Fight By The Team (Team Fear Book 2) (19 page)

“He’s not getting away. Period.” The roughness in his tone dropped an octave, as deep as he was wide. He gave her a gentle nudge toward the exit. Gentle, the contrast reminding her of the man who wrapped around her at night. The man she was starting to believe she couldn’t live without.

Echo had killed two men on Team Fear. Debi couldn’t lose Rose to the psychopaths the government had created. “I’m not leaving without you.”

“Yes. You are.” He turned, pushing into her space until he had her backed against the wall. “That wasn’t a request. Move out.”

Terror trembled in her legs, and she didn’t know if it was fear of Rose and the heated intensity of his demeanor, or the encounter with Echo. “What if. There are more. Outside?” The hyperventilating meant she’d soon be incapable of coherent thought or movement.

“Suck it up, right now.” The unbending authority acted like a bucket of ice water. “You will not have a panic attack. Do you understand?”

Holy crap. He scared the voice right out of her, so she nodded her agreement, because to do less would piss off an already angry soldier.

“You will be safe. Not fine. Safe. Craft is on his way around the building as my backup. Stills is on the back of the building waiting for you. Go straight to the drug mobile parked directly behind this building. I cannot work with you in the line of danger. Move out.”

Allyson gripped Debi’s hand. “Maybe we should listen to your friend. We can contact campus security. I don’t know—”

“No security,” Rose ordered. “Straight out.” He turned, a man accustomed to having his orders followed. The path down the hall was dark and monsters filled the shadows. Debi swallowed as her vision narrowed and the hall seemed to waver like a fun house mirror.

“Come on.” Allyson pulled her along. “I didn’t know you still had panic attacks.”

The hiccups started the instant Rose disappeared. “Only when people. Try. To kill me.” Debi attempted to count each breath in her head, slow it down, but with Rose headed into an inevitable war with Echo, her breath wouldn’t cooperate. They made it to the fire exit and a shadow separated from the wall.

I
n the silhouette
of the exterior emergency light, the shadow was faceless, but was definitely a male that stood nearly the height of the door. Almost as wide. Debi’s hiccup echoed against the cement cage around the fire exit.

Allyson stopped midstride. Debi stumbled right into her. Together, they inched backwards.

The shadow stepped with them in a wicked dance that brought him closer as his stride was longer. More certain. As he moved away from the blinding emergency light, his features came into focus.

“Craft,” Debi choked. She squeezed Allyson’s hand. “He’s one of the good guys.”

“That’s debatable,” he countered.

“Shouldn’t you reassure us,” Allyson said.

“Why? This is a volatile situation and you’re more than a thousand feet to a secure location.”

Debi had an image from
Jurassic Park
where the woman had to run from the raptors. Yeah, same odds. Acid rose up her throat with each hiccup. “Maybe we should hide.” Great plan. Hide in one of the offices until the team took care of Robert.

“And if reinforcements from Echo arrive? Not a chance. I’ll escort you ladies to Stills. He’ll drive you to a secure location away from the scene.”

“New plan.” Stills entered through the fire exit. He wore a ballistics vest loaded with enough supplies to start a war. “Fowler repositioned overhead. He can pick off any threat. You have a clear path to the car.” He tossed keys at Craft. “I’m on backup—”

“Bullshit.” Craft slammed into Stills hard enough to crack a rib. “We all have an axe to grind, but we don’t change mid-mission. Stick with the plan. I’m backup.”

“You’re needed on the computer, dumbass, if we’re going to keep this off campus security video.”

“Fuck.” Craft stalked off, anger vibrating off his massive chest. “You have a point—”

A feral bellow sounded through the tunnel like hall that lead back to the lab. Rose. Was he okay? The sound echoing down the hall was not okay.

“Saddle up, ladies. We need to roll,” Craft ordered.

“Debi stays,” Stills said.

“What?” She and Craft spoke at the same time.

Stills stood in the hall leading to the dark. “You saw what happened to Ryder. Rose is just as likely to take off my head as listen to me. If we need someone to talk him down, you’re it.”

“You want me to walk back into the burning building?” Sounded insane when she said it out loud.

“The building isn’t burning,” Allyson said.

Even Allyson’s literal interpretation did nothing to ease the tension.

Stills stared straight into Debi’s soul. “Do you care about him?”

