The sound of sirens abruptly stopped. Help was at the house. Bliss would be safe. Declan’s perch was closer to the house, ensuring that help would reach Chaya and Natches first.
Duke indicated he’d head in and check Harley while she took a watch position.
Moving in to cover him, the assault rifle she carried held ready, she let her gaze move upward, let her instincts have free rein. A hunter could always tell when they were being hunted, and she could feel that sensation. But whoever hunted them hadn’t yet managed to get a bead on either of them. Finger next to the trigger, she nodded back at Duke slowly and watched him ease in to check Harley’s pulse. As he neared the sniper, her gaze was caught by the faintest gleam of brilliant blue almost unnoticeable behind the veil of his lashes and the sense of slowly readied tension in a body she’d been certain was completely relaxed, maybe dead.
Her fist jerked up, a move Duke caught from the corner of his eyes. He became still, his gaze roving though his head didn’t move.
In a single gesture, she indicated the younger man was conscious and prepared to explode into action. Harley was about Angel’s age, twenty-three or twenty-four at the most. Incredibly skilled but not likely to possess the finer points of patience and control that an additional five to eight years of training would give him. That or a lifetime of survival, such as Angel had endured.
She didn’t know what Duke said to the younger man, his lips did little more than tighten, but Harley’s blue eyes opened, blinked, then a frown grimaced his face. A second later, Duke snagged the rifle Harley eased from beneath him and slung it over his shoulder before gripping the younger man under the shoulders and pulling him to his feet. Taking most of the boy’s weight himself, Duke moved as quickly as possible, made his way to Angel, then with a nod in her direction, moved past her.
She had no more than eased into the sheltered dip of the path when a shot exploded through the forest. Immediately Duke went into a defensive position as Angel froze. Fear exploded inside her as she gestured in the direction Natches and Chaya had taken with the flat of her hand.
The sound ricocheted through Angel’s soul.
“No . . . Momma . . .” Soft, torn, and filled with fear, even as she directed Duke to continue along the path.
“Forget me,” Harley snapped. “Get to Natches and Chaya. . . .”
“Shut the fuck up!” Angel snapped as Duke began moving faster.
Staying close, her rifle up and ready, she moved backward, following the soft sound of footsteps while keeping her eyes moving, watching the terrain behind them. She could feel the threat. That sensation of a shooter searching for a mark. He was out there, higher, but not buried in one of the trees. Probably above them where the grade of the mountain became steeper.
That was where she would be, she knew. A tree would take time to extricate from safely. But a nest on the side of the hill, likely close to one of the faint trails, would be an excellent vantage point.
She kept her gaze there, searching, waiting for a sign.
“Chaya . . .” Harley gasped. “Is she with Natches?”
“If he doesn’t shut the fuck up, I’ll shoot him,” Angel muttered. “Sound carries, asshole.”
Duke was doing everything he could to shoulder the younger man’s weight, keep him moving, and keep him quiet. He was making damned good time, too, but Angel would almost bet someone had been or still was watching for them at some point.
As they began to clear the heavy pines, she moved quickly ahead. Staying low, she positioned herself at the best vantage point, turned, and kept a careful eye behind and around Duke. They weren’t much farther from the main entrance into the backyard. Once past the natural shield around the yard, they’d be a hell of a lot safer.
Then they could drop the big-mouth sniper and head to Chaya.
Oh God, she had to be okay. She had to be. . . .
Bliss needed her mother.
Chaya had to be okay.
“Moving behind.” Rowdy’s voice reached her as movement behind her to her right had her grimacing in irritation.
They didn’t need more traffic in the area right now. Lifting a hand, she gave them a signal to stay back.
“Clear,” Rowdy spoke, moving quickly past her even as she gave the signal to stay back.
Shock raced through her.
He had ignored her?
And he wasn’t alone.
Two of Dawg’s brothers-in-law rushed past her, heading for Duke.
