Arrow to the Soul (4 page)

“Gracias,”
she whispered, and hurried to the back of the building.

“Saya!” Adam bellowed as the short, portly Hispanic man engaged and tried to stop him from following her.

How did he know her name? And why did the depth of his voice affect her?

There were steps to her right, but the door to the outside was in front of her. She glanced back and Adam was nowhere in sight, but she could hear the commotion he was causing. She made the decision in an instant. Tearing off the wig and mask, she tossed them out the door, let it slam, and then rushed upstairs. Within minutes she’d reached the top of the building and headed out the door that brought her to the roof.

Another ten minutes found her four blocks east and back at ground level. She located a vehicle, hotwired it, and made her way out of the city. She’d only bought herself time, not a permanent reprieve.

Her hands shook and she clenched them on the steering wheel. Arrow took a deep breath because the truth was twisted and not so simple anymore. She might have to put an arrow in his heart, and she didn’t know if she could do it.

Chapter Two

Arrow calmed her breathing as the darkness of the tiny shed stroked her skin. She’d managed to steal two hours of deep rest. Not sleep, because the darkness hovered and she was too close to danger, but rest that allowed her to recharge and sharpen her senses.

It was a good thing too, because Adam Collins had found her, and she was about to be forced to fight her way out of this small shed. She didn’t question it was him. She was attuned to him in ways she’d never been with anyone else. His presence made the tiny hairs on her body stand on end.

Arrow sighed noiselessly and closed her eyes, letting her mind and awareness of her surroundings expand. When she’d been barely an infant out of the crib, her
sohei
began training her for silence.

Silence, she’d been taught, was a lie. The animals, people, and even the earth itself could find stillness, but all things made noise. If you listened hard enough, you could hear a hair from your head fall to the floor beneath you, hear the heart of your opponent beating across the room or the breath enter and leave their lungs. If you opened your mind to the potential of sound within silence, you could hear the earth shift; you could hear trees
growing
. But if your ears were closed, your mind kept blanketed, danger could creep up on you, stealing your breath and your life in one fell swoop.

Arrow had been brought close to death once in the care of the
sohei
. She learned her lesson and never let it happen again. And now, in the middle of a Mexican desert, she was grateful she’d learned to hear trees grow. Thankful she’d been able to find a certain peace in the small sounds.

Her hunter was preternaturally silent, and Arrow’s breath stilled in her chest. She’d met a formidable opponent in Mr. Cross, but it wasn’t her time to die. Or be caught. She shifted on the packed dirt of the utility shed and went to her haunches. She had buried her bag a mile from this deserted airfield because there’d always been the chance he’d get lucky and find her.

Maybe it hadn’t been luck. Maybe Bullet had given him the information. Whatever the reason, he was here now, but her precious
yumi
and
ya
remained hidden. She could fashion a bow and arrow out of any material, but that particular set was meant for a sacred purpose. She’d let no one take it from her.

His steps, though light, displaced grains of sand. They rubbed against one another and the rubber soles of his shoes. The sounds were loud in Arrow’s ears. She rose to her full height and waited. Her eyes she kept closed. Eyes lied, made you doubt those things which should have been clearest. Only sound told the truth.

He twisted the knob and it broke, the metallic pieces of the lock falling to the ground and giving him away. Then he gave up all pretense of stealth and kicked the door in.

Arrow flattened herself behind the door, and when he pushed through she slammed it closed, knowing there was little light, hoping she had the advantage. She turned, sweeping her leg low, trying to take him off his feet.

He anticipated her move, grabbing her ankle and twisting. She jumped and twisted with his action, rolling in the air and clipping him on the chin with her other foot. He dropped her ankle, she landed in a crouch, and then she attacked.

Arrow punched him in the solar plexus and delivered a step-behind side thrust kick to his knee. The kick glanced off as he turned at the last minute, grunting as he lost his balance, and she was behind him that fast. She locked an arm around his throat and used her other arm as a lever to apply pressure.

He went slack, she released him, and he fell like a big cedar in the woods. Arrow winced when his head banged off a piece of discarded airplane equipment, and then she reached down, making sure his pulse remained strong. That’s when he struck.