Debi froze. The darkness of the back hall was like a dark cave, but that didn’t keep her locked into place. It was the sound of Rose’s scream. What had Robert done to him that elicited such pain and rage? She wasn’t one of the few and the proud, but she couldn’t walk away when the man she loved...

Loved? The thought of him dying left her cold and achy inside. Not three-margarita achy, but never leave the house again pain that threatened to drop her to her knees. Crap, there hadn’t been enough time, but the emotions she wanted to deny were real. Love was the only thing that could explain why she wanted to follow Stills. Why she needed to follow the sound of Rose’s pain. “I can’t leave him.”

“Move out.” Stills ran into the fray, one of the few brave souls who ran into situations the rest of the world ran from.

“There’s nothing you can do.” Allyson grabbed her by the arm.

Yet her gut said she needed to go. That Rose needed her, and for him, she’d face her greatest fears. A gunshot sounded from deep in the lab. Debi yanked her good arm from Allyson’s grip. “Go without me. My choice.”

Craft handed her a Glock. “Do not engage,” he ordered. “You are there only to deescalate the situation if Rose goes off the deep end. “Understand?”

“Absolutely.” Yeah, that was more bravado than truth, but she didn’t have time for cold logic. It was time to follow her instincts and not her education. Checking to make sure a round was chambered and the safety off, she shook like a teen at her first dance, but her moves didn’t give her away.

Craft grabbed Allyson and disappeared into the night. Debi swallowed a breath that didn’t stop the trembling. She twisted and jogged back down the hall anyway.

At the intersection to the well-lit lab, Debi’s bravado faltered. Once again, her mouth had taken her where her body didn’t want to follow. Her feet stuck to the carpet as she peeked around the corner and took in the scene. Robert stood in the open expanse staring down one of the narrow spaces hidden behind bookshelves and credenzas. A blood trail smeared down the otherwise polished floor.

“Rose.” She whispered his name, hoping to somehow summon him, whole and complete. Robert stalked forward like the predator the government had created, ready to kill. Debi couldn’t let it happen. She lifted the gun, but her arm shook too much to get a decent shot. She needed a brace. She ran forward, crossing the threshold of tile and lab, her hated tennis shoes squeaking. She made it ten feet into the open before Robert turned. He’d lost the glasses. Something inhuman swam through his eyes. He blinked, and then he smiled like a demented clown. Exaggerated and scary as hell.

Debi wanted to turn tail and run, but he’d be on her like a coyote on an injured deer. She’d come this far. Widening her stance, she faced him. No way would she shoot straight. Too much adrenaline ran through her system, making her quaky and her moves uncertain, but if she brought him close enough. Maybe she had a chance. The words she wanted to use stuck in her craw. For once, her mouth wasn’t running away with her. She used her body instead. She lifted the weapon and aimed at center mass. Her injured arm shook from the exertion, but she thought back to her physical therapy. If she could lift weights, and they burned her shoulder like a hot brand, then she could hold the gun long enough to shoot.

As it happened, she didn’t have long to wait. Robert stepped toward her with a definite swagger. Dead certainty that she wouldn’t, couldn’t hurt him, added to his ego as he walked calm as preacher on a Sunday stroll. “Have you embraced the fear yet?” he yelled. He smiled at her as he took another step. “Not you, baby. I smell your fear.”

Oh. Hell.

The slow pace was more threatening than a fast assault. Heat rose through her body in waves of pure terror. Her feet took a step back without talking to her mind. He took another step, his stride longer. Nothing could stop the backward glide of her feet across the tile. For every step she took, he took a larger one, moving him closer.

Panting a breath out, she slid her finger around the trigger. “I will shoot you.” Even her voice quivered.

He tilted his head to the side like he was looking over a used car. Assessing. “Baby, I’m invincible.”

Wow, this guy had nothing on the criminally insane. Maybe they should strap his ass down on the torture device in the basement at the manor. “What’s your plan here?”

“They join us or die. Simple as.” He held a syringe out like a psycho stabbing a knife. “Direct injection works much faster. Your rescuer has more chemicals flowing through his system right now than a napalm factory.”

Debi wanted to close her eyes, say a prayer that Rose was okay, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off Robert. Glass rattled in the direction of the blood trail. Debi raised her voice so Robert wouldn’t follow the sound. “He won’t turn. None of these guys will. You can’t turn a sane man crazy.”

