Play Nice (27 page)

Anna couldn’t help but notice his language. Target. Neutralize. He was impersonalizing the people he killed. She wondered if it was deliberate or an unconscious act of self-preservation.

“Don’t you ever get tired?” she asked.

“I’m getting tired now,” he answered the edge still present in his voice.

“No, I mean of this. Running.”

There was a pause. “I’m not running, Anna.”

“That’s a lie. Anyone who lives this life is always running. There’s always someone at your back, looking over your shoulder, just around the corner. Tell me you don’t sleep with your gun at your side and one eye open?”

Again with the pause.

Then, “You’re right.”

Anna closed her eyes, and leaned her head back on the seats. She inhaled deeply the scents of leather and damp salty air. “I just thought … I thought I could start over. That maybe one day I could sleep. I mean really sleep, deeply, calmly, without that ever-present fear of what would happen when I woke up.”

She heard him close his laptop, plunging them both into sudden darkness in the back of the car.

“You can’t go back,” he answered.

“I know.” She nodded. “I know that now. But … but where do I go forward from here?”

She wasn’t sure why, but her voice cracked. She hadn’t meant it to. She hadn’t meant to get deep or emotional at all. Especially not with Dade. She bit her lip hard, willing the sob in her throat to subside, not to escape.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Dammit, he’d heard her. She took a second, feeling tears heat behind her eyes.

“Yes.”

“Liar.”

The sob popped out.

She shut her eyes tight to stave off tears.

In the darkness, she heard Dade shift, the polyester of the sleeping bag crackling as his body moved closer to hers. In a moment, his arm was around her. She didn’t want comfort. She didn’t want to get close. But she couldn’t help pressing her face to his chest all the same, the warmth like a beacon to her.

Tears trickled down her cheeks, wetting his shirt, she was sure, but he didn’t say anything, didn’t pull away. He just held her. His arms that had seemed like fighting against steel only yesterday were now a welcomed strength, holding the good in, holding the bad at bay.

And so she clung to him. Her arms going around his solid torso, holding on for dear life.

His hand went to her hair, stroking it back from her forehead. “Hey. It’s okay,” he whispered to her.

She nodded. But the tears flowed down her cheeks just the same.

“You’re going to be okay. I promise.”

She gulped, tried to take a deep breath to still her throat. She nodded again. “I know,” she sniffed, even though the promise was as hollow as her tears felt. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he quickly told her.

“I hate crying.”

“Me, too.”

She choked back a laugh. “Sorry,” she whispered again. She pulled away. Even as warm and wonderful as his body felt, she forced herself to pull back.

His hand went to her hair again. “Hey, really, it’s okay. I cry.”

She scoffed. “Really?”

Only he didn’t laugh. Just nodded.

“When?”

“When I got back from Afghanistan. Hell, I cried every night for a while.”

She had a hard time picturing that. And the disbelief must have shown on her face as he added, “Everyone I knew was dead, Anna. The whole squad.”

“What happened?” she asked softly.

She half expected him to clam up again, but instead he lay his head down on the seats, facing her.

“Ambush. We were bringing supplies to troops at an outpost along the Pakistani trade route. We were attacked. By the time backup came, five of us were pulled from the mess. Five that hadn’t been killed immediately. By the next morning, only four were left. As I lay in the hospital bed I watched them die around me, slowly, from infections, internal bleeding, wounds too severe to be repaired. Each morning I would wake up and refuse to open my eyes. Draw it out as long as possible before I had to face who had gone in the night. And when I was the only one left, each night I went to sleep sure that I would be gone by morning. For two weeks I did this, expecting each morning to wake up dead. Then I was discharged and sent home.”

“I’m sorry,” Anna said quietly. She didn’t know what to say. Comfort was something she didn’t really know how to give. She’d been too long away from people, she realized. Too long making sure she kept her distance that even now, in the intimate confines of their makeshift bed, his face inches away from her, hearing words she was pretty sure he’d never spoken to anyone else, she wasn’t sure how to receive the closeness. “I’m so sorry,” she said again.

Dade shook his head in the dark. “It’s not a sob story. Everyone has their own trauma in life. I’m not unique in that. But it was hard. I was pissed, felt guilty, angry, and just sad. Sad that so many good people had died for no reason. So, I cried. It’s okay to be sad. It’s okay to be scared sometimes.”

She nodded. She knew that. But it didn’t change the fact that she hated those feelings. That feeling scared meant she wasn’t in control. And when all else in her life was in chaos, the very least she wanted to do was control her own emotions.

When she was an agent, she had often prayed to feel human, to feel the compassion for her fellow man that she knew she should.

Of course, at first that was all she could feel. She’d been sick the first time she’d put a bullet in someone’s chest, seen the blood ooze out, watched the life drain behind his eyes as the realization dawned on him that he was dying. She’d stood frozen, watching him fade, wasting so much time she’d almost caught a bullet herself. But she hadn’t been able to leave the man until she knew he was gone, the thought of him dying all alone too much to bear. She hadn’t slept for a week after that first time. The images coming back to her as soon as she closed her eyes, the man haunting her dreams as soon as she drifted off. He’d been an arms dealer, someone who had been responsible for countless deaths himself. But it hadn’t negated the way he had looked at her as his soul had slowly slipped away into whatever oblivion awaited him.

After that first time, Anna had forced that part of herself to shut down. To turn off all emotion, become numb, as Petrovich had told her time and time again.