The second Rowdy called the word and the men began rushing to Duke’s position, she felt it. The sudden attention focused on them, watching them.
She slid her finger closer to the trigger of the assault rifle, remained in place, knowing Duke had better by God remember to watch her rather than listen to Rowdy’s opinion of “clear.”
Was he doing that, though?
She didn’t dare give her position away to whoever she could feel out there, searching for a target. She would have the only chance of . . .
There . . .
It wasn’t a flash, a gleam, or anything so easy. It was like the foliage itself, positioned with the only straight view to this particular entrance, took a deep breath.
She didn’t think, she fired.
Rolling quickly to her knees behind a nearby log, she continued firing, laying cover for the men to get to safety. Ignoring the sudden sharp pain in her leg, she kept firing. The camouflaged figure moved as she kept her shots precise.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
She didn’t spray the area with gunfire, she forced him to move. Distance shooting wasn’t her strong suit. She made a better spotter than a shooter, but she knew how to compensate.
Her target jerked, went down, then a breath later, rolled.
“Go. Go.” On her feet, she quickly followed, bringing up the rear as she ran backward, until she cleared the heavy growth of thick branches and foliage that would provide a barrier to return fire.
“Move. Move,” someone snapped behind her.
Once in the clear herself, she turned quickly and moved for the house.
They’d be inside whether wounded or not. From her periphery she caught sight of Chaya and Natches with Declan. The younger man was pretty much carrying himself, though with a pronounced limp as Natches covered them with that rifle he was known for.
“Ethan’s inside,” she heard someone snap. “Get her inside. She’s bleeding.”
Her? She stopped, her gaze searching for Chaya, the only other “her.”
A flash of movement at her side had her rounding, finger on the trigger of the Glock that cleared her holster and stopped only inches from the surprised face of Army Intelligence officer Major Graham Brock.
His dark gray eyes went to the barrel of the gun even as his arms were held carefully out from his sides.
“My bad,” he said calmly as she stared back at him. “You’re bleeding, Angel. It’s dripping from your fingers; your shirt’s wet with it. You’re wounded.”
She was aware, distantly, of the fact that she stood in the kitchen now. Shades were closed, the room was thick with male tension, and too many eyes were on her.
Her blood dripped from her wrist, three beads of scarlet dropping in slow motion to the tile floor at her feet.
She dropped her arm as she swung to where Duke stood next to Natches, Chaya, and Bliss.
“Mad skills,” Bliss breathed out, her green eyes shining with excitement as her mother watched her, her face pale, grief and something else shining in her eyes.
It wasn’t her sister, her praise or pride, or anything else that held Angel’s attention. It was the pure raw fury that exploded in her mind as she stared at Duke.
He’d broken rank on her. Rather than waiting for her “all clear,” he’d taken someone else’s. Someone that hadn’t been out there with him, that hadn’t kept his back covered coming in. Rather tha
n waiting for her signal to proceed, he’d taken Rowdy’s instead.
“I’m kicking your fucking ass,” she yelled as she flew at him, nearly shaking, her finger poised in his surprised face as Chaya, Natches, and Bliss stepped back hurriedly. “Go fight with Rowdy and his merry band of fucking assholes next time. You’ll die with them, too, but at least it won’t be on my watch.”
Her gaze swept around, her look encompassing the room of government agents and former soldiers.
Current morons was what they were.
“You’re all dead men.” She sneered. “That sniper could have taken you out before you ever made it to Declan and Harley. And he could have taken this dumbass with you.” She flicked her fingers at Duke. “Now get the hell out of my way. You caused me to bust my damned stitches when all you had to do was give me a damned minute.” She had no idea what she’d done to her shoulder. She felt like stomping in fury. “I hate men! I hate all of you! Son of a bitch, I need an intelligent woman to fight with, not a bunch of damned testosterone.”
She pushed through the wall of surprised, offended males and rushed for the door to the suite.
