TAG (27 page)

“I’m fine,” I lie.

As I’m tucking the bottle back into the side pocket of my pack, I hear a couple of voices in the distance. I look over at Tango, who’s already searching in every direction. He pulls himself up against a
nearby tree and waves me over.

He presses on my bullet-less shoulder, pushing me to lean down. My focus meets an opening in the trees, and I see two men looking at a map. They’re disheveled, covered in dirt, and have enough weaponry between the two of them to start World War III.
I’m studying their mouths in hopes of determining what they’re saying.

Tango grapples with the back of my shirt and pulls me away from the trees. He drags me a dozen more feet until I pull myself out of his grip. I know he wants to put some distance in between us and them so we can talk, but I’m capable of taking a hint.

We end up near a small waterfall, but it’s loud enough to cover sound. “I don’t know if they might be with Reaper or if they’re with
the Chinese Agency. There’s too many people looking for your dad, and if they’re after him, we won’t make it past them.“ He pulls out his phone, looks at the screen and pulls out another device to plug
into it.

“This is why your dad was constantly telling you to leave wherever you were. These two groups of people have been after him
and essentially you, for three years.”

“It wasn’t too bad before Krissy died, but after that, it was like I just became a target. I have not stayed in any location for more than a few weeks in the past year. I’ve been alone, very, very alone.” Alone doesn’t even hint at how I’ve felt over the past twelve months. I feel like I’ve lost two-thirds of who I am, and walking around as a third of a person, just doesn’t work.” His eyes soften and he reaches
for my hand, but I hold it down by my side. “Don’t do that. Don’t feel sorry for me.”

He reaches down and snatches my hand up anyway. “Don’t tell
me how to feel. No one deserves that shit, Cali. And yes, I do feel sorry for you—whether you like it or not.” He puts his phone up to his ear and waits for what I assume is someone to pick up the phone. “Sir, the job took me to the Copper Canyons. I’ll send you
coordinates. I need two backups, fully-loaded, ASAP.”

Backup?

TANGO

THE BURN
is catching up to me. It feels like there’s a layer of sand caked up in my lungs. I try to cough it up, and while it feels like I’m coughing up sand, it’s not sand. I sweep my arm across my mouth to
clean up the spattering of mucus, and when I pull my arm away, I see another smeared red tinge. It’s happening more frequently, just as warned. I realize I haven’t taken my inhaler since yesterday, and maybe I can assume that’s why. I pull out the inhaler and suck in as
much of
the medication as I can, hold it for as long as I can, and blow the shit out as hard as I can—hoping I’m blowing the cancer out too. I clean my arm off on my camo shorts, ridding myself of the bloody
evidence since I don’t need to deal with a concerned Cali on top of all this shit. I’m so close. So damn close.

As soon as these guys arrive, things are going to intensify. My boss promised me they’re good men, but I don’t trust mercenaries. They all have a story and they aren’t always good ones. Although, they’re probably saying the same thing about me right now. And my
story is not a good one. I doubt they’d be too happy to hear I was dragging them here with the hope of saving my worthless life.

CALI

My head is pounding. I want real food. I want to take a real shower, and I want air conditioning. Tango is looking at his phone again, just as he has at least ten times in the past hour, tracking the backup.

He drops the phone into his pocket, stands and stretches his
arms
from side to side. He points his head toward the downward
direction and starts walking. I follow closely behind. “They’ll be here in two hours. They’re probably being dropped from a helo.”

We round a few more corners and find a gully to plant ourselves in. Tango unclips his pack and meticulously pulls various metal pieces out and lays them on the ground in perfect order. “More
rifles?” Actually, I’m assuming he has a lot more than that in there.

“Check your pack. Bottom left. I assume you know how to put
one of these together?” His lip pulls up into a snide grin.

“I think I can manage.” I pull each piece of cold metal out and place it down on the ground before attaching the pieces in the order in which my dad taught me. The one thing he didn’t fail at was teaching me about weapons, how to use them and how to protect myself with them. That might actually come in handy today. If only
he wasn’t the reason for it, I might feel a little prouder.

Tango stands up after he finishes putting his rifle together and
watches me adjoin my final pieces. I think it’s cute that he’s looking at me with amazement, like he’s proud. “That might just be the hottest
thing I’ve ever seen,” he says.

His words send a rush of heat through my cheeks, and I’m fighting against a smile, since we’re supposed to be in a serious situation right now. “We should probably separate business from
pleasure, Tango.” I
stand up and walk to him, then wrap my arm around his back,
slowly lowering my hand to his ass, and I squeeze. “Glad to know you can maintain control at all times, Marine,” I say softly into his ear.

His stiffness below responds to my words and he fists his hands
into the material over my chest, pulling my body in firmly against his. “If you want to play rough,” he says, his voice dour and
gravelly, “save it for later.” His teeth clamp down over my bottom lip, and it takes
everything inside me not to make a noise. He’s learned what those little nibbles do to me and he’s totally taking advantage. But I need to show restraint for the sake of this situation. Business and pleasure.
Business is pleasure. The lines are becoming blurred, and that’s okay with me.

We hear a low buzz in the air and I know it’s the helo arriving. The heat between us sizzles and we both regain a firmer grip over our weapons to appear ready and waiting for this backup. It goes
without being said that from here on out, this has to be only business. No more pleasure.

Tango pulls out his phone and I can see some kind of
navigational system display across his screen. “Let’s go. They’re over here.”

We arrive at a small opening on a flat piece of land. Two men are descending with parachutes from a helo that has already
disappeared.
They make a soft landing, seeming as though they’ve had plenty of training in this area. Tango helps them with removing their
parachutes, and they stand up to readjust their belongings.

