I Own the Dawn: The Night Stalkers (14 page)

Archie slid the blanket over them as gently as he could and turned off the light, wincing at the loud click from the reading lamp’s light switch. But neither of them stirred.

By the moonlight coming in the portholes, he watched the two of them curled together. Closer than any mother and daughter would sleep. Just as they’d slept on the helicopter, where he’d watched them for hours in the dawn light.

Dilya curled with her back against Kee. Kee’s arm draped protectively about the girl’s waist, her chin just touching the top of Dilya’s dark hair. Kee’s anomalous blond streak catching the light in her dark brown hair. He wanted to play with that little streak of hair, separate it out until every single strand of light had been sorted from the dark.

Part of him wanted to wish Dilya anywhere else and Kee awake and as ravenous as she’d been that morning on the chopper, but he couldn’t. The girl belonged in the woman’s arms. The tragedy of Dilya’s losses could never be repaired, but somehow he knew in a way he didn’t understand that Kee could never have her past repaired either. Unless they could do it together. Dilya and Kee were meant to be together.

Shutting the small door as quietly as he could, he stood in the open space of the main cabin that was galley on one side, seating on the other. But the boat’s true living space was up in the cockpit, especially in the warm Mediterranean evening.

He’d tried to give his parents the wide queen-size bed in the master cabin, but they had refused. Tonight there’d be no sleep for him there alone.

So he went on deck to watch the stars.

His mother sat, her legs tucked up under a lap blanket, reading a book on her e-reader, the light just reaching far enough to light her smile when she looked up at him. Then hidden in darkness when she turned it off.

She patted the seat beside her and he slid in, draping an arm behind her along the back of the bench seat. Not touching, but comfortable together in the silence.

At this hour the harbor lazed at peace. Most of the town lay shrouded in warm summer darkness and sleep. Streetlights were mostly off and only low footlights shone along the docks. Other than the gentle lap of water and the soft ting of wire rigging tapping on aluminum masts, night rested as gently over them as the blanket he’d placed over Kee and Dilya.

“You care about her a great deal.”

“I barely know her.”

“You care about her a great deal.” The first had been a rhetorical statement, the second bald fact.

“Yes.”

“What’s her background?”

“Mom.” He did not want to get into it with her.

“Archie, look at me.”

He did. Her hair a shimmer in the moonlight. Her face prettier, friendlier. In the soft night, the two forehead creases just above her nose reflecting her intense personality were hidden.

“You are a man grown now, and you make your own choices. I’m not asking as your mother. I’m asking as someone who cares for you and sees you with a new friend I’m finding I can respect. She may be the strongest woman I’ve ever met, and far more approachable than Emily Beale. She is a woman who wears her heart on her sleeve. And she cares about you very much.”

The Major was an amazing woman, but his mother was right. Major Emily Beale kept her emotions in tight reserve. She kept her secrets to herself along with her thoughts. One of the stories around camp told that the two Majors never spoke to each other. They often held hands, but everyone agreed they were operating on some strange level of intuition or telepathy that required few if any words.

If there was no mission, they often sat together high in the soccer stadium’s bleachers as the sun set. In the fading light they were seen to speak quietly, nestled close on the deep tiers that were both seat and footrest for the next row. Or they’d make love after full dark, as Archie discovered accidentally while testing some new night-vision gear.

“Kee is different. She’s right in your face. As likely to insult you as—”

“Kiss you?”

“Yes.” He could feel the heat rushing to his face. He rushed for a subject change.

“She is the best gunner I have ever seen. She never wastes a round or misses a target.”

“She flies with you? Into battle?”

“Yes. I told you.”

“I know. I know. But I find it hard enough to picture you doing it. I’m finding it near impossible to picture such a pretty and caring girl riding into such danger and shooting people. I’m not judging what you do, I understand that it’s important. I simply can’t picture her doing it.”

“I wish you could. She’s…” Archie searched for the right word. Pictured her as he’d glanced back around his seat and seen in the night. A sniper rifle at her shoulder unleashing judgment, juxtaposed with the woman curled up down below with a little girl in her arms. “Magnificent.”