“Send Ethan to me when he’s done. If his ass is still alive, that is,” she ordered as she pushed into the suite and slammed the door behind her. “Assholes.”
• • •
Silence filled the kitchen as all eyes turned from Angel’s retreating back and the men filling the room gazed at each other in shock.
“You know,” Natches drawled into the silence, “I’m pretty sure I want to be Angel when I grow up.”
Duke could only shake his head. “You’d have to be alive first.”
“Hey, Chaya and I didn’t fuck up,” he all but crowed. “We dumped the body in the garage, Seth and Saul are collecting the one Angel took out, and no one was shooting at us. So I get to grow up”—he chuckled—“when I get around to it.”
Everyone looked at him with various expressions of doubt. Natches grow up? That wasn’t going to happen anytime soon and all of them were aware of it.
“Son of a bitch, she made my drill sergeant look like the tooth fairy,” Graham grunted, his expression hardening. “But she’s right. Every one of us could have died out there if she hadn’t known what she was doing. We ignored her. I won’t make that mistake again.”
“Yeah.” Bliss looked a little too smug. “For an older sister, she’s cool as hell, huh?”
The teenager turned and strolled from the room, puffed up with pride as she left the adults in shock.
• • •
Angel could feel the outrage and anger burning through her, but beneath it, crawling insidiously through her mind, was pure terror.
Duke could have died.
Because he hadn’t waited for her.
He hadn’t trusted her.
Easing the drab green T-shirt over her head, she barely held back a moan at the pain that shot through her arm. Blood and pus were seeping beneath the bandage on her thigh, the wound there busted open, the stitches ripped past flesh. She’d felt the break the second she’d begun firing.
Her arm had slammed into something as she rolled to the dubious cover of those logs, then knocked into the sharp point of one log sticking out from beneath. And what the fuck was wrong with her leg?
It was screaming.
She wanted to scream.
Quickly removing her pants she stared at the heavy dark stain on the pad and the blood oozing from beneath the adhesive. And that blood looked odd, just as the stain on the pad did.
Grabbing the long shirt she’d taken from Duke, she pulled it on over the thin black tank top and boy shorts she wore, buttoned a few buttons, and sat on the cushioned hope chest at the bottom of the bed.
How had her leg become infected again? And so quickly. Ethan was certain the problem had cleared up, but as she stared at the gauze beneath the adhesive she knew it was infection. She could see the faint redness now where it hadn’t been the night before. The advanced tenderness, the throb just beneath the flesh.
And it was possibly worse than it had been the first time.
That was why she felt so crappy, she thought dismally. She’d awakened with a faint headache, that off-kilter feeling. She should have known she was running a fever. She knew the signs, but everything was so crazy emotionally that she hadn’t stopped to think.
“There you are!” Ethan rushed into the bedroom, the case he carried gripped in his hand as Duke moved behind him carrying another smaller case.
“Declan and Harley?” She frowned as he tossed the case on the bed, the sound of the metal locks being released behind her.
“They can wait,” he announced. “I was already on my way here when the sirens raced by. I had Doc Marlin send off a swab of the discharge from that leg for testing the other day. He just called about an hour or so ago. I would’ve been here sooner, but I had to stop by the hospital.”
She lifted her hand to her head, the words drowning into each other as she felt herself sway.
“Angel, baby . . .” Duke was kneeling beside her, his hands on the buttons of the shirt. “Let’s get this off, then we’re going to get you on the bed so Ethan can do what he does best.”
“Fix me?” She frowned.
That was Ethan’s favorite saying. That was what he did best, fix Angel and keep her on her feet.
“Nothing needs fixed, sweetheart.” He eased the shirt from her shoulders, bracing her weight as he did.
She couldn’t hold herself up.
She felt odd . . . disconnected.
“Duke.” She tried to reach for him, but missed him somehow. “Duke, what’s wrong with me?”
