Cruz: Scifi Alien Invasion Romance (Hell Squad Book 2) (17 page)

“Shit. Guys, take a look at this.” It was Shaw.

Santha and Cruz hurried over to the back corner, deep in the shadows, where the sniper stood. He had his hands on his hips, his back tense.

“What is it?” Marcus said, striding up.

“Look,” Shaw gestured.

Three large tanks stood in a triangular grouping. Three bodies hung in the cloudy liquid inside—two men and one woman, her hair floating like blonde seaweed around her head.

“What the fuck?” Marcus bit out. “Are they alive?”

As Santha neared the tanks, one of the men moved and she jerked back. “I…think so.”

She peered through the glass. What the hell were the raptors doing? The man’s skin was mottled with dark patches. Then she spied something back behind the tanks and gasped.

“It gets worse.” Her stomach turned over. “Look.”

A pile of dead bodies lay discarded on the floor behind the tanks. On the top, a man with his chest cracked wide open, and a woman with most of her insides on the outside of her body.

“Shit,” Cruz muttered.

“Bastards,” Santha spat.

Doc Emerson walked up, her jaw set. “I can’t help them all. No matter what I do, even with nano-meds, the damage is too extensive.” She shook her head. “What’s been done…I’ve never seen things like this.”

“We
can
help them,” Marcus said darkly. “We stop their misery.” His gaze turned to the tanks. “We won’t leave anyone here for those alien fuckers to mess with. Their suffering ends here.”

With that, the team went about their gruesome rescue mission. Those who were able to be saved were loaded onto iono-stretchers. Those too far gone were euthanized using the meds Doc Emerson had brought with her.

Marcus assumed the grisly task of draining the tanks and pulling out the three people inside. But as soon as the fluid was gone, the men and the woman died.

“I’m out of drugs, but I think that’s everyone,” the doctor said, fatigue dragging her shoulders down.

Marcus nodded. “We’ll continue to load onto the stretchers and get them ready for transport.

Cruz was a constant presence by Santha’s side. And she was grateful for his quiet strength. This place…it left her feeling scraped raw.

But he was really quiet. “You okay?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No. This is…”

Yeah. There were no words to describe this.

“Cruz?” Marcus called out. “I need a hand over here.”

“On it.” Cruz touched her shoulder, then jogged over to Marcus.

It was then Santha saw a movement in one of the cages on the back wall. She frowned and peered through the gloom. She’d thought they were empty.

As she neared, a hand reached out between the metal bars. A slim, human hand with long, ragged nails.

Santha peered through the bars and into the thick shadows. “It’s okay, we’re here to help you.”

A harsh growl came from the cage. It sent a rush of goose bumps over Santha’s skin. She crouched. “We’re going to get you out of there.”

“Too…late for me.” The rasping voice was hard to understand.

And it was female.

“Let me help,” Santha said.

The woman moved, coming closer to the bars.

It took Santha’s brain a second to realize what she was looking at. Half the woman’s face was mottled with bruises and dark patches where it looked like the skin had died. Her eye was swollen closed.

But the other side of her face was pretty, with bronzed skin and a sad green eye.

A very familiar green eye.

The floor felt as though it had dropped out from under Santha, like the world had suddenly been thrown sideways. Her heart constricted.

No. No. No!

“Kareena?”

***

The anguish in Santha’s voice snapped Cruz’s head around. He charged toward her. She was standing near the cages at the back of the large room.

Then he saw the woman pressed against the bars.

A woman with the same color eye as Santha.

Oh, fuck
. “Santha?”

“It’s Kareena. We have to help her.” Santha’s usually composed face was a mask of horror and pain. “Dr. Emerson!” She yelled the doctor’s name. “Please, please help.”

Cruz wrapped an arm around Santha, feeling the tension running through her. He waved the doctor over. She came at a jog, holding her scanner.

“Santhy?” The woman shifted in the cage. The raspy voice sounded hesitant, confused. “Is that you?”

“Yes.”

The woman shuddered, then she growled at Emerson’s approach. “Stay back.”

“Kareena, this lady is a doctor, she’s here to help.” Santha pulled away from Cruz and crouched down near the cage.

Emerson shot Cruz a worried glance, then looked back at Santha. “You know her?”

