Page 107 of Peace Under Fire

“Nightfall?” Brick turned to the window. “Can you trust this person?” As soon as the question left his mouth he shook his head. “Don’t suppose it matters. We’re not going to wait around and see. Come on then, we don’t have much time.”

“If you give me a car, I’ll leave. I hate bringing trouble down on everyone here,” Mandy said, practically running to keep pace with him.

Brick snorted. “Not gonna happen. If these cockroaches of yours think they can get the drop on us, they’re very much mistaken.” He glanced over his shoulder, his gaze connecting with Alaska’s worried eyes. “Come on, sweetheart.” His voice softened. “You’re coming with us.”

“Where are we going?” From the dread darkening Alaska’s eyes, she must already know the answer to her question.

Brick held out his hand. “To the bunker.” When Alaska took it, he pulled her into a hard hug. “You’ll both be safe down there. Nobody will find you once you’re sealed inside the bunker.”

“I know,” Alaska said into his shoulder, her arms tight around his waist.

“It won’t be like last time. Mandy will be there with you. Hell, I’ll be in there with you,” Brick added, his voice so soothing, it was obvious Alaska had had a traumatic experience with the place.

What happened the last time Alaska was in this bunker?

Mandy almost asked, but it would have to wait. Brick found two flashlights and grabbed his phone. As he led them out the door and into the woods surrounding the cabin, he was on his cell, updating someone in a toneless whisper. He didn’t use the flashlights, since there was still enough light for them to see. But the skyline was darkening with every step they took.

The urgency built to a crescendo as Mandy followed Brick through the trees, deeper and deeper into the woods. He’d stopped talking on the phone. Silence surrounded them, broken only by the snap of twigs beneath their feet, or the occasional hoot of a lonely owl.

She looked up at the deep, purple skyline. Was it dark enough now to be considered nightfall?

Are the cockroaches here? she silently asked.

There was no reply. Did that mean the strange woman had disengaged, or that Mandy had imagined the incident?

With uncertainty running rampant within her, Mandy turned to her instincts—which were screaming that they needed to hurry. Her presence put both Brick and Alaska in danger. She was certain of that.

They needed to find this haven, this bunker, before the cockroaches found them.

* * *

By the time Squish settled in his seat between a chatty old woman next to the window and a flirty blonde next to the aisle, he was frustrated, exhausted, and suffering from an Imitrex hangover.

The first migraine had struck on his flight down to San Diego. It was weird. The headaches had disappeared while he’d been with Mandy, only to return as soon as he put some distance between them. The realization gave him pause, but he shrugged it off. Mandy wasn’t the healer in her family. It was unlikely she’d cured his brain injury without either of them realizing it. There must be another reason for his migraine resurgence.

Either way, the headaches had disappeared so long ago they’d become a distant memory. He hadn’t even bothered to replace his blister pack of Imitrex. A big mistake.

He’d found a good pair of mirrored sunglasses and some over-the-counter migraine meds between flights in San Diego, but they hadn’t done much to dull the pain. The constant delays hadn’t helped either. For Christ’s sake, it had taken almost three days to get down to Sao Paulo, twice as long as he’d expected.

The flight he was returning home on was a commercial one—noisy and chaotic and full of people. Too bad there hadn’t been a MAC flight headed to the Los Alamos area. He grimaced as an infant somewhere behind him wailed, and the man in front slammed back his seat until there was barely enough room to breathe. Hanging onto his patience by a thread, he glanced at his watch, ignoring the chatty woman on his right and the flirty one on his left.

Five more hours and he’d be back with Mandy. And thank Christ for that. He hadn’t expected to miss her so much. Hadn’t expected her to be constantly hovering in his mind, bubbling there below the surface like an active volcano, threatening to explode at any moment and sweep every other consideration away. He missed her sparkling eyes, and her innocent questions, and her enthusiasm as she opened her body and mind to him.

The flirty broad with her perky tits to his left held no appeal whatsoever. And that should tell him something, because she was his type—or at least what used to be his type. Tex had dubbed it ‘the porn star next door.’

Which Mandy was not, and would never be. Yet she was the only woman on his radar.

Fuck…he missed her. Which gave rise to all sorts of questions. Like what he was going to do once they found and rescued her sisters. Would he be willing to give up his life on the teams for her? Because that was the only recourse that would allow them to remain together. It would be too dangerous for her to join him with the cockroaches after her. She’d be too vulnerable during his deployments. Hell, she’d be too vulnerable anywhere he was stationed.

If he wanted to keep her, he’d have to find them a safe haven. One where the cockroaches wouldn’t be able to find her. And that haven couldn’t be the Refuge. The cabin they’d been offered was temporary. He knew that and didn’t intend to overstay Brick’s hospitality.

On the other hand, if he let her go and returned to the teams, he’d be…empty. These four days away from her had illustrated just how important she’d become to him. It felt like he was missing a piece of himself when they were apart. Somehow, she’d attached herself to him, and in a remarkably short amount of time.

But future plans were something to worry about later, something they could talk over and decide on together. Which was another big departure for him, he’d never let a hookup have a stake in his life before.

It was odd how he and Lucky—two of the staunchest bachelors on ST4—had fallen at the same time. He wasn’t sure he’d call it love. Hell, he wasn’t even sure he believed in love. But there was something going on between Lucky and his Ressa, and himself and Mandy. The women had become important to them. Which in turn had opened certain vulnerabilities. Caring about a woman meant feeling things.

Right now, Lucky was feeling terror. His woman was missing. Taken by an evil bastard and hauled off to Christ only knew where. The horror of losing her shone in Lucky’s eyes. The knowledge of what was happening to her had carved deep, ugly lines all over his face. The dude had looked like hell. He was consumed by fear, by terror for his woman.

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