And she had. Soon enough she’d been so numb she didn’t know how to turn
that
off. How to feel human again. Nerves she sometimes felt, anxiety, fear of being killed herself. But in that instant where her fingers locked on the trigger, squeezed, shot the life out of someone as they sat unsuspecting before her, she’d been trained to feel nothing.

And she had hated it. Hated that they had taken the one thing she had left that was hers—her humanity. She prayed to feel, and when she’d stopped believing in anyone to pray to, she’d hoped, begged, pleaded with herself to feel something. She’d forced herself to look in their eyes as they died, to watch the life slide away from them. But she’d felt nothing.

And now … in the cold, in the dark, beside a man she shouldn’t trust, she couldn’t stop feeling. Couldn’t stop the tears from falling for every person that she’d been numbed beyond humanity toward.

For herself.

For Dade.

Without thinking, Anna reached a hand out toward him. In the dull moonlight filtering through the windows, his face was in shadow, the hard angles of his profile softened in the dark. She trailed her fingers across his cheek, tracing the outline of his jaw, feeling his rough stubble on the pads of her fingers.

She heard him draw in a breath, sharp and sudden. But he didn’t move. His body was still, tense beside her.

He didn’t know how to do close, either.

But suddenly she wanted close. Was desperate for it. For the chance to be, for just one night, a part of something other than herself.

She leaned forward in the dark, touching her lips to his.

At first he was stone, unmoving. He didn’t even breathe as far as she could tell.

She flicked the tip of her tongue out to lick his lower lip, softly opening her mouth to taste him.

And he responded.

His lips moved slowly at first, softly, tentatively, as if not sure how deep he wanted to get himself into this. She inched her body closer to his, feeling his warmth beneath the sleeping bag.

She felt the moment when he gave in, the moment when he decided that he would allow himself this vulnerability. His arms went around her middle, crushing her to him. His hand went to her hair, not stroking gently now, but tugging, stinging her scalp. His kiss deepened, his breath coming hard against her cheek.

Anna closed her eyes, lay back on the leather seats, and gave in to the feeling of … feeling. Feeling every touch of his body, every muscle pressing against her, every sensation of his rough cheeks brushing against her neck, his wet tongue running over her lips, his hands warm and strong, running up her thigh, down her back, beneath the hem of her T-shirt.

She closed her eyes.

And let it take over.

*   *   *

Anna lay in the dark, crickets chirping in the tall grasses nearby creating a symphony that she swore was just for her. Lenny snored in the front seat, a rhythmic, comforting sound. And Dade breathed softly beside her, his bare chest rising and falling in the moonlight. She couldn’t help grinning, laying a hand on his skin. He was warm. Solid.

She closed her eyes. It was the first time in years that she had felt sated, relaxed. Her mind was as calm as the night, her body at ease. She lay still, enjoying the long forgotten sensation.

Though, had she ever really felt this?

Maybe. She couldn’t really remember now. But there might have been moments as a child when she’d felt warm, secure. Happy without any qualifiers attached.

She closed her eyes, letting sleep come naturally to her.

But it never got there.

Because as soon as her lids dropped down over her eyes, the sound of gunfire tore through the side of the SUV.

CHAPTER 20

Dade woke instantly, rolling over on top of Anya in a protective instinct. He fumbled in the dark for the gun tucked into his pants. It took him a second to realize he wasn’t wearing any pants. He was groggy, out of it, a state he wasn’t used to being in.

Anya wriggled out from beneath him and emerged with his M9 in hand. She shot two rounds out the shattered back window.

Dade scrambled over her, grabbing a handful of clothing in the process, diving toward the front seat. He was about to turn the key in the ignition, when a shot hit the hood and the front end of the car burst into flames.

He stared at the spot where his engine had just been for a moment before it sank in.

“Shit!” he yelled, quickly scrambling to the back of the car, keeping low as the gunfire continued to hail on them from the driver’s side of the car.

Anya had shoved herself into a pair of jeans, had her shirt half over her head. She was still pointing the gun out the back, sending rounds toward their unseen attackers.

Dade pushed the back passenger side door open, then shoved Anya out ahead of him. He felt Lenny following a step behind, instinctively sticking close to the couple.

Dade crouched low, sticking behind the SUV’s tires. He grabbed his gun from Anya, ducking out around the back end of the car and shooting off another couple of rounds. He was almost out of ammo, he knew. And it wouldn’t be long before the car blew, either roasting them along with it or completely obliterating any cover they had.

“Into the bushes,” he commanded, shoving Anya ahead of him again.

She went, grabbing Lenny by the collar as she did, diving into the overgrowth to their right. Dade provided cover, shooting out at unseen attackers until his gun reported a hollow click. He was out of bullets. It was a footrace now.

He dove into the bushes after Anya, a hail of gunfire following him.

He couldn’t see where she was, but he could hear her, crashing through the underbrush of the overgrown landscape. He followed the sounds, painfully aware that his pants were still in his hands as he raced away from the scene.

He felt himself gain on Anya, the sound of her feet slowing as he approached.

Unfortunately, in the distance, he also heard another set of feet entering the brush. Or two sets. More? He couldn’t tell, the noises all running together.

“Dade!” he heard Anya call ahead of him.

“Right behind you. Don’t slow down.”

She didn’t answer, but he heard the sound of her feet picking up pace, Lenny’s bark echo in the darkness as the pair hit the edge of the clearing.

Dade caught up to Anya just as an explosion rocketed through the sky. Heat hit his back, knocking him to the ground. He turned around just in time to see orange and red flames reaching up into the air, the fire having reached the SUV’s gas tank.

He scrambled to his feet, quickly shoved his legs into the pair of pants, and threw a shirt over his head.