Santha’s chest shuddered. “She’s my sister. Kareena.”

Sympathy flickered over the doctor’s face. She leaned in closer. “Kareena. This is an m-scanner. I’m going to run it over you, okay?”

Kareena didn’t respond but she moved closer to the bars. Santha moaned and Cruz cursed. Kareena had an ugly, ragged row of stitches running from her belly button to her neck.

The scanner lights blinked, then it beeped.

Cruz watched Emerson’s face. Saw the way it smoothed into professional blankness. Not a good sign. Not good at all.

She stepped away and nodded at Cruz and Santha to move closer. “I can’t make sense of all the scan results. They’ve…removed most of her organs and replaced them with…I don’t know what. Whatever they’ve done to her…it isn’t reversible.”

“No,” Santha whispered, her eyes wide.

“I don’t know what we can do.” The doctor sighed. “She’s dying.”

“There is no living with this.” Kareena’s growling voice had them all spinning to face her.

Her hands gripped the cage bars. “It burns like acid, like an angry beat inside me.” Then her face fell, her eye filled with misery. “It hurts. It’s eating me alive.” She extended a hand through the cage. “Help me, Santhy.”

Santha instantly grabbed her sister’s hand. “I will. I’ll get you out and we’ll find a way to make it better.” Her fingers gripped Kareena’s hard.

Kareena made a choking sob. “God, I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too.” A tear ran down Santha’s cheek. “I’m so sorry. If I’d known you were alive…”

“It’s okay. Tell me, are you safe? You aren’t alone.”

“I have been. I’ve been fighting these alien bastards—”

“Please, I want you to take care of yourself. You were always horrible at that.”

Santha gave a hiccupping laugh. “I’m learning. But I’ve had a little help.”

Kareena’s eye flicked over Santha’s shoulder and landed on Cruz. “Who’s he?”

Santha didn’t need to look around. “His name is Cruz.”

He stepped forward and rested his hands on Santha’s shoulders. “I’m hers.” He felt her give a slight tremble under his hands.

“Good.” Relief flashed in Kareena’s green eye. “Good. She needs someone to look after her. She always worked too hard, took on too much.” The woman’s gaze burned into Cruz. “She’ll need you now, more than ever.” Her gaze was pleading.

Fuck
. He understood what Santha’s sister was telling him.
Dammit all to hell.

“Let me get you out,” Santha said.

“No.” Kareena’s voice turned into a growl again and her grip on Santha’s arm tightened. Her long, jagged nails sliced into Santha’s skin.

As Santha hissed in pain, Cruz stepped forward and grabbed Kareena’s elbow. He exerted enough pressure that she let go and yanked her arm back inside the cage.

Santha pressed her bleeding arm to her chest, staring at her sister in horror.

“It’s too late for me, Santhy.”

“No. I’ve been fighting to avenge your death, now I’ll fight to save you. Whatever happens.”

Kareena came close to the bars again and sighed. “Listen to me, Santhy. Listen. I want you to pour all that passion and love you have in you into something else. Into him.” She nodded in Cruz’s direction. “Because the way he looks at you…every woman deserves a man who looks at her that way.”

“Kareena—”

“Listen, Santhy. I need your help. One last time.”

Santha stiffened. “No—”

“One last time, Santhy-girl. You were always the strong one.”

“No.” Santha’s voice was a strangled whisper. Heedless of the scratches on her arm, she reached for Kareena again, curling her fingers over her sister’s on the metal bars.

It cut through Cruz. God, he’d fight any alien, any enemy to save her, but here was one thing he couldn’t shield her from.

But he could still take the difficult task away from her.

“I need you,” Kareena said quietly. “Please.”

Santha was silent for a second. “Cruz, can you wait for me with the others?”

His jaw tightened. “Why don’t you let me—?”

“No. Just…if I know you’re waiting for me, it’ll help.”

It was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. To turn and walk away from her when he knew this was tearing her apart.

He moved over to Marcus and the team. Every step felt like he was walking through mud. His friends were silent, watchful. The rest of the patients waited, loaded on stretchers and ready for evac.

“Cruz, if you or Santha need anything, you just ask,” Marcus said.

Cruz nodded. But he knew there was nothing that would make this better for Santha.

Moments later, she walked toward him.