“Adrenaline rush added to the infection, Angel. You were already weak and running low, now you’re crashing. You remember the crash, right?” Ethan sounded so reasonable.
“Come on, let’s get you in the bed.”
Someone else was speaking; she could hear them. Something about a blanket under her . . . A woman’s voice . . . A memory, a need she’d never been able to conquer.
“Momma?” She grimaced. Fear tore through her. She couldn’t seem to hold on to the memory that she didn’t have a momma. “Duke. What the fuck’s wrong with me?”
She stared up at him, feeling the prick of something in her arm and rolling her head to Ethan.
“It’s okay, little sister,” he promised. “We got this, right?”
They had what?
What did they have?
“Allergy to penicillin when she was a baby . . . Be careful of the antibiotic. . . .” She heard the voice again, soft, soothing. That voice she always searched for when she had been sick as a child.
She stared at Duke where he sat next to her, one hand brushing her hair back.
She could still hear that woman’s voice advising Ethan on antibiotics and it was scaring the shit out of her.
She licked her suddenly dry lips, watching Duke desperately.
“Am I hallucinating?” she whispered, feeling whatever drug Ethan had pushed into her system taking hold of her. “I keep hearing her.”
“Hearing who, baby?” His gaze flicked to Ethan then back to her. “Who do you hear?”
“I keep hearing Momma.” Were those tears she felt in her eyes, one rolling down her cheek? “I hear her. . . .”
She had to close her eyes, just for a minute. They were so heavy. But when she opened them again, she knew she was dreaming.
“I’m here, BeeBee,” her mother whispered as she wiped the moisture from Angel’s cheek. “I’m right here.”
Why was she there?
Why . . . ?
Ethan and his damned drugs.
Her eyes drifted closed again, that darkness she couldn’t stop or control easing over her.
It was a dream. Just a dream . . .
• • •
S
tanding at the side of the room, Chaya watched as Ethan hung the IV he’d attached to Angel’s arm on the metal pole Duke had hastily screwed together and attached to the headboard of the bed.
He’d cut the stitches free on her leg, cleaned the wound, packed it with an antibiotic he’d picked up from the hospital, covered it with that noxious-smelling salve Memmie Mary made, then secured gauze over it rather than a bandage. The arm he did the same to, just to be safe, he’d stated, though the puncture from a sharp branch couldn’t possibly cause the same reaction as the chemical that had been on that knife. That chemical was the cause of the infection, but the penicillin he’d used because the severity of the wound had been deemed minimal didn’t work well with Angel’s system.
It wasn’t just the wounds that had Chaya fighting her tears, though. It was his comment that the leg was going to have a hell of a scar to add to her collection. When Ethan finished she moved closer to her daughter, gazed down at her smaller, more delicate body, and felt her breath hitch.
The tank top had ridden up just enough to reveal the scar on her side from a bullet she’d taken the year before. Duke had shown her the scar higher up where Angel had taken another knife. A knife had pierced her lung a few years prior, and that scar, too, showed clearly on her other side.
There were small scars, a few larger, on both legs. She’d taken a bullet in her right arm at some point, and there was a scar from a knife just beneath her jaw that looked at least a decade old.
“She has more war wounds than you do,” she whispered, lifting her head to gaze at Natches where he remained next to the patio doors with Dawg and Rowdy.
“Let me pull the sheet over her and he can come over with you,” Duke murmured, dragging the fabric over Angel’s tanned legs to above her waist. “She doesn’t like anyone seeing those scars.”
“Badges of courage,” Chaya whispered as Natches came behind her, his hands settling on her shoulders before he pulled her against his chest.
“The chemical on that knife is a habit that gang uses. We weren’t aware of it until Doc Marlin called.” Ethan breathed out roughly. “When the tests came back he asked where it happened. When I told him he pulled the information for me while I was on my way to him. The infection comes on slow and unless it’s treated correctly will keep coming back, stronger than before. He’s pretty sure this will clear it up, though.”