Marcus (17 page)

“Thank you,” Marcus said. “If you ever need
anything, ask for Marcus Steele. Or Cruz.” He nodded at the team.
“Move out, Hell Squad.”

“Wait.” Cruz grabbed Santha’s slim shoulder.
Under the fabric, he felt toned muscle.

She paused and raised a brow.

There was pure, undiluted confidence in her
eyes. This was a woman, and a warrior, who knew exactly what she
was good at. But there was something else there too. A dangerous
weariness he recognized all too well. Something he saw reflected in
the mirror every day.

Cruz glanced at Marcus. “We can’t leave
her.”

“Looks like she’d doing okay for herself.”
Marcus nudged Elle along.

“Please, come with us,” Cruz tried
again.

“I’m staying and fighting for my home.” For
a second, Santha looked like she wanted to say something else.

“You could fight with us.” He smiled at her.
Maybe some charm might help. “We have resources, training—”

Her lips twitched. “You can put the sexy
grin away, soldier. I’m not that easy. I work better alone…but
thank you.”

Cruz ground his teeth together. He barely
knew her, but some part of him didn’t want to let her go.

Green eyes clung to him for one more second.
“Stay safe.”

She disappeared into the darkness.

Cruz just stood there, staring after
her.

“Cruz, we need to move. Mission,
remember?”

Cruz muttered under his breath. “Yeah.”

He dragged his attention off his mysterious
savior and back onto the mission

***

Marcus watched a stationary train appear out
of the green-tinged gloom ahead.

Around him, the squad was wired and
wary.

As they passed the train, he saw Elle
frowning at what looked like rust on the metal. But he noted the
red-brown stains were smeared all over the windows too. It was no
rust.

Then her brow scrunched and he knew she
understood what those stains were. He saw her swallow a few
times.

Marcus touched a hand to the nape of her
neck. She looked up, her face set but steady. It broke his heart a
little to see her learning to hold her own in the field, to see
horrible things and deal with them. But he was damned proud of her
as well.

They reached a junction, two tunnels
spearing off in opposite directions.

“Which way?” he asked.

Elle tapped her mini-comp. The encryption
still hadn’t broken but they had to be getting close. “Ah, right, I
think.”

“Think or know?”

She stiffened her spine. “Right is all I’ve
got for now. As soon as this encryption falls, I can give you
more.”

Somewhere behind them, Claudia snickered.
Marcus hid his smile. Yep, he was really starting to like those
moments when Elle bared her teeth.

They moved down the tunnel, this one
narrower than the earlier one with only one track. Suddenly Elle’s
mini-comp beeped and the screen flared.

“Encryption’s down.” She swiped the screen,
tapping at the map. “We’ve got it! We’ve got the hub’s exact
location.”

“About damn time,” Shaw muttered.

Marcus ignored him. “Where?”

“About another fifty meters down this
tunnel, there looks to be a service door into what was the Domestic
Terminal’s train station.” Elle looked up. “From there, we have to
head up into the terminal. To the food court. The hub’s in there.
Feeding off what was once a small reactor used to power the
terminal.”

“Okay, Hell Squad, let’s finish this.” Then
he could get Elle out of here.

They continued on and stopped at a metal
door marked “Maintenance.”

“Cruz, get it open.”

Cruz pulled something off his belt and got
to work.

“You can pick locks?” Elle whispered.

“Man of many talents,
querida
.”

Yeah, Cruz had a lot of talents Marcus
didn’t ask too much about. He had a dark past he didn’t like to
share. Marcus watched his friend work and pondered the interest
Cruz had for their attractive savior.

Marcus was damn happy about it. For months,
he’d slowly watched his usually-happy, carefree friend turn harder
and more disenchanted with the world.

Marcus looked at Elle. His own personal ray
of sunshine. Sensing his scrutiny, she looked up and smiled. A tiny
flicker of calm washed over him.

Cruz stepped back and opened the door.

Marcus gestured with his hand and the team
moved inside the station. Seconds later, they crept up some stairs
and past the turnstiles.

