Feral Craving (2 page)

“What the hell?”

A whisper caught his attention to his
left. Suddenly, he remembered where he was, then turned and lifted his SIG
Sauer handgun. Tony’s eyes widened, and his hands lifted in the air, one
leather-covered hand around his rifle.

“Fucking shit, Bari. It’s me.” Pushing
Bari’s weapon away from him, Tony narrowed his own stormy gaze at Bari. “You
tight, man?”

Bari clamped his jaw shut, not really
sure how to answer.

Tony’s lips thinned, then he glanced over
his shoulder and tossed his head back. “Let’s get moving.”

Tony nodded down another dark hallway.
Bari shook his head, clearing it of the fear bubbling inside of him. His
stomach gurgled and he swallowed, forcing the still rising bile down. Something
was off, something he couldn’t quite grasp. He felt as if he had walked into a
dream—ventured into a dark tunnel. But he knew better, knew that the sun shined
high and bright—hot as hell, outside.

The house was filthy, filled with
dilapidated couches and mounds of trash and bottles. It couldn’t have been
occupied for long. Hell, the place didn’t even look livable for New York City
rats. His task set on what lay ahead. Bari worked slow but efficiently cleared
each room he passed. In his ear, he heard Mike and Tyler mark their rooms,
bringing the four of them together once again as the halls connected. One room
remained, its door closed.

They stacked up, lined up as they had
outside, their weapons trained on the door, then busted inside. Bari scanned
the room as he led the way, expectant and ready.

They were met with nothing. Not one damn
person. Whoever had run into this house seemed to have just disappeared into
thin air. Cursing, Bari dropped his guard, lowered his weapon, and paced the
room. His mind scrambled over the reports they’d studied, trying to recall
every detail and feeling as if he had forgotten something. All eyes of the team
were on him, waiting for a decision.

With a frustrated growl, he ripped open
the front of his vest and breathed deep, letting air fill his tight chest. A
bunker was supposed to be here, somewhere, but they had seen no evidence of it.
It was like they’d been set up to clear an empty house. None of it made a damn
lick of sense.

“Shit, we should have found something
here. Where in the fuck did they go?” His team answered with silence. Shaking
his head, he pushed his helmet off and scrubbed a hand through his hair.

Mike pulled a piece of gum from his
pocket, unwrapped and shoved it in his mouth. The sound of his chewing snapped
through the room. “Yeah, Bari, this looks like a dead-end. Doesn’t make any
sense.”

Grabbing his pack of smokes from his own
pocket, Bari popped a cigarette in his mouth and lit it.

Needing to get some answers, Bari stepped
around Tony. Adrenaline still rushed inside of him, his skin itchy with unused
energy. He moved back down the hall and into the living area.

He glanced up. And time froze.

 
He
would later tell himself he could have been faster, or ducked down. But Mike, a
father with a six-year-old daughter back home, had followed behind him. So he
didn’t move. Instead, he froze as the gunman stepped out from behind a door.
Mike must have missed it. Fear stole up the back of his neck, the sensation
reminiscent of a winding serpent. The gunman lifted his rifle. Low shouts rang
out around Bari. Seconds ticked by like molasses dripping. Bari closed his eyes
and braced for the pain, understanding he might not make it out alive. A shot
rang out, the sound echoing through the walls. Pain exploded in his chest, his
body. The cigarette he lit earlier dropped from his mouth, fell to the floor.
He raised his eyes, meeting the gunman’s stare from across the room. Death sat
in the man’s blank gaze, reflecting darkness, emptiness.

Bari felt consciousness slipping away.
Funny how some people claim your life flashes before your eyes when you face
death. Because the only thing that flashed before Bari’s was the life he never
had and the woman who would’ve been in it: Mackenzie Walters.

Chapter
Two

A breeze wafted through the shop,
bringing the scent of seawater and coffee together in an alluring combination.
Mackenzie grinned as she wiped the tables, ignoring the beads of sweat rolling
down her back. Life couldn’t get much better than this. Two of her favorite
things in life included coffee and the beach, and she’d made sure her coffee
house was right on the shore.

She looked out the windows and across the
sand where seagulls played catch with one another. Their white wings stretched
in the air, and they dove, surged up again, almost as if they danced to an
unheard song. The waves rumbled, one landing over the other, pounding into the
beach as if they wanted to give a drum beat to the dance above. She leaned
against a wooden post, her arms crossed as she gazed out across the blue
expanse of forever.

Mackenzie never expected to return to
Nantucket. She’d left home at eighteen, gone off to Harvard for seven years,
and then moved to Los Angeles after accepting what she thought would be her
dream job. Instead, as it turned out, the job ended up bringing her worst
nightmare.

She shivered, remembering when everything
changed, when that young, free girl learned true fear. Memories swarmed over
one another—the attack, the blood, the numbing fear rolling through her veins.
One never knew when something would happen. Most walked around without a care
in the world. She even read about it happening to others, believed herself
invisible and safe. The clues, the notes left, none of it made her question her
safety. She had been too busy trying to work her way up the ladder in the law
office. She had been naive, stupid, and reckless.

Mackenzie pushed the thoughts away, gave
one last squeeze on her arms and turned from the ocean, pushing that horrible
night into the back of her mind as well. Her gaze roamed over the coffee house
she owned now. Perfectly sized, it provided customers with both an open
atmosphere and intimate space. Scattered round tables dotted the shop, and a
raised platform stage in back provided performance space for bands and artists.
Each night, a local band, a storyteller, or a singer entertained the crowds in
Same Ole Grind, increasing Mackenzie’s business three times over her regular
hours. It kept her busy and occupied—and kept her from shutting out the rest of
the world when panic hit. Those attacks on her body, the wrap of terror around
her mind still plagued her at times, but at least the episodes had decreased.