Her face was blank but her eyes were filled with a soul-sucking misery. Her hands were shaking, and one held her knife—still coated in blood.

Chapter Sixteen

Cruz watched Santha walk up to him. The knife clattered to the floor and she threw her arms around him. He pulled her into his chest and she pressed her face into him. She was shaking.

“She thanked me.” Santha’s hands gripped Cruz’s armor. “My baby sister thanked me while I killed her.”

“You helped her.” Cruz cupped Santha’s pale cheeks and forced her to look at him. “She was suffering, Santha. You gave her peace.”

“I…want to believe that.”

He pressed his forehead to hers. “I’m so sorry,
mi reina
. If I could change this, I would.”

“Why bother fighting when we can’t save the people we love?” Her harsh words came out on an even harsher whisper.

“Hey.” He hated the defeated tone to her voice. “Look around at these other people. We saved them. And…you saved me. From the moment I laid eyes on you, something switched on inside me. Before that, I wasn’t sure what I was fighting for.”

Her gaze was on his face. “Cruz—”

“You’re my fucking reason, Santha. I need you.”

The sound of a throat clearing made them both look over.

Marcus stood there. “I’m sorry about your sister.”

Santha swallowed. “Thank you.”

“I know it’s hard, Santha, but I have to ask you to put it aside for now. We need to get these people out of here.”

Santha swiped a hand across her face and nodded. “Okay.”

Cruz gave her a hard squeeze. “Let’s move.” The quicker they got back to base the quicker he could help her deal with her grief.

The squad hurried outside, pushing and pulling the stretchers along with them. Marcus had already signaled for Elle to send in the Hawks for the evac.

Cruz felt that itchy feeling he always got when something bad was headed their way. He kept one eye on the rooftops, watching for any sign of raptors.

“Elle, any raptor signatures on screen?” he asked.

“Nothing, Cruz.”

That didn’t make him feel better. The aliens had to know they’d try and rescue these people. Why just let them waltz in unimpeded?

The itching increased with each second that ticked by. Yeah, something was really off.

Three Hawks rocketed in, landing in a flat area near a half-destroyed roller coaster. They all worked to load the patients into the quadcopters. They filled the first two copters with patients who were left under the careful attention of members of Emerson’s medical team. Only two patients went with Hell Squad and Emerson in the final Hawk.

Soon, the Hawks were motoring back across the city, headed for the base.

“I want the commander dead.”

Santha’s voice drew Cruz’s gaze. She sat hunched in the chair beside him, one hand stroking her crossbow.

“We’ll find her. Make her pay.”

Santha nodded. But her green eyes were so empty it made Cruz’s stomach tight.

She needed time to grieve, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to let her do it alone.

He’d give her a reason to live. Even if she didn’t want one.

***

Santha stared out the window. The ruined city below just a blur in her vision.

She was trying not to think, not to feel.

But Kareena’s face was burned into her brain. Not the smiling, beautiful sister she’d known all her life, but the tortured, beaten face she’d been left with, thanks to the raptors.

God
. Santha squeezed her eyes closed. How long would it take until she didn’t think about sliding that knife into her sister? Listening to Kareena’s quiet words of thanks as Santha had taken her life.

Suddenly alarms blared from the cockpit.

“Fuck,” Finn called back. “Strap in Hell Squad, we have two pteros incoming. I’m going to try and pull them off the other two Hawks.”

Santha yanked on her harness and beside her Cruz, did the same.

“I knew it was too easy,” he grumbled.

The Hawk shuddered and a glance out the side window showed green poison streaking across the sky.

“Missiles incoming,” Finn yelled.

The Hawk veered hard right, throwing Santha against Cruz’s shoulder hard enough to steal her breath.

She heard him mutter and around them the rest of Hell Squad were cursing and bracing themselves.

The side of the quadcopter imploded, sparks and flames showering them all.

The Hawk fell into a dizzying death spiral. Santha was slammed around, her head striking the side wall.

Her vision dimmed. She heard the roar of the wind, men swearing, alarms blaring.

A sharp, violent burst of pain.

Then nothing.

***

With a groan, Santha opened her eyes. It was dark and a brisk wind ruffled her hair. Beneath her, she felt pavement. And she hurt. She hurt a lot.