There was another wide tunnel lined with
tiles and covered with advertisements for comps, banks, supersonic
business travel to the world’s financial capitals, an island
holiday on the Great Barrier Reef.

At the end of the tunnel, they found a pair
of now-still escalators and walked up.

The first level was baggage claim. Some
belts lay empty and others were still loaded with suitcases. Some
other bags were strewn about, torn open, their contents spilling
onto the tile floor.

Elle pointed up again.

This time it was check-in. Rows of empty
check-in machines stood silent, their comp screens blank.

The squad spread out. Elle pointed them on
toward the security checkpoint under the large Departures sign.

Gabe went first, moving toward the
inoperative security machine that Marcus knew had been introduced a
few decades back. The high-tech systems could simultaneously check
for weapons, traces of explosives, and drugs, and also did a
biological sweep for illness and signs of elevated nervousness. The
technological advancement had cut security incidents on planes
dramatically.

Gabe ducked through the arch.

Lights flared and an alarm screeched through
the cavernous terminal.

Shit
. Marcus pulled Elle down behind
a row of chairs. The rest of the team took cover and waited.

Nothing.

Dammit
. This was either a big decoy
and the team was going to find nothing.

Or the raptors were welcoming them in before
they sprung a dirty, big trap.

It didn’t matter. Whatever happened, they
had to destroy that hub.

After a tense wait, no aliens appeared.
Marcus directed the team onward and they skirted the security
machine.

“Left,” Elle whispered.

On one side were large glass windows showing
empty gates or planes waiting for passengers who’d never come. The
other side was a row of shops. A bookstore with a small section of
paper books and rows of comps that would have offered quick
downloads of the latest digital bestsellers. A ladies’ clothing
store that had been looted long ago. A jewelry store with rows of
once-expensive watches in the window, now worth nothing.

“There’s the food court,” Elle said.

The team halted and Marcus studied the open
area ahead. Rows of tables and chairs filled the center of the
space. Fast-food restaurants that once offered everything from
burgers to sushi lined the walls.

“Too damn quiet,” Gabe murmured.

Yeah. Marcus scanned the area but didn’t see
anything moving.

Elle tapped furiously on her screen. “On the
other side of the food court, there’s an entrance to a maintenance
room that houses the nuclear reactor that powered part of the
terminal.”

“And the hub?” Marcus asked.

She looked up. “The raptor hub is directly
below the reactor. Looks like there is a staircase down to it.”

Marcus hated when a mission was too fucking
easy. It always meant a big pile of shit was going to rain down.
And raptor shit stank really, really badly.

He eyed the maintenance door across the
expanse of the food court. He wished again, for the thousandth
time, that he didn’t have to take Elle in there.

“Let’s move.”

They moved through the tables, every member
swiveling around as they went, carbines aimed, waiting for raptors
to pour out of some unnoticed hiding place.

Cruz smashed the lock on the maintenance
door and pushed it open. Marcus went first and the team
followed.

The maintenance area was large. Metal pipes
ran across the ceiling, sending water and power to different parts
of the terminal.

A big, boxy reactor sat in the middle of the
space, humming quietly. Power filled the air, making the hair on
Marcus’ arms stand up.

The raptors’ part-organic, scale-covered
cables ran from the reactor, disappearing toward the back of the
room.

“The stairs are that way,” Elle
whispered.

He nodded and moved forward.

As they crossed the space, the only sound
was the dull thud of their boots on the floor.

Too damned quiet.
Marcus had barely
finished the thought when he saw a flash of movement.

Clunk.

Something landed and rolled toward them.

Smoke exploded in a thick gray cloud.

“Smoke grenade!” someone yelled.

Marcus ducked. Where was Elle? He tried to
peer through the smoke but it was worse than soup. He heard throaty
growls.

The raptors were here.

Heart pumping in his chest harder than it
ever had, he crawled across the concrete floor. Where the hell was
she? He bumped into something. Something warm.

“Marcus?” A shaky whisper.

Relief almost took him to the ground. He
curled his body around her. “I got you, baby.”

“I can’t see.” Her hands gripped his
armor.

