Page 2 of Room Nine: Masters of Control

“She’s coming your way… watch the front door,” I say into my comm.

“Roger that,” Kerr responds.

I eye the door, checking the seams with a wary gaze. “Please don’t be booby-trapped.”

Turning the handle, I slowly open the door, leading with the nozzle of my gun. I don’t relish the idea of shooting a woman, but I learned a long time ago never to underestimate an adversary. The smell of gas permeates the air, so my first stop is the stove where I turn off the burners.

Yeah, she’s definitely planning to blow this place up, which means we need to get out of here—fast.

“Come on out. You got nowhere to go. My partners are waiting for you outside.”

This is my first time inside this shit hole. The living room is passable, the kitchen bare bones, but the primary bedroom with its king-sized bed is immaculate—a real party room—which turns my stomach sour.

Fucking pieces of shit. I can’t wait until the day we get to kill one of these muthafuckers.

I’m moving down the hallway toward the second bedroom when a closet door flings outward, knocking me backward. Our hellcat jackrabbits out of her hiding space and runs out the back door.

“She’s on the move. Back door.”

“Left or right?” Kerr growls.

“Fuck if I know.”

“Dammit! She’s heading south to the road.”

I jump out of the back door and run south after Kerr and our mystery hellcat. I’ve got to say, I’m both annoyed and impressed she took me down, even momentarily. He’s only a few feet behind her when he jumps and tackles her, taking her to the ground.

But she’s spry, rolling out from underneath him and jumping to her feet. Unfortunately for her, Kerr is just as agile and he’s on his feet, ready to lunge again. She jumps and spins to perform some kind of roundhouse kick—which looks great in the movies, but isn’t really practical in close combat. Kerr grabs her thigh and uses her momentum to throw her to the ground.

At this point, I’ve slowed down to a light jog to enjoy the show. Fighting in the open near the house is not ideal. We need to get out of here before someone drives up, but at the same time, she’s too much fun. The things coming out of her mouth would make most hardened combat soldiers blush, and she’s calling Kerr everything in and out of the book.

“Get off me, you fucking prick!” she screams as he flips her over, putting her face in the dirt.

Kerr looks up at me, a gleam in his eye that’s not appropriate given the situation. “You want to fucking help a brother out?”

“I want to watch her kick your ass some more.”

He narrows his eyes. “Bag, twenty yards back.”

“Oh.” I didn’t even notice he shed his bag and gun when he took her to the ground. That would have fucking hurt both of them to tackle her with an M4 across his chest. Not that we haven’t done it before in the last thirteen years together.

Kerr, Dem, and I are former PsySpecOps soldiers, teamed by the US Army back when we were near eighteen and midway through Ranger school. PsySpecOps doesn’t take volunteers, they recruit the best of the best out of the special forces units. We’re chosen not only for our physical prowess—marksmen, hand-to-hand, endurance, strength, intelligence, instinct, and ingenuity—but also for our psych profile that says we’ll work best as a team. We’re the Army’s answer to a super soldier without chemical injections and gamma rays. Together, the three of us are a perfect soldier, accentuating each other’s strengths and eliminating any weaknesses.

Therefore—we get along really well and do everything together. And I do mean everything.

I jog over to his bag, pulling out the Velcro cuffs from the side pocket before flinging the bag over my shoulder. I also grab his gun, tsking at the mud caked in the muzzle.

She’s still fighting him, bucking her ass under his hips—which I know turns him on. It would definitely turn me on.

I throw the cuffs on her back and then bend down so I’m face to face with her. “Do you think grinding your ass into his cock is the brightest idea right now, Cupcake?”

KABOOM!

I’m thrown a good six feet—landing on the two M4s strapped across my chest—as a section of the house explodes. It takes me a few seconds, or is it minutes, to shake the fog from my brain and assess the situation. Kerr’s up on one knee, attempting to find the strength to chase after the hellion who just blew up our entire operation.

Lucky for her, our bodies protected her from the blast. Lucky for all of us, she’s quick and took us far enough from the house that’ll we’ll walk away from this relatively unscathed—despite a series of cuts and contusions.

I stumble to my feet, my chest screaming with newly forming bruises, and snatch the cuffs off the ground. Chasing after Kerr, who once again is leaping and tackling her to the ground, I run up on them at the same time she lands a left hook across his cheek.

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