Page 5 of Knox's Mission

A year and a half ago, everything changed when his best friend was killed in the crash that should have taken Knox instead. The joint task force meant to rescue a group of dignitaries who had been taken hostage went FUBAR after a catastrophic rotor failure during takeoff, ending Knox’s military career. Signing on with the Yellowstone Branch of the Brotherhood Protectors gave him a reason to keep going. This mission, however, was personal.

“You doing okay?” Hayes asked, glancing over at Knox.

“Never better,” he lied, as he rubbed his thumb against the silver dollar. He’d believe in luck, if he thought it would help. But, hell, the only luck he’dever had was Garrett’s family moving next door in the Houston suburb of Sugar Land. Luck was a fickle bitch who’d waved her magic wand once and she wasn’t something Knox counted on—which he chose to see as an advantage. He put in the time, did the work, performed due diligence instead of relying on some shit he couldn’t see or touch, let alone depend on.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Hayes continued. “We can send in someone else.”

“My responsibility,” Knox said, shaking his head. Garrett and Knox had grown up together in a small town outside of Houston, along with Garrett’s little sister Amy. The tomboy might have been four years younger but she’d tried her best to tag along with them.

“You hate water,” Hayes pointed out.

“That’s facts.” Knox couldn’t argue there. But some things were bigger than his fears.

“And remember the time I threw that rubber snake at you?” Hayes smirked, clearly amused at the memory and trying to lighten the mood. “You jumped so high you almost broke through the ceiling.”

“Like I already said, this isn’t a choice. It’s my obligation.”

“Even though you do realize your target is in the jungle to find and document one of the deadliestsnakes in the world?” Hayes was having fun torturing Knox at this point. The best response? None.

“I look forward to it,” Knox lied again. It was one of those lies you tell yourself because you refuse to believe otherwise.

This mission was the least Knox could do for Garrett. His unspoken promise to take care of Amy wasn’t derived from a dramatic, smoke-filled, bullets flying, last breath, best friend dying in his arms oath. No. Knox’s commitment to Garrett went way deeper. It came from a lifetime of moments of Garrett showing up in the nick of time to save Knox from a drunk dad. Like the time he appeared a second before Knox’s inebriated father delivered what would have been a deadly blow with a fireplace poker. Knox had been a fourteen-year-old skeleton who had yet to fill out his six-feet-four-inch frame. The fight had been over Knox forgetting to vacuum the carpet before dear old dad came home after happy hour with his corporate buddies.

To this day, Knox had an almost violent physical reaction to the smell of tequila on someone’s breath. He had the scars to prove tequila hurt.

The chopper lowered to less than a ten-foot jump in a clearing. The base camp where Amy had begun this journey was a thirty-minute hike from the drop spot. No problem there. On the way over, Knox studied the map. He’d memorized the area whereher guide had dropped her, according to her friend Lorna—the one who’d made the call to him to rescue Amy—who became sick after arriving at the meetup. Lorna’s sudden sickness might just have saved her life. It had stopped her from going into the jungle along with Amy. It had held her back where she’d watched a spooked guide return without her friend or boyfriend, leaving the two to fend for themselves with no transportation.

Knox had been Amy’s emergency contact in case anything went wrong, according to Lorna. Why him? Why wouldn’t Amy list her mother?

Because you have the skills to rescue her and her mother wouldn’t have to know,a little voice in the back of his head pointed out. He could barely hear it over the throb from the headache. But it was right.

Knox unhooked himself a moment before the call to jump came. He dropped out of the chopper and then rolled to minimize impact on his feet and legs. Between shattering his right ankle and wrist in the crash that had killed Garrett and the burns covering half his torso, his body couldn’t take impact like it used to. At least this mission was in the heat. Cold weather caused the rod in his right leg to ache from the inside out now.

Heat and humidity assaulted him almost the minute he touched ground. Limping, he gave Hayes athumbs up. The chopper hovered for a second longer, then banked right and went straight up.

What the hell was Garrett’s baby sister doing out here?

Amy had been an annoying kid back in the day. She’d gone off to college somewhere up north, he believed, rarely coming home. At least, they weren’t home at the same time. He’d lost track of her and then couldn’t face her or her mother after Garrett’s death.

After getting the call from her friend Lorna, he’d pulled up Amy’s social media. She’d changed, grown up, to the point he barely recognized her. Hair that used to be cut barely long enough to cover her neck had grown soft, silky, and halfway down her back.

Blue eyes the color of the sky on a spring morning in Texas had softened with age. She’d grown tall. But then, what had he expected? Her to still be the fourteen-year-old kid sister?

Strange how that worked. You leave a person or place for years, maybe a decade, and when you return you expect nothing to change. The people not to age, despite knowing full well that isn’t how time works. Somehow they remained frozen with your last memory of them, forever caught in that moment. In Amy’s case, it was fourteen. In Knox’s eyes, she was still that angry all the time, door-slamming teenwho wanted to shout at them and hang with them in equal measure.

The brain worked in mysterious ways.

A pair of eighteen-year-olds didn’t have patience or time for anyone’s little sister. Garrett had always been protective of Amy, but that didn’t mean he wanted her hanging around all the time. Garrett’s stance made the subject a nonissue for Knox. But he’d been amused at how frustrated Garrett became when Amy tried to tease Knox.

All water under the bridge now.

Thirty minutes turned into twenty at the pace Knox kept. He made it to base camp exactly twenty hours after the call had come in. Amy and someone by the name of Donnie had been abandoned by their guide in the jungle and were in trouble.

Although Amy and Knox hadn’t spoken in ages, she’d managed to leave behind an emergency number…his. This must have been Garrett’s work if she couldn’t reach him, because Knox never gave out his private, encrypted number.

A black-haired female who was average height, five-feet-five-inches came running toward him the second he stepped out of the thicket surrounding the encampment. She wore all green—green cargo pants and a green long-sleeve shirt. Her clothes looked like she stepped off one of those adventure clothing store catalogs. She had a knife strapped toher thigh in a sheath, the blade looked to be good-sized.

“You must be Knox,” she said, grabbing her side as she slowed her pace.

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