Page 49 of Honoring Lena

Twenty-Five

Lena flexedher fingers next to her side and darted her gaze down the street toward where they’d parked the van with Marshall inside. What a fruitless act since it was zero dark thirty and pitch black, and she couldn’t see the vehicle. A breeze blew through the tall grass meadow where they waited to breach the warehouse. It lifted her ponytail and cooled her sweaty neck. If only it would cool her nerves as well.

Why did Marshall have to insist on coming with? Why couldn’t he have stayed with Paxton’s team where it was safe? Sure, they had approached the parking lot in such a way that anyone watching wouldn’t have seen them, and, even though it made her stomach knot, the surveillance post was the perfect spot for him. With his military analyst background and knowledge of the warehouse layout, it would keep him involved but also out of harm’s way.

Paxton’s team had decked the van out with surveillance cameras, so Marshall would know if anyone approached. It wasn’t like he was inept at weapons. He’d handled the Sig Zeke had given him with ease and familiarity. They all wore June’s Supersuits, even Marshall, but they still had vulnerabilities like, say, a bullet to the head. Lena closed her eyes and breathed out the image of Marshall getting shot out of her mind, only to have Ethan’s dead body replace Marshall’s.

Tingling started in her chest and spread through her limbs. She wanted to rush back to the van, grab Marshall, run away, and hide forever. She wanted time to speed up so they could get this over with. She wanted … she didn’t know what she wanted. She snorted softly. When had she started lying to herself? She knew exactly what she wanted, to hold and love the Rand men for the rest of her life, however long that ended up being.

“We’re in.” Rafe’s almost inaudible words came over the com and sent a wave of nausea through her.

She swallowed the burning down, slid her Eyes Beyond on, and fell in line behind Bjørn. On silent feet, she rushed through the door and split away from her brother, heading down the opposite hall. They would continue to divide into smaller teams as they methodically searched the building’s few offices and storage closets, ending up in the warehouse’s large production room.

Praying they found Carter in some office somewhere with only a guard or two seemed too hopeful, but she did it anyway. Then someone could retreat to safety with Carter while the team took down the terrorists.

“Clear.” Sosimo’s voice came through the com.

Lena peeked around the corridor, found it empty, and motioned for Jake to go ahead. He rushed down the hall to the manager’s office at the end. As she followed, she scanned with the Eyes Beyond through the walls for any heat source on the other side.

Zeke grunted, then his voice echoed Sosimo’s from their point on the other side of the building. “Clear here too.”

Lena’s pulse drummed in her ears, drowning out all other sounds. Please let Carter be in here. Please, she begged as Jake reached for the office door’s handle and looked at her. She adjusted her grip on her assault rifle and gave him a nod. With coordinated moves, he opened the door, and she swooshed into an empty room. Her heart sank at the last hope of getting Carter out without him being in the middle of the confrontation. She moved farther into the room to make sure she wasn’t missing anything, but the space held nothing.

“Clear.” She swallowed down the lump in her throat and turned to the door.

“Copy. Phase two.” Zeke’s low mumble steeled her nerves.

The main warehouse had three entrances from within the building. Marshall had explained that while the smaller equipment had been moved, the room still held shelving, bigger machines they hadn’t needed at the other facility, and a row of cubicles by the front entrance behind a divider. A large open area that had contained the packing area was positioned near the middle of everything. While Sosimo and Gunnar cleared the cubicles, the rest of the team were to work along the far edges of the room until they cleared the shelving and machines surrounding the open space.

Lena scanned through the wall as she and Jake approached their point of entry. When nothing registered, she reached for the handle and slowly opened the door for Jake to peek inside. When he nodded, she pulled it the rest of the way open and followed him into the room.

Light permeated through the shelving from the open space, making her squint through the special eye gear. She slipped the Eyes Beyond to the top of her helmet and took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly to ease her nerves. The murmur of voices and a high-pitched cackling sound filled the otherwise tomb-like silence. The smell of dust and disuse tickled her nose, and she wrinkled it to keep from sneezing.

Jake signaled one way, so she went the other, following the shelving to weave toward the light. How did they not have guards set up? Were they that confident Marshall would do what they said that they’d only leave a handful of people? Or was it a trap—funneling everyone to one location? She stumbled and leaned against a shelf.

Scanning high and low, she searched for anything they may have missed. The darkness shifted in the rafters and a faint shimmer flashed before it disappeared to black. Her hands shook as she yanked the Eyes Beyond back over her eyes. A heat signature shifted brightly in the dark ceiling. She darted her gaze over the rest of the rafters, finding two more people stationed on guard.

“Three assailants in the rafters,” Lena whispered into the com.

Marshall cursed low, his harsh breath vibrating through the earbud. “There are two ladders to the catwalks. Northeast and southwest corners.”

“On it.” Jake came back, and Lena watched his shadow dart past the shelves toward the corner.

“I’ve got this one.” Bjørn echoed Jake from the team’s vantage point on the opposite side of the room.

Lena took one last scan with the Eyes Beyond into the dark corners of the building. Her hands slicked with sweat, and she angrily rubbed them on her jeans. This mission held too much importance, too much of her heart, to screw it up with nerves. She ignored the anxiety muddling her mind and looked back up to where the men hid in the rafters. How could she approach the open area without getting in their line of sight?

She turned back the way she’d come. Could she use the large equipment Marshall said was still there to hide her? Slow and quiet. She repeated her instructions in her head until her heart no longer threatened to choke her.

“In place.” Zeke’s voice ratcheted her pulse right back up.

Lena didn’t allow his words to force her to rush and make a mistake.

“Here too,” Gunnar replied.

Lena rolled her eyes. Of course, she was behind, but getting to her point without being seen was more important than speed. She’d just have to tell them to hold their horses.

“I’m almo—”

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