Page 44 of Duty Bound

CHAPTER 16

“Why are we leaving?”

Lily scampered to keep up with Blade.

“What’s going on?”

“I told you. I heard voices and thought we’d better head out. Our position there was no longer safe.”

She shook her head to clear the fog. Ten minutes ago she’d been in dreamland, and now they were trampling through the forest again, zigzagging around various flora and tripping over hidden roots.

Well, she was tripping. He was doing his usual Rambo thing.

“Did you see anyone?”

“Here, eat this.” Blade handed her an energy bar. “It should keep you going until I can find us somewhere else to camp, then you can have some of the rations.”

She grabbed the bar. Rations would be good too, as she was ravenous. Her last meal was a distant memory.

Blade had warned her against dehydration, so she’d been sipping her water regularly. They carried enough between the two of them to last three days if they were careful. But she was conscious that she was drinking far more than Blade.

She studied him as he turned to make sure she was keeping up. Disheveled hair, grim expression, haunted eyes underlined with shadows. The beard was an interesting addition. It made him look older, harder. More devastating. “You didn’t sleep, did you?”

“I kept watch.”

“That's when you saw them?” She hadn’t known him for long, but she could tell when he was hiding something.

He gave a curt nod.

“Taliban?”

“I don’t know. Didn’t wait around long enough to find out.”

“So, it could have been nothing? A harmless farmer or goat herder?”

“It wasn’t nothing.” His jaw jutted out stubbornly. “And no one here is harmless.”

“Then you did see who they were.”

“They had guns, okay? Goat herders don’t sneak around armed with AK-47s.”

That was pretty definitive. Lily ate her energy bar in silence, wondering how close they’d really come. By the tension in those powerful shoulders and his constant alertness, pretty damn close.

When she was done, she scrunched up the wrapper, earning herself another annoyed look.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

“Give it to me.”

She handed it over and he stuffed it into his pocket to dispose of later. No evidence. No clues to leave their enemy.

They marched in silence, Lily barely keeping up. Blade made it clear that talking was not allowed, not now while they were potentially surrounded by the enemy.

Fine with her.

He was in a gruff mood anyway, all snarly and sullen. The men with the guns had really pissed him off.

A back-breaking hour later, they came to a dilapidated pile of stones that looked like it might once have been a dwelling of some sort. The rear wall was half-standing, but the top had toppled forward onto the rest of the rubble.

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