Page 30 of What I Should Have Done

Chapter 11

SCOTTIE

These dune buggies were really nice, and after making sure they weren’t trackable, equipping them with rigging from our outpost, I was jealous that Mikey was driving one of them, and not me. Ford rode in the seat behind us, clearly chomping at the bit to use the gatling gun still mounted on top. We’d been able to cruise away from the outpost without anyone batting an eye as every focus was on the incoming enemy we’d left behind.

Dom drove the sand rail in front of us, carrying Bernie and Duncan. No one spoke, not even over comms as the roar of the engine drowned out any other sound. Sand sprayed around us, coating the fabric mask that covered my nose and mouth. Grains bounced from the glasses shielding my eyes—eyes that I struggled to keep focused on anything else besides the man seated next to me.

Last night…

His touch shouldn’t have fired me up in the way that it had, but it did. And now, as his fingers clenched the steering column tightly, the veins that were covered by gloves at the moment sparked in my mind. The feel of his rough skin against my own palm sent vibrating tingles to my core even now.

My gaze flashed to his hand again as he pressed a palm tightly against the wheel and spun it, turning the buggy around a corner. Shit… A movement so simple shouldn’t have been so erotic, but for whatever reason it was.

He seemed so casual about the fact that we were on our way to deliver more chaos, more darkness. Which made it even more attractive. Clenching my rifle tighter to my chest, I tore my eyes away from the man whose feet pumped the clutch effortlessly, sending a rippling wave up his muscled legs, and shifted the buggy up a gear.

The mask upon my mouth couldn’t have been more of a blessing than it was now. Why the hell was I drooling over some guy doing something so normal? Besides, what happened last night had crossed a line. There was no way that I would let anyone think I obtained my position with this team because of some strange infatuation with one of the members. Besides, Blondie was not my type.

I was certainly not his type either. I couldn’t be.

Inhaling deeply, I glanced to my right, away from the man whose face had invaded my restful sleep during the previous night. But that didn’t help distract my thoughts from him.

Ugh…

Shaking my head, we roared around another corner and our movement slowed. Mikey shifted down, and I sucked in my bottom lip, biting down hard to keep myself from glancing over. A man in uniform was not my thing, and he’d clearly stated, in a rather awkward mumbling way, that a woman in the military was not his type.

But damn, when he got all geared up did he look rather attractive.

A shiver rolled down my spine as our acceleration slowed even more, and then Mikey cut the engine entirely. Both sand rails lugged forward with the lingering momentum between cement blockades that had found their way into the middle of nowhere. With a final squeak of the brakes, the buggy came to a complete stop.

“Let’s move.” Dom’s voice came through my earpiece, silent and full of anticipation that shivered down my spine. “Bernie, you and Crow move out now, we will enter the town from the opposite side. Make sure that Crow reaches her post undetected and then hustle your ass to our meet up point.”

“Copy that, Phoenix,” Bernie responded through the comms. As silent as the moon rising in the night, blanketed in the blackness that we were afforded now with the lack of stars that didn’t litter the canvas above, we all unloaded from the buggies.

I caught Mikey’s brief glance my way, but his mask and goggles hid his expression as he disappeared with the rest of the team. Nothing but a brief look to check on his teammate.

We were hoofing it from here on foot since the Black Box was located in the middle of a small town. A village deserted by its residents once Karim al-Jabari’s followers had moved in. The lack of locals reassured me that there wouldn’t be a huge possibility of innocents caught in the potential crossfire.

But simply being a firsthand witness to this team offered me even more comfort. The four that split off had been a mere few feet from me, and yet, they’d disappeared into the darkness like ink on black paper—undetectable. Now, the only reason that I knew Bernie was behind me was from the occasional brush of his breath against my neck and the faint tick from his quiet footsteps as we ran closer and closer to my designated location.

There was a part of me that wished it was Mikey who was making sure I reached my post safely. All because of his expertise in close-quarter combat. Right? But Dom felt it was more imperative to have him with them as they reached their breach point to avoid the use of guns for as long as possible to keep their element of surprise.

Once Bernie helped me secure my position on a rooftop, he would join the rest of the team at their breach location. My location, from what intel we had, would give me the perfect lookout as the eyes for the team as they entered. But it was outside the building where they were ultimately infiltrating, and I would lose sight of them once they made entry.

Part of me felt that the team was still keeping me on probation, that they thought I wasn’t worth bringing into the fold just yet. As if I still owed them proof that I could handle a fight. I couldn’t blame them; they didn’t know me. Well, they knew my file. But that was it.

Though, for all of the shit they’d given me so far, I really did like the call sign—Crow. It seemed rather fitting, more than even they realized.

Bernie’s hand slapped on my shoulder as we continued jogging toward my perch. My lungs squeezed, burning as hot as my legs the longer we ran. It had been a long time since I’d run this far for this long, so the lack of Bernie gasping beside me irritated me. Making a mental note that I needed to spend more time on my cardio after this mission, we slipped around a corner, and Bernie slunk in front of me, stopping me in my tracks.

There it was, the small town that was our destination, set against the dark horizon. How it had remained hidden from my sight for so long beat me.

There wasn’t a light on in any of the windows, and the buildings were already beginning to crumble from the desert sun and lack of upkeep now that there weren’t any permanent residents. It was a ghost town that still had people coming and going—for all the wrong reasons.

There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the layout of this town, other than everything crowded around one central point. Bernie crept behind me, scanning the area as we entered the town and slunk down an alleyway, avoiding the well and old water pipe in the center of the village. Ragged fabric that once likely bled beautiful colors hung limp over glassless windows.

Moving as silent as possible, we crept down a dark pass behind another building that looked just the same as the one before. Something old and rusty creaked with the breeze, but not a sound alerting the presence of people bounced along with it. Anything left behind by the residents that once lived here was coated in such thick layers of sand they were nearly impossible to identify.

Rounding another bend, Bernie tapped my shoulder, and I paused. He stepped quietly in front of me and peeked around the corner. Obviously seeing nothing, he signaled for us to move, and we slipped to the right, entering the first floor of the building that was going to serve as my post for this mission.

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