They sat together watching the night. What did he know of Kee Smith?

“She never speaks of her past.”

Kee lay on the sand in the cove just a few miles north of Quercianella, wherever that was. Italy was all she knew. West coast of.

Dilya worked industriously on a sand castle near the water line, trying to copy the one perched atop the cliff above the cove. The fluted square tower collapsed several times and was erased several times more before the girl was content and moved on to the high walls. Her stuffed, orange cat, wearing a small blue scarf of her own, watched the entire operation from atop on overturned plastic pail safely on the landward side of the castle.

Dilya had consented to wear the one-piece bathing suit but refused to show her legs. They’d compromised with a lightweight pair of cotton trousers that even now clung near transparently to her legs with seawater and sand. The scarf that refused to stay on her shoulders, a transparent bit of lemon yellow today, lay tucked under the corner of Kee’s towel.

The first swimming lesson had barely been needed. Dilya must have learned to swim in rivers, or perhaps crossing them. The water’s warmth had brought a startled expression of joy that had turned into hours of swimming along the beach. All she really needed to know was to stay close to the shore and that sand was far more comfortable underfoot than high-mountain riverbeds.

A shadow crossed between Kee and the sun, and stopped there. The baking heat cut off like a knife, letting the slow breeze cool her deliciously.

She opened one eye and saw that her shadow came from a tall, thin silhouette backed by a radiant splash of sunlight. Again the image of the Professor as her protecting angel came to mind. No glowing eyes this time, no SCAR carbine, but a different side of the same coin.

Outlined in the sun, Kee could see the soldier fitness. Strong thighs of a serious runner, trim waist, and an upward taper of muscles to shoulders well defined in the sun, even on his slender frame. Archie stood, not like a man watching her, but more like a man paralyzed.

“You look incredible.” He had apparently been making a similar assessment. And reached a similar conclusion.

“You like the chest?” Her bikini left as little to the imagination as possible. A combination of thin material and not much of it. Dilya had been horrified. Kee felt great. She’d never before so flaunted herself for a man.

“And many other things.”

She patted the sand close beside her.

He spread his bright towel of giant sunflowers about three feet away.

As he dropped toward it, she snagged a corner and pulled it until their towels overlapped. Already past the tipping point, all he could do was twist so that he hit the towel instead of the beach.

With a carefully timed roll she ended up between his arms. She caught his weight so that he didn’t slam into her, but lay on top of her from toes to chest.

“So, do you like the chest?”

“Kee, people will see.”

She teased a kiss across his lips. “I’m not going to screw you on the beach in broad daylight.”

When he tried to raise his head to look, she caught it in both hands and dragged him back to her.

She’d seen Dilya look up as she tripped the Professor, then return to her sand-castling. But there were a dozen other boats anchored in the cove, and somewhere along the strand strolled the Professor’s parents.

“Besides. We have an audience.”

He relaxed against her at last in a slow, nestling motion until they fit body to body most incredibly. She’d been with men as tall, and even lying down it had been awkward, always craning her neck up until it ached. Impossibly, Archie just fit.

“Now answer the question, soldier.”

Together they looked down between them, where her breasts mounded against his chest.

“Yes. I like that very much.”

Then he hit her with that kiss of his, and all she could do was wrap herself around him and hold on. Hold on as waves of heat much hotter than the sun scorched her skin. He tasted of sea salt and stability. Of promise and need. He tasted of hope and she couldn’t get enough of that.

He trailed the kisses down her cheek and to her neck. She made to stop him—there was only so far she was willing to go in broad daylight on a public beach—but he stopped himself with his kiss on her shoulder and his nose nestled at the base of her neck. He inhaled, breathed her in until she could feel his whole body expand in her embrace.

At long last he exhaled a sigh of pure contentment.

“That spot. I could never get enough of that spot. You smell amazing there.”

Kee ran a hand up into his hair and stared at the sky.