“He doesn’t have to be crazy. He needs to do what the government created him to do. Kill.”

“He’s not like you.” But God only knew what was happening in Rose’s head right now. Ryder talked about hallucinations and fear.

“We’re the elite. If he doesn’t want to kill with impunity, he will die. By my hand. Tonight. As for you...”

She didn’t want to know. “What?”

“The plan is simple. Fuck you until you can’t move, and then I’ll eviscerate you. The Company wants you dead.”

Ok. More than criminally insane. Sweat dripped down her forehead from the fear, from the weight of the gun in her hand. The brand stabbing pain through her shoulder turned to a hot poker burrowing under her skin, but letting go of the gun was certain death. She stepped back until a countertop gouged her back.

“Well, will you look at that. Nowhere for you to run.”

“Come get me, then.” She needed to shoot him before her arm gave out. Joy lit his face as he increased his speed. She pulled the trigger, hitting him center mass, but he kept coming.

A shot rang out, echoing in the glass and steel lab. Blood spurted from Robert’s thigh. He dropped to one knee.

“Run,” Stills shouted at her from within the bowels of the lab, but she couldn’t see where he stood.

Paralyzed, Debi couldn’t be certain which way to run. The way out, through the fire exit, was unguarded. Anyone could come in that way, including more of Team Echo. Craft was gone by now. The only safe place was with Rose. No matter what they’d injected him with, he’d protect her. Running a wide circle around Robert, she followed the blood trail.

At the corner, an arm snaked out and pulled her behind the protection of the equipment. “Rose.” Thank God. Her body sagged against him, but it was like hugging a wall of granite. She looked up and her breath caught. Any resemblance to the man she knew was superficial.

Sweat coated his skin and shirt. His pupils were dilated and his breathing ragged. Rage lit his eyes like a red glow stick. “I told you to go.”

“I told you I don’t take orders.”

“Feeling brave, woman?” He pressed his hard body into hers, and it wasn’t sexy.

Debi stepped back until her heels hit the bottom of a cabinet.

“Leave this spot and I will spank your ass so hard you won’t walk for a week.”

The threat sparked her anger button. Maybe it was better than fear. Maybe it was reckless. “Try it, you overgrown Neanderthal—”

“Do. Not. Move.” The heat of his breath brushed her cheek.

Debi bit her tongue to keep her overactive mouth shut. She was using it to fight the fear, but now was not the time. This was not gentle, pliable Rose. He was dosed.

“Stills,” Rose called, his voice tight. Controlled.

Stills dropped down from the row of shelves separating the different lab spaces, a rifle slung over his left shoulder. He moved swiftly, silently, suddenly looking more like a killer than Robert.

“If anything happens to her, I will haunt your ass.” Rose disappeared around the corner. Moments later, a sound like someone dropping a raw turkey followed by a groaned
oomph
.

Fury invaded where fear dare not. The thirst for revenge still burned his throat and coated his tongue. The last few days, he’d been a complete ass, visiting violence on his brothers because he could, because they would take it, because, in the end, they were the same. Monsters all.

Just like Echo. The man had stabbed Rose, not with a knife but a downward slash of a full syringe. The fluid burned as it was forced under the skin of his thigh. The pumping of his heart pushed blood and poison through his system. It was only a matter of time before the poison won.

Enough of this shit. The man in front of him was one monster he could put in the ground without remorse.

The side effects. In his head, he heard Ryder’s warning and gave him the mental finger. The anger felt fucking fantastic as it burned away the cold and the numb of the past six months. Awareness was like stepping into the sun after cowering in a cave. He felt everything. Grief at what happened to Mad Dog, the loss of his family, the loss of a future he no longer had. All these added fuel to the fire he didn’t want to control. He wanted to blow something up, not defuse it.

“Help him.”

Stills shook his head. “He’s got this.”

“He said he’d haunt you. As if he’s planning to die.” True panic dripped down her tight throat. “How can you...” Violence. Flesh on flesh. Fists. Curses. The stuff of nightmares.

“I know why you stepped into the open, but it wasn’t necessary. We were drawing him into the kill box.”

“Kill box?” Oh, she really wished her mouth didn’t bypass her filters.