The women shrieked again. The reason for their panic was explosively clear. Just beyond the portal, rifle fire and explosives lit up the night. The air filled with thick smoke and acrid gunpowder.
The henchmen bellowed curses in three languages as they dropped the women in the middle of the room and then ran for cover behind some steel crates. Virgin Girl shrieked and sobbed, piercing deeper pain into Sage’s head. She blinked and tried to focus, but the world erupted in flashing lights and wild, confusing shadows. She half expected the Bon Jovi tune to get switched to an EDM beat. Welcome to Club Violence and Terror. She volunteered her brain as the spinning mirror ball.
“Stop,” she begged, her senses revolting against the sensory assault. “Oh God, please stop!”
Miraculously, the world obeyed.
As suddenly as it had started, the rifle fire went silent. Aside from the soft sobs of the women heaped on top of her, she couldn’t hear a thing. A gust of balmy wind blew over the clearing outside, rustling the tall grasses. Bon Jovi had become Linkin Park. The song was beautiful and passionate, ripping the air like an insane middle finger thrust at the violence that had just occurred.
“No matter how far we’ve come, I can’t wait to see tomorrow…”
One of the soldiers dared a harsh whisper. “Teo! You alive, man?”
“Yeah.”
“What the hell is going on?”
“I dunno. But this is bullshit. I didn’t sign up for this. Let’s get out—”
“Freeze, assholes.”
The interjection was low, lethal, and pure liquid steel—yet it could’ve been another rifle shot for the shock it blazed into Sage. Maybe that was it. Maybe somebody really had taken more shots and she’d been hit this time. She was dead and finally in heaven. Yes. That had to be the explanation, because she couldn’t allow herself to believe the truth of it. She wouldn’t allow herself to believe. Dreams didn’t just come true like this, especially in her life.
“Drop your weapons, boys. Slow and gentle. You know the routine, don’t you? Lie flat on the ground with your hands where I can see them. Perfect. Now aren’t you two prettier’n a couple of hogs all fat and ready for the fair?”
In the end, it wasn’t all the words that finally convinced her. It wasn’t even the pig joke, which was so “him,” as well. It was his laugh. That little soft dry chuckle that she couldn’t ever remember right, even in her most vivid dreams. Oh God, that laugh. Yes. This really was happening.
Garrett.
She tried to get out some semblance of it around the gag, but her heartbeat was a dervish of delirium. She struggled just to get air in, meaning she started inhaling the dirt floor. The stink of it was a horrid contrast to the sheer beauty of hearing his voice again. Tears seeped, turning her cheeks into mud baths. Her brain raced. Her senses swam.
Desperately, she tried again. “G-Gahh—”
“Nice work, Hawk Man.” The soldier who spoke loomed in the doorway before entering, his huge strides eating up the space. A smile tugged at Sage’s lips. Zeke. They’d kept the A-Team together.
“Well, you didn’t bring me along for my pretty face.” This time, no laugh punctuated his dark tone. She watched him swing a leg over Teo and then wrench the henchman’s wrists back and fasten them in heavy plastic cuffs. His movements were precise and clean, even angry, which was oddly comforting to her right now. “I’ll take these fuckers outside. You see to the women.”
“Nnnaaaaa!”
Great. The moment she’d been dreaming of for over four hundred days, and she sounded like a freaking Muppet. Desperation turned her into a wriggling ball as she tried to right herself and get to her feet. He couldn’t leave again! She couldn’t let him! The terror was illogical, she knew, but she couldn’t stop its visceral hold on her mind any more than she could hold back a monsoon. “Nnaaaa,” she cried again. “Gaaaawwwet!”
“Hey.” A pair of hands as reassuring as the voice descended on her shoulders. Sage recognized Zeke’s hulking form immediately. He crouched beside her, trying to help her up. “Hey hon, easy, easy. You’re safe now, okay? We’re gonna get you to safety. I’m with the United States Army. My name is Sergeant Zeke Hayes, and—”
“Uh mow!”
For a long second, the burly man looked like a six-year-old who’d just de-masked Spiderman. “Holy…shit.” He scrubbed a hand down his face before breaking into a full bellow. “Hawk! Get back in here. Now.”
Chapter Three
Okay, so Zeke had been right in grilling him before the mission. It was harder to keep his head in the game on this one, especially as they’d arrived and surrounded the hut—especially because he knew what they’d find inside. Or at least prayed they’d find.
Turned out their timing was better than perfect. They’d gotten here in time, and the women were safe. That didn’t mean he had to stick around and help Zeke with the head count. He was glad to be out of that cramped room with all of those women crying in relief—and ripping his gut out in the process.
But now the asshat wanted him back in there? Zeke had to know this wasn’t the easiest fucking thing for him. Which meant that whatever the reason for the callback, the beer tab was on Z tonight.
“This’d better be good,” he growled, stomping back into the Quonset hut. “Your panties have been twisted more times today than—”
A fist in his gut would’ve been less painful. And joyful. And terrible. And incredible.
Zeke had just helped the woman to her feet, though it was doubtful she’d continue standing on them. She looked weak as a fawn and shaky as a newborn colt.
She also looked exactly like Sage.
He gulped painfully as he glared at Zeke. His friend didn’t even bother to look back. Z was too busy cutting free the zip ties that had cut purple welts into her wrists. When the woman winced from the fresh flow of blood to her hands, the cavity in his chest filled with pain too.
Forget the beer tab. Zeke was going to pay for his whole three-day bender after this. He didn’t bother asking the guy what kind of a sick joke he thought he was pulling, because Zeke knew—knew—that some pots didn’t get stirred. So if that wasn’t his friend’s purpose, what was?
Zeke gently helped the woman lift her head. They’d zip-tied a filthy rag into her mouth, and his friend started exploring how to best cut that free as well.
After two seconds, Garrett barely noticed the thing.
She looked past it, directly at him. No. She looked into him, just as she always could. Just as she always would. She cut him open from sternum to scrotum, filling every vital organ in his body with life again, blinding him with that brilliant green light that had haunted his dreams and been a relentless ghost in his soul.
She was a ghost no more.
Shit. Holy, heavenly shit.
He didn’t remember how his legs carried him or how many steps he took. It only mattered that he yanked the knife out of Z’s hand, palming it himself. He had to be the one who set her free. He needed to be the one who saw her face when the last disgusting piece of her captivity got peeled back.
He cut the tie with a savage jerk. She reacted with a little cry, but he knew he hadn’t hurt her. The sound was one of need. Of release. Of love.
When he pulled the rag free from her face, tears ran through the dirt underneath. In wordless wonder, he cupped both sides of her jaw and kissed each tear until he got to her lips. She sighed against his mouth, opening to him, inching her shaking arms around his neck.
“My heart,” he said against her lips.
“My hero,” she whispered back.