“What’s different about you, Professor?”

“I’m busy here.” He began nuzzling her neck.

Not that she’d expected an answer. She’d known about sex ever since watching her mother work a trick in exchange for a fix. From watching girls ply their trade on the Boulevard, though she never had. There wasn’t much privacy on the Street, sex in all its forms occurred in every dark alley, against any handy light post or Dumpster.

She slammed the image aside, hard. Glad Archie couldn’t read her thoughts. Shame flushed her skin, but she wasn’t going to let it control her. She hadn’t then and she wouldn’t now.

When she’d started choosing her partners, she’d discovered that sex had many good points as well. It could be fun, relaxing, and a good contest.

But the Professor brought a level of focus and concentration to his kisses that she’d never encountered, and some needy part of her desperately wanted to explore further.

When the heat of the sun grew too much, before their sweat went from romantic to soaking, he levered himself to her side. He kept his head on her shoulder, not positioned to stare down at her breasts, but so that he lay inside the curl of her arm, his back touching her from ribs to hip. He wrapped both hands around her arm and held on as if he’d never let her go.

“It isn’t me.”

“What isn’t?” Her brain was slow and lazy with the heat: the sun’s and Archie’s.

“It isn’t me that’s different.”

“Then what is it? How do you make me feel the way you do? Answer that one, Professor.”

He kissed the inside of her arm before propping himself up on his elbows to stare down at her.

“Easy. You’re what’s different, unique. I’ve never met anyone like you. All beauty and joy and mystery. Who are you?”

“Sergeant Kee Smith. Gunner.”

“That isn’t what I—I didn’t—You know I didn’t mean that.”

He lost word choice not only when he was flustered, but also when he became irritated. Damn he was cute.

“I don’t have a past before the Army. Not one that matters to anyone, especially to me.”

When she closed her eyes, Archie went silent and began toying with her hair. She did her best to concentrate on the images of the day, this was a day she wanted to remember. Sailing into the quiet harbor. A leisurely breakfast aboard, an oddly accommodating Betty Stevenson, as if she’d been replaced somewhere in the night with a happier person. Or at least a more approachable one.

The two of them had talked long past finishing their meal on the boat this morning. Betty had an immense knowledge of the geopolitical landscape, a world of political giants Kee had always been intrigued by, but understood only on the surface. Betty knew the real news. As shy as she might be, she lit up once she understood Kee was truly interested in her area of expertise.

She’d described how the superpowers were no longer individual nations. Except for perhaps China. Even for the United States, a nation’s power lay more and more in its alliances. Many were mostly about trading, NAFTA, ASEAN, the EU, and others. But there were military and governance players as well. NATO now faced the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and found itself humbled. Directly representing a third of the people and half of the military and economic force of the planet, the SCO had shifted the politics of the planet in under ten years.

Kee had felt momentarily adrift when the men had broken up the conversation, suggesting they go ashore for some beach time. She’d looked back at Betty, but she’d already pulled back into her shell. Though she’d offered Kee a brief smile before going below to gather her beach gear.

And then Kee’d gone swimming with Dilya. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d so forgotten the past and future and dwelt so thoroughly in the moment. Nor if she’d ever let her guard down so completely.

That was her present to herself, a perfect day. As varied and impossible to imagine as it might have been a week ago, somehow she’d been planted in this marvelous, magical day.

Archie kept fooling with her hair. Tugging on it a little. Running his fingers through it. She knew the feeling, remembered it from her past. Snapped her eyes open to see the blond streak wrapped around the Professor’s finger, not one single dark strand mixed with it.

Oh God! The past crashed in on her like a hammer blow right past all of her armor.

She jerked upright. Ignored the sharp pain when he didn’t let go fast enough. Launched to her feet and was a dozen steps down the beach toward Dilya before her first conscious thought. And that cut her knees out from beneath her and she landed hard at the edge of surf.

The stark contrast of these last few days with the week before she joined the Army was irreconcilable. Two different people on two different planets. Two worlds farther apart than hers and the Professor’s.