She could go into crowds without feeling
like the world would close in on her and suck her into a black, airless vortex.
She no longer ended up on the floor in a fetal position, crying. At times, her
heart still hammered so hard she feared it’d break out of her chest, but still,
with time passing, things were getting better. Once, the attacks had been
unpredictable, would hit at odd times and without warning, paralyzing her. Now,
if Mackenzie breathed in slow, steady breaths, she found she could mitigate
them … for short periods of time, or at least until she was alone again.

Her brother Alex still insisted on
walking her to and from her car when it was dark. He assured her it wasn’t such
a big deal, that it would take time to get over things, yet she saw the hidden
regret in his eyes, the thoughts that he had somehow failed in protecting her
despite being over three thousand miles away when she was attacked.

Mackenzie stepped behind the dark wood
bar as her doorbell announced another customer. She lifted her gaze and took in
the man making his way toward her. Tall and lean, with dark hair and piercing
eyes, a black suit fitting to his form as if it had been made for him, saying
he was handsome didn’t quite capture his looks. Smiling, she took his order,
engaged in small talk back and forth with him, and recognized the spark of
interest in his eyes. His gaze drifted over her form, his eyes grew heated, and
his smile spoke of a confidence she long ago left behind.

But she felt nothing toward him. No
spark, no interest, no chemistry. Finishing with his drink, she sat the cup on
the counter a little too hard as deep disappointment slashed like a blade
across her skin. Mackenzie sucked in a breath at the thought, picturing the
silver glinting in her mind off of some far away light.

No.

Not here.

Her heart slammed against her chest and
then the beat began to gallop as if her body was the jockey on the back of a
race horse. Mackenzie pulled in a deep breath through her nose, pushed the air
slowly out through parted lips. Her skin grew clammy, sweat dotted along her
spine, and her head spun.

She took the customer’s cash and tucked a
tendril of her hair behind her ear, saw the slight tremble of her hand as she
lifted it, felt it shake against her skin. He gave her a friendly smile, and
she saw a spark of interest behind his whiskey-colored gaze. She prayed for
something, a glimmer, an ember—anything to tell her she was a normal woman with
normal needs. The prayer went unanswered, and she returned his smile with a
half-hearted one of her own, and then watched as he left the coffee shop.

As the door closed behind him, he turned
and gave her one more lingering stare before walking away from the shop.
Damn.
God, what was wrong with her?

****

I’ll fucking kill them.

Bari couldn’t help it.
He came to, believing he was still in battle, but a quick glance around
dismissed that thought.
Where in the hell
am I?
His head pounded, and his vision wavered, spinning, as he tried to
focus on his surroundings.

Shrouded in a mental fog, one so cloudy
he could barely form a coherent thought—all he knew, all he recognized was
pain. It consumed his entire body as if a truck had slammed into him once or
twice. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he fought against the darkness.
He blinked hard and commanded his brain to keep them open. His lids peeled up
like they were running over sandpaper. He groaned, and the sound caught in his
throat. Panicked, he tried to reach the tube in his mouth. His eyes widened as
his hands wrapped around a cold plastic object. An alarm nearby, one that
clashed with the pain in his head, shrilled to life. Running footsteps grew
closer. Bari turned his head to see a few nurses in battle-dress uniforms
running toward him. He strained and grunted, panic flying through his veins as
they pushed on his arms. He hated being held down and tried to identify where
he was as his neck strained to look around the various green uniforms, the
flash of a white coat. A ping of memories flashed like a camera in his mind,
flooded it until they were all he saw in his sightless vision.

The house, his team, searching for the
operatives. Mike missed a door. He took a shot, got hit. But where? How was he
still alive?

Undeniable pain rippled through his
stomach, and nurses hovered, trying to calm him, ran tests and asked him
questions he couldn’t understand. He fought them, growled as their arms tried
to hold him down. He bucked, coughing as the tube pulled from his throat.
Nausea bubbled up, and his gag reflex kicked in. He choked and coughed and
hollered.

“Where,” he croaked, his words raspy.
“Where am I? What happened?” No one answered him, and his temper soared. He sat
up, whipped off the covers, and heard another shout of alarm, this one
feminine, as pain punched full throttle into his stomach. The nausea building
up finally decided to make its appearance, and he threw up over the side of the
bed. The liquid burned his already sore throat, and he squeezed his eyes shut
as they watered.

“What in the fuck have you done to me?”

Cool air hit his skin. Bari tried to move
to cover his exposed body. His hands felt heavy, his movements hindered.
Bandages, he saw bandages. Where running, training, and lifting weights kept
him in shape and trim, he now looked broken and beaten, bindings covering skin
everywhere. How many damn shots did he take? His head throbbed, and his jaw
cracked as he opened his mouth. The room shifted, and he wondered if it were
the Earth moving or his body swaying. Whatever the answer, one thing was
certain: he wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.

A noise brushed through the room, and
then a woman’s commanding voice.

“What the hell do you think you’re trying
to do?”

His head snapped up—he recognized it. A
familiar face swung into view, but darkness clouded his vision. The woman
appeared both angry and concerned. Bari flinched as a penlight flashed in his
eyes, its brightness screaming through his temples and making his head spin
worse. His hands clamped down and fisted the sheets.

“No,” he croaked. It couldn’t be.

Still swaying, someone called out as he
started to tilt off the bed. He fell, unable to stop himself as the sheet
ripped free from his fist. His body slammed into the ground, and all the air he
had been trying to capture suddenly rushed out with a whoosh. He tried to keep
his eyes open but found it useless as the instinct for survival kicked in, the
urge to fight fading away.

Sweet baby Jesus, not here. Not after all
this time.