“It’ll clear in a few seconds. Then we
fight. Keep your head down.”

He felt her fingers travel up his chest,
brush his jaw. “Be careful.”

“Will do. You be ready to tell us where to
go next.”

He felt rather than saw her nod. But soon he
could see her pale face in the murk. He knelt and swung his weapon
up. As soon as he started firing at the vague moving shadows on the
other side of the room, his team opened fire.

Shit, there were a lot of raptors. Then he
heard a low, raspy laugh. God, he hated when they did that.

The ground vibrated. Marcus kept firing, his
pulse tripping. A huge raptor, twice the size of the others
lumbered into view. He carried some sort of weapon Marcus had never
seen. It was huge.

“Marcus? You see him?” Cruz’s voice came
through the dissipating smoke.

“Never seen one like him before.” That
rasping deep laugh echoed around them again. This time it made
Marcus’ muscles tense.

“
Fiiiire
.”

Shit. It had spoken. In
English
.
Shock froze Marcus for a second. Then, the super-raptor lifted his
weapon and flames exploded outward.

“Flamethrower,” Marcus yelled, diving for
cover. He reached out, trying to find Elle, and only fining
air.

A wave of fire rushed over them, scorching
hot.
Hell on Earth.

Flames exploded everywhere.

Elle swallowed, and kept her head down. Her
throat was bone dry from the hot air surrounding her.

She heard that terrifying laugh, felt the
ground shaking with each heavy footstep.
Oh, God.
Suddenly,
hard fingers clamped down on her arm.

“Move. Now.”

Marcus
. She jumped to her feet and
followed him. When she glanced over her shoulder, her stomach
dropped away.

An enormous man…dinosaur…creature stood a
few meters away, swinging a huge weapon that was spewing lethal
fire. She saw he was aiming at Cruz and the others who were pinned
down on the other side of the room.

“Elle, focus.”

She snapped her head forward and narrowly
avoided tripping over a dead raptor.

Marcus pushed her into a narrow space behind
some workbenches. He fired again, trying to help the others.

She smelled a horrid smell and realized part
of her hair sticking out from under her helmet was burning. She
slapped at it.

Under the barrage of fire, the large raptor
finally pitched forward, the flames cutting off. Elle drew the
tiniest breath. Then she saw another swarm of armed raptors racing
in.

Marcus touched a finger to his ear. “Cruz,
keep them busy. We’ll make a run for the hub and plant the
bomb.”

“Roger that,” Cruz responded. “Keep your
head down and keep Ellie safe.”

Marcus’ gaze found her face and her heart
skipped a beat.

“Count on it.” His tone was deep gravel.

She followed him to the stairs. These ones
curled down in a spiral into blackness. She checked her comp screen
again, but the image blurred. Terror turned all the raptor symbols
to gibberish.

The nearby gunshots rang in her ears. God,
her entire body was shaking.

“Hold it together.” He grabbed her hand, his
gloved fingers secure on hers, and tugged her down the stairs. “You
can do this.”

At the bottom was a solid-metal door. Marcus
shot at the blinking control panel and the door opened with a hiss.
They stepped inside and she saw nothing but impenetrable
darkness.

The door closed behind them and cut off the
last of the light.

“Shit.” Marcus yanked at the door, then
kicked it. “It’s locked.”

Okay, not necessarily a bad thing. It would
stop the raptors getting in. She turned back to the thick darkness.
But what if something was already hiding in here?

In an instant, she was back in that closet
in her parents’ home, bombs exploding outside, her mother sobbing,
her father yelling, a raptor grunting in the dark.

“I can’t do this.” She stepped away from
Marcus. She’d been wrong to push him to have her on the team.

Marcus clicked on the light mounted on his
gun. It cut a bright shaft through the blackness. “Elle—”

She shook her head wildly. “I can’t do this.
I’m just a useless party girl.” Who’d done nothing while her
parents were killed. “I can’t do this. I was stupid to come, to put
you all at risk.”

Marcus gripped her arms, gave her a
none-too-gentle shake. “You aren’t that woman anymore.”