His hands were huge, and currently one was wrapped around her throat, squeezing. Arrow stilled, searching for avenues of escape even as she realized she’d miscalculated his strength.

“That shit fucking hurt,” he ground out. Though her eyes weren’t open, she bet his were blazing.

She smiled. “It was meant to.”

He squeezed harder. “But it looks like you made a pretty big mistake.”

The man was putting an insane amount of pressure on her windpipe but not enough to kill her. She admired his control. One more thing added to the growing list of characteristics she found she approved of about Adam Collins. Arrow drew in a breath and cursed inwardly when it was infused with his scent. She licked her lips. He tasted…
delicious
. She squelched the thought and finally opened her eyes, vision filling with an enormous, Armani-covered chest.

“I don’t make mistakes. You got lucky,” she managed to croak out.

His hand tightened once more, but his thumb stroked the underneath side of her jaw. The touch startled her and her gaze flew to his. His gaze shuttered, but even in the almost nonexistent light of the moon filtering in the holes of the shed, she witnessed his confusion before he shut it down.

He shook his head. “You made a mistake. You thought yourself stronger than me, and you lost.” He pushed her away then.

Arrow straightened her shoulders and stood tall. He’d thought to diminish her, make her feel less than he was, her strength not on par with his? Fuck him.

“This isn’t a game we’re playing, Mr. Collins,” she said softly.

“Everything with you bitches is a game. It’s all you’ve been taught. It’s all you know.” His voice was hard, cold.

She was the one to strike then with the quickness of a snake, and it was his throat in her hand now. But she didn’t do mercy. He reached for her hand, and she grabbed it with her free one then twisted. Knuckles popped and air wheezed from his mouth. But his eyes never bulged, and in them was a particularly virulent emotion.

If she were forced to name it, she would cry hate. A pang flashed through her and her grip faltered, but as fast as the emotion was recognized she pushed it down deep.

In fact, she squeezed harder.

“Bitch I may be, but I don’t lie and I believe I said this was not a game. Now, Mr. Collins, do we do this the hard way or the easy one?”

•●•

A fraction more pressure and Adam was a dead man. She held him there by nothing more than the grip at his throat, and while he wondered if he could break her hold, he dared not test her. Her eyes cut into him, the amber of her gaze so clear and fathomless he could get lost in it. Her gaze was alive with unspoken things—horrible things.

Hard or easy? It seemed to Adam his body made the decision for him. And he hated her for that.

“Easy,” he ground out between clenched teeth. She pushed him away and turned her back on him.

Her audacity had him gaping.

“You are a killer much as me, but different in that you have a conscience. You wouldn’t kill me with my back turned.” She answered a question he hadn’t even voiced, and Adam found himself adrift on a sea of confusion.

Joseph’s First Team was made up of remarkable women. But they were flesh and blood, same as any other human. Yet even Bullet exhibited a penchant for answering questions that hadn’t even been voiced as if she saw into people’s minds, knew their thoughts. Arrow was proving the same. It was unnerving.

Adam had grown up on a reservation, his Sioux grandfather teaching him everything he could about the spirit world. He was aware things happened past the mortal realm, but this was beyond even Adam’s experience.

“Then turn and face me,” he said, infusing his voice with command.

Remarkable, but still oh-so-human. Her back straightened and she turned slowly, her gaze narrowed on him. Goddamn, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. And one of the deadliest. His throat would hurt later. He’d do well to remember that last part.

She cocked her head and the black waterfall of her hair fell over her shoulder. “Why have you followed me?”

He widened his stance and crossed his arms over his chest. Her eyes followed his movement and he wondered…

No. Bullet made it clear that out of all of First Team, Arrow would be the least susceptible to a tactic of desire. Had it been a different woman standing before him, Adam would have said that flash through her gaze was interest. Maybe craving.

She cleared her throat and Adam cursed himself.

“You need to be neutralized.”

Arrow took a single step back, shifting subtly to the balls of her feet. Adam swore ice formed between them.

