling off the tree. The problem was, she didn’t know which way to roll.
Trap.
She touched his mind delicately. It was the only play left to her until she knew where the man with the rifle was. She hoped Trap would understand that ultra-fragile brush in his mind.
At first she thought maybe she hadn’t used enough strength to reach him, but their connection was so strong she couldn’t imagine that, so she stayed still and waited.
Coordinates.
Just that. His touch was every bit as subtle as hers had been. He knew. He understood she was compromised and he was already coming to her. A part of her didn’t like that she’d reached out, asking for help. Not in a combat situation. She always worked alone and that suited her, but she couldn’t deny that there were moments she could have used help and it was sheer luck that she survived and not her enemy.
She sent the coordinates and the information that she was pinned down. One sniper in the tree with her and the other focused on the first marksman. She didn’t want Trap dead, so that meant risking communicating even more information. She kept her gaze just to the right of the marksman below her. She didn’t want a steady gaze to alert him, but she had to see what he was doing at all times.
He lifted his eye from the scope and shook his head. He looked around and then pressed his hand over his ear. He’d caught an echo or backlash of the psychic conversation. She wasn’t surprised. She was only a few feet from him. She didn’t dare close her eyes, or change her breathing pattern. She kept it slow and even, hoping Trap didn’t talk any more to her. She tried to hold the danger in her mind, so if he touched her, he would see it. She
willed
him to see it.
Without warning, the man below her bent to his rifle, a smile playing around his mouth. “Got you, you big bastard.” He sounded elated. He caressed the trigger with his finger and then adjusted something on his rifle.
Her heart skipped a beat. She turned her head slowly to follow where his rifle was aimed. She could see into a tree a distance away. Trap was there, coming up behind the other sniper, the one aiming straight at the tree she occupied. There was no way in hell the marksman below her was going to kill Trap. No way.
She used silk, wrapping it quickly around the rifle, jerking it away from him just as he fired the shot. The rifle banged against the tree just below her, and the other sniper took his shot. She was already in motion, leaping on the man below her, trusting Trap to kill the one already lining up his second shot at her. She put him from her mind as her enemy caught her in big hands and tried to throw her off of him.
She clung to him, refusing to allow it. At once, he wrapped his hand around her throat and began to squeeze. He used his other one to keep her mouth from closing in on him. He didn’t seem to need both hands to strangle her. He was strong enough with one. She couldn’t reach any part of him with her mouth as long as his hand was around her throat, and worse, she didn’t have much time. Already she was seeing spots and the edges of her vision had gone black.
He had armor beneath his skin, but his throat was vulnerable. She retaliated the only way open to her, she wrapped silk around his neck, forming a noose, and pulled it as tight as she could. He was holding her off her feet, so she didn’t have leverage, but she managed to plant her feet on the tree trunk and use her strength to lever backward. He was unprepared for that move, distracted by the silk strangling him, and he staggered, loosening his hold on her throat.
She lunged at him, sinking her teeth into his wrist, trying to inject enough venom to paralyze him. His fist caught her hair and yanked her head away from him. He flung her out of the tree by her hair. She turned in midair and landed on her feet in a crouch. She couldn’t drag in enough air. Her lungs burned and her throat felt swollen. It was painful to swallow. She kept her eyes on him as she landed.
Smirking, he drew another gun from his boot. She was ready for that. The moment he pulled it out, she sent strands of silk to capture it, wrapping it up and yanking it away from him. The gun went flying out of the tree. He leapt to the ground, following it, landing right in front of her. At the last moment she caught the gleam of a blade as it raced straight at her.
She hated knives. Really hated them. Knives reminded her of the thin needles piercing through her hands and shoulders, through her feet and ankles. So thin, but causing so much pain. The knife went into her abdomen, the tip cutting through her skin. The burn was a bear, but the woven silk stopped the blade from going any farther in spite of the strength behind the stab.
Their bodies were close. She stared up at the triumph in his eyes as she leaned into him and bit his wrist where he held the knife, still certain he could push the blade into her. She was just as certain he couldn’t. She didn’t feel triumph when she delivered the lethal dose of venom into his veins. She felt nothing at all. She was – empty.