Hands rested on her shoulders from behind. His hands. She twisted to pull away. Almost succeeded, despite their anchoring strength, he had far more power than he typically used. She prepared to fight free, until smaller hands rested on her knee.

As much by instinct as affection, she reached out to pull Dilyana to her. Held the child hard. Held her and did her best not to think of her own past as she buried her face in the girl’s salt-sweet hair.

“Kee?” Archie moved to kneel beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

She wanted to dig in, burrow under. One thing she knew, no way was she going to weep on him. An action taken once that would never be repeated. Her barriers had to stay in place. It was far too dangerous for her to let someone that close again. Memories that could destroy her life. She’d keep her past separate with all she had.

“Did I do something wrong? I’m—”

She shook her head to stop him.

There was a tug on her hair. On that same exact spot.

She opened her eyes, ready to bat him aside, but his hands were accounted for, in clear view. Dilya’s fine fingers teased at the stripe shining gold in the sun, standing out even more against Dilya’s dark skin.

A wave rolled in and tickled at Kee’s knees before sliding away, leaving air bubbles to pop up from under the smooth, dark sand.

She had dyed that specific shade of yellow-gold in a streak there so that she’d never forget. It had elicited a thousand compliments, which was senseless if you knew why it was there. Not that she’d ever told a soul.

It was there for all to see. That was its purpose. And she didn’t want to hide anything from Archie, in any way. Which shocked the hell out of her. She swallowed hard against the panic soaring through her.

Dilya continued to twist the strand about to catch the sunlight. Comparing it to her own dark locks. Kee could feel the gently shifting tug as Dilya began braiding the little strand. Holding the girl close, perhaps Kee could release that piece of her past. Or at least a small part of it. She pictured a different time, a different place. A place as dark as this sea was bright, as dirty as this sandy shore shone clean beneath the blue sky.

“Her name was Anna. I never knew her last name. On the street you keep your name close. Knew her three years, an eternity in our world, but I never knew her full name. How’s that for a twisted way to live? We were as close as you could be there. Trusted each other to have each other’s back.” It was as if someone else was speaking. The dull monotone of a past Kee, one she no longer connected to. Now that she’d decided to speak, she found no emotion, just the words.

“Then one day a drive-by took her out. One second at my shoulder, the next bleeding out on the filthy concrete. I returned fire. I was already a good shot back then, I’d run for a while with a gang run by a Desert Storm sergeant. He made sure we could all shoot. I was good, and he’d taught me more than the others. A lot more. I took out all three assholes in the car then sparked the gas tank. Four shots with a Glock that Billy had scrounged for me. It never did Anna any good, though.”

She looked out to sea, but all she could see was the dark night and Anna’s blood, black on the cracked pavement. “Two of the shooters were wanted on a cop-killer rap, so the prosecutor offered self-defense, provided I joined the Army and got off the street. Judge accepted and I was inducted that afternoon.”

“This,” she ran a finger down the lock now being braided in Dilya’s deft fingers, “I did before I reported in the next morning. It’s the closest I can get to her hair color. The only friend I ever had.”

Archie didn’t move away. Didn’t flinch. She waited for the shift of a man wanting to get away, but too polite to show it. Not Archie. He remained solidly shoulder to shoulder, watching the sea as she did.

“I’m so sorry, Kee. No kid deserves that. No one should have to live through that kind of life.”

Dilya found a short piece of string in one of her pockets, she constantly collected them, and tied off the braid.

In unison, they looked down at the girl in Kee’s lap. Dilya’s life had been hard as well. She’d seen her parents die partly of starvation and finally of bullets.

Pleased with her handiwork, the girl scampered off to defend her sand castle from the incoming tide.

Kee and the Professor remained kneeling together, watching the gentle waves beat on the sand. Watching and waiting for Kee to come back from the past to the world of light. To make that long passage back that she had faced a thousand nights.

It was a long journey in the dark. A long journey even in the daylight.

But this was the first time she hadn’t faced it alone.