He could hear Sisko sigh. “Ah. OK. How many did you have to take down?”
“There were only four. Mark wasn’t there yet. He’s on his way. I left him a note. Pointed him to a chatroom. We’ll talk with him soon.”
“Only four, huh?” Sisko grunted. “You’re getting soft. You need challenge.”
Noah glanced at Caro. “I have enough.”
“By the way,” Sisko said. “Don’t go home. It’s compromised. Use the Kirkland house. Someone found you. I swung by to pick up your guns, and the place was trashed.”
“Oh. Yeah,” Noah said. “About that. That wasn’t, uh, Mark.”
Sisko was silent for a moment, bewildered “Holy shit. You did that? To your own property? What the fuck? What happened? Did you have a combat program freakout? But you were the one who taught us to beat those! You wrote the book!”
Noah was too exhausted to tell him to shut the fuck up. “It ran me over.”
“Do we need to do any clean-up?” Sisko asked. “Body bagging? Floor bleaching? Anything?”
“No, don’t get near it. I don’t know when Mark is coming.”
“OK,” Sisko said. “We’ll meet you in Kirkland. Later.”
Sisko hung up before Noah had a chance to tell the guy that he didn’t need a welcoming committee. He looked into Caro’s set face and bluish lips, and lifted her up into his arms. “I know you have a thing about this,” he said. “But you need make an exception to your rule today.”
She wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “I can walk,” she told him. “I’m fine.”
“You’re barefoot,” he said. “It’ll take us five times as long to get to the car through those woods if you walk. We need to move fast.”
“But aren’t you tired?”
“It’s what I’m made for,” he said. “It’s easy to carry you.”
She sighed, and shifted in his arms, arranging herself more comfortably. “Whatever. Put me down if you get tired. Please.”
Not likely. It took a while to bushwhack through the gullies and the thicker undergrowth, but he ate up the clear ground in a swift, easy lope on his way back to the clearing where he’d hidden the Mercedes. He opened the back seat, nudging her inside, and got in after her.
He sagged against the car seat. Smelling blood, the trees, his own sweat. Hearing only wind, and the rustling trees, and the loud galloping thuds of their heartbeats.
Caro put her hand on his, looking down when she felt the rough, torn skin and dried blood on his knuckles. “Noah.” She sounded exhausted.
“Yeah,” he said, taking her hand in his. “It was bad. But now it’s over.”
They sat for a moment, staring mutely down at the blood caked on their clasped hands. But she wasn’t done. She looked up, wide green eyes meeting his.
“Why did you come for me?” she asked. “After what I did.”
He was at a loss for a long moment. The part of him that could process a question like that was not working right now. AVP and his combat program and all his many mods could not help him with complicated shit like this.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I just did it. Without thinking. I had to.”
“You didn’t have to,” she said. “You had the footage already. You had all that you needed from me.”
He shook his head. “No,” he said. “Not all.”
Her gaze dropped, but she looked up at him again after a minute. “I still can’t believe you did that for me.”
There was an awkward pause. He shrugged. “The AVP is fucking my impulse control,” he said. “I no longer give a shit if what I want is bad for me.”
“But I’m not . . .” Her words trailed off, and her eyes flicked away, abashed.
He squeezed her hand. He’d been so angry at her before, but the fighting and killing burned all that away. He felt empty and hollow now.
“Well, you were crazy, to do that,” she said, her voice muted. “But I’m glad.”
He nodded, hoping she was done. No such luck.
“Mark’s going to be all over your ass now,” she said. “You know that, right?”
“Good,” he said. “Bring him on. I cannot fucking wait to deal with him.”
She looked startled. “Seriously?”
“Fuck, yeah. He has Luke. He hurt you. It’s war, and he is going down.”
He stared her down, his eyes full of challenge. His AVP sputtered along, the processor mostly burned out and needing rest and fuel to rev up again, but he could still see her sig a little bit.
That soft golden glow, filling up the car.
Like sunrise come early.
Chapter 23
It couldn’t be real. Being alive at all was improbable. Let alone having been rescued by a gorgeous, valiant, more or less superhuman guy.
But here she was. Bloody, exhausted, and amazingly, alive.
Caro smelled the salt tang of his battle sweat, stared at his scabbed, battered fingers on the steering wheel. He’d come to her rescue. Saved her from her worst nightmares. And the sun had come up.