“And you think you are the man to do this?” she asked, her voice deep, ancient.

Adam took a step forward and her gaze flashed. She relaxed every muscle. She was preparing to fight him.

“I don’t think it. I know it.”

“Bullet has told you what I’m capable of. I could snap your neck as quickly as I could gut you or put my arrow between your eyes. Why would you risk death to capture something that isn’t yours?”

Disbelief rifled through him. He ignored her blatant death threat, focusing instead on her final assertion. “Who said anything about capture?” Of course she wasn’t
his
. He didn’t want
her
.

Adam’s declaration echoed in his mind, but it rang hollow. He tried to picture Avizeh, long dark hair and sun-kissed skin, brown eyes a deep well he’d wanted to drown in, but all he could see was the woman in front of him. No, damn it. He did
not
want Arrow…a killer. Anger pinched him and he took a deep breath, struggled to control his rising rage, and wondered if it would simply be best to kill her now.

He’d be doing the world a favor. Where there was no conscience there was no mercy. The woman before him had neither.

“I see the wheels of your mind spinning. If you think to kill me, you will suffer. This I promise. Men more vicious than you have tried and all have felt the tip of my
ya
as it tore through their heart.” Her nostrils flared. “Do not think because you helped save Bullet that I have any loyalty to you. Do not think to hide behind Bullet and find safety.”

He calmed then. She threatened him and he found his footing. She would thrive on his aggression. It would be what she not only expected but fed off. And so Adam would deprive her.

“You expect me to strike, don’t you?” He threw back his head and laughed. “I don’t have to kill you, Saya. You’re doing a damn good job of that yourself.” He motioned to their surroundings. “Hiding in tiny sheds in the middle of the desert, waiting for your enemies to hunt you down.” He stepped closer to her—so close her plum blossom smell kicked him in the gut. “And you knew I would, didn’t you?”

He swore her eyes glowed in the muted moonlight. She tilted her head and smiled. Adam’s chest hurt. All the air sucked out of the tiny, sweltering shed with the curving of her lips. Arrow’s smile sighed of death.

“You are not my enemy,” she whispered. “And I’m not an animal to be hunted.”

She punched him, the movement so fast she was a blur against the darkness of the shed. Adam braced his feet, bringing his hands up and turning as he caught her next punch, and then used his elbow to jab her in the cheek. He pulled the strike but he needn’t have. She ducked and it merely glanced off her.

She laughed. The crazy bitch actually laughed. In the next second she boxed his ears and left them ringing. He went to a knee, shook his head, and tried to focus on where she was.

He took the time to reach in his boot. She wanted to fight and he didn’t have it in him to hurt her. No matter that she’d killed the president of a country and was bat-shit insane. Her haunted eyes tugged at something inside Adam’s soul.

Another punch, this one to his side. He might piss blood later. “Stop it!”

Everything was muted and the ringing in his ears was a pain in the ass as his voice ricocheted back to him. She stood straight and tall in front of him, a pith of black against more black. Her creamy skin glowed where the moonlight caressed it and that smile remained on her face.

He had no choice.

“You still don’t take into account,” he shook his head again. Fucking ringing… “You still don’t take into account the unknown. There is always an aspect you can’t control.”

Something outside the shed caught her attention for a second and her head turned to the sound.

“You are correct. But perhaps it’s you that isn’t taking into account all the aspects, Mr. Collins,” she said in a soft voice. “You will not stick me with that syringe.”

“Who will stop me?”

“I think that’s why she called me,” a man said as he stepped into the shed. The man tipped a cowboy hat back on his head. “Well that, and transportation.”

Fuck!
The voice sounded familiar. Arrow stepped back and Adam got to his feet, pulling his Kimber Tactical .45 from the holster at his back.

“Don’t do that, Mr. Collins. She wants to leave and you’re going to let her. I don’t want to have to shoot the good guys, but you should maybe tell Bullet it’s not nice to send you boys after her sisters.” There was a rueful quality to the man’s voice and the accent did what the cowboy hat hadn’t. Grant Fielding. Former CIA and now mercenary for hire.