The first one introduces himself to Tango. “Hey man—Seaver.
Nice to meet you.” He’s tall, taller than Tango by about three inches. He’s dressed from head to toe in desert camouflage—short blond Mohawk and same firm jaw and cheekbones as Tango. I’m guessing
ex-
marine. I’m thinking they all look the same. His diesel Oakley sunglasses cover his eyes, and the straight line across his mouth tells me he’s here to accomplish this job, and that’s it. “We hunting
someone down?”

“Yeah. It’s her dad. He has something vital to someone’s health,” Tango explains cautiously without stretching the truth too much.

“Say no more, man. We have your back.”

“There’s a couple of groups of people after him, and we think we ran into one of the groups earlier. Reason for my call.”

“Sure. Got it,” Seaver says.

The other man, clearly the weaker of the two, is still adjusting the straps of his bag and retying his boots. Definitely the follower. His hair is long for a military cut. It hangs low, sweeping over his eyes. The stubble along his chin looks groomed—on purpose, rather
than a five
o’clock shadow. In contrast to Seaver, he’s wearing a black v-neck T-shirt, ripped jeans and combat boots. He extends his hand out to me first. “Kacen. Nice to meet you.” His eyes stare into mine intently and then slowly and shamelessly gaze down to my chest. His lips
and his eyebrows arch with an agreeable look. “Nice,” he whispers.

Great. Another asshole.

Tango shoves his hand out to him, probably to distract him. “I’m Tango. Let’s go, lover-boy.”

Kacen’s cheeks redden and he clears his throat. He turns around to lift his bag and swings it over one shoulder like a high school student. What an idiot.

Tango nods his head to Seaver. “What years were you in?”

“2003 to 2011. Operator. You?”

“2008 to 2014. NBC for the first two years, then an operator for
the remaining time. I was recently discharged,” he emphasizes with air quotes around the word discharged.

“Figured. Lack of information on your background gave that away,” Seaver says.

Kacen jogs up to their side and plays into the conversation. “I was in from 2006-2010. Never deployed, though. Mostly office work.”

“Yeah,” Seaver grins. “We can tell.” He laughs softly and it’s the first time his lips have even twitched since they landed. “
Carolina
can probably tell.”

“Cali,” I chime in. “You can call me Cali.”

“My apologies.” He nods his head slightly. His attention
redirects to Tango and matches his pace.

Since Seaver’s interested in Tango’s background, the two engage in a comparison conversation, which gives Kacen the opportunity to
try and make more conversation with me. “You enjoying the
canyons?” he asks.

I give him a look that clarifies my feelings on this situation.

He scratches the back of his neck with one eye squinted shut.
“Where you from?” His fingers loop around the straps of his bag as he repositions it over his shoulder.

“The United States?” I quip. “Maybe you should put your bag over both shoulders. Less strain. Ya know?”

He shrugs his free shoulder and chuckles at my advice. “You
have a boyfriend at home?” Well, that escalated quickly.

“Eight of them and two husbands.” My sarcasm doesn’t carry as much vigor as I hope, because he smiles. This one is going to get on
my nerves. Quickly. “Why are you here, exactly?”

“Orders. Why are you here?”

“If you don’t know why I’m here, you clearly weren’t briefed.
You’re being used as a tool, huh?”

“You gotta mouth on you huh, girl?”

Beyond annoyed with the conversation, I speed up my pace to join Tango and Seaver. I can hear Kacen’s footsteps behind me,
following
like a child. “Why did they send you with a broken wheel?” I ask
Seaver.

“Wow, you’re kind of a bitch, aren’t you?” Kacen yells at me. “For your information I was the top ranked marksman in my
company.”

Tango stops dead in his tracks and turns around, placing himself
directly in Kacen’s path and about three inches from his face. He
places his finger so close to the tip of his nose I’m wondering if he’s actually
touching him. “I don’t give a shit if you can put a hole into
something a
mile away. Call her a bitch again, and I’m going to use you as a
target
to prove my marksman skills.” He doesn’t give Kacen an
opportunity to respond. He turns back around and continues his conversation with Seaver. It’s clear they’ve both dealt with people like Kacen before.

We’ve been hiking for a couple of hours. Everyone is silent and
the only audible sound is the noise of dirt crunching below our feet. If I could smell danger, the fumes would have knocked me over by now. I know we’re nearing the location where we spotted the two-
armed men,
but I can’t imagine they would still be located in the same place.
Tango takes a few longer strides ahead of the rest of us and nestles his back against a large tree. He curves his neck to look around the bend and immediately straightens his posture.

He points to his chest and then over his head, squeezing his rifle in the opposite hand. Seaver takes his place behind the tree as Tango
pushes forward. Seaver directs Kacen to stay with me, but I wonder who would be protecting who if we were under attack. This idiot
couldn’t possibly be a top marksman.

“I gotcha, babe,” Kacen says. He places the palms of his hands
around the tree I’m leaning on, encasing me between his arms. Every
part of me wants to jerk my knee into his crotch, but he’d scream,
and that could put Tango and Seaver in danger.

“Get. Away,” I fume through my clenched jaw.

“Just following orders, hon.” The anger rushing through me is
pulsating all over my body. He’s reminding me of Reaper and I sort of want to push him off a cliff too.

“If you don’t move your hands, I’m going to remove them in your sleep tonight. Okay?” I tap my hand against his cheek a couple
of times
to drive my point home. I think it works since he slides his hands down the tree and takes a couple of steps back. I hear a whistling
noise in the
distance, followed by three other similar noises. It’s a call, and it’s not
from Tango or Seaver. We’ve been spotted. I skate my fingers over the base of my rifle, focusing on the increased rate of my heart. I can do
this. I
pull the rifle up to my shoulder and hold it in position. I swing
around the tree, meeting up with Tango and Seaver.