Page 13 of Guarded from Havoc

For a moment, I’m tossed into the past.

Back to Afghanistan. To that dilapidated building where everything changed. Where life as I knew it would never be the same again.

“Erik.” Her voice is tiny. Frightened. “What was that?”

I drag myself into the present.

Where Tatum is looking at me with terrified eyes, her hand clutching my arm to the point of pain.

With a ruthless mental shove, I push back the memories trying to edge their way in.

Now is no time for a revisit with my old enemy, PTSD. Not when I have Tatum to protect.

Heedless of propriety, I wrap one arm around her and pull her close to me, shielding Tatum with my much bigger body. She trembles against me, her breath coming in rapid, shallow gasps. “What was that?” she repeats. “Please… tell me that’s not what I think it was?”

But how can I, when I know damn well what gunfire sounds like?

“Someone’s shooting,” I tell her. “And we need to get to cover.”

Then I pull her to her feet, and basically carry her over to a group of young pines less than ten feet away, nudging her into a nook between them. “Stay here,” I order. “I need to go check things out?—”

Another round of gunfire.

Tatum whimpers. Presses close to my chest. Her fingers are vises on my arms. “No,” she whispers desperately. “No. You can’t leave me.”

Without thinking, I hug her close. One hand strokes down the length of her hair. “I have to surveil our surroundings,” I explain quietly, never more aware that there could be someone—orsomeones—out there, searching for us.

And as I hold Tatum in my arms, I cast my gaze out again. Into the woods. To the soil and grass, marked faintly with footprints.

To the glint of metal in a V of branches to our right. Maybe thirty feet away. Metal that definitely doesn’t belong in a place like this.

Then to a tiny, glowing red light above it.

Icy realization seeps through me.

I know what that light is.

After all, we have hundreds of security cameras all over the Blade and Arrow Security property. All of them with tiny red lights just like those.

Why is there a camera there?

“Erik,” Tatum says. “Please. Don’t leave me here. I want to go with you.”

This is very, very bad.

I fear it’s worse than anything I could have imagined.

Yes, my team is on the way. But I don’t know where I am. How long it’ll take them to get here.

And in the meantime, I need to make sure I survive whatever fucked up thing is going on.

Not just survive. I need to make sure Tatum is safe.

Could I find a hiding spot for her? One thatmightbe good enough to evade detection?

Maybe.

“Erik?” Tatum looks up at me with eyes brimming with unshed tears. “Usually I’m okay being on my own. But now? I can’t. Please. Wherever you’re going, take me with you. I promise, I won’t get in the way. I’ll help however I can.”

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