Free Fall (Elite Force #4)(15)
Author: Catherine Mann

A crackle in the distance had him on his feet in a low crouch before he’d even fully registered the sound. His hand went to his gun. More of that muscle memory from training taking over, sending his body on autopilot.

Do whatever it took to keep Stella alive. Never had his pararescue motto been so blazingly in the forefront of his mind. These things we do, that others may live.

The fat moon sent light streaming through the branches. The tall grasses and scrub brush rustled… A cheetah darted past. Stella went steely still, the best reaction. A shot could bring worse than a jungle cat already disappearing from sight.

Exhaling hard, she shrugged. “My nerves are a little ragged.”

“You’re incredibly composed considering all you’ve been through.” He offered her the opening to share more if she needed, to speak at her own pace rather than him asking.

She leaned back against the tree, shoulder to shoulder with him. “I’d damn well better be able to keep myself together.”

“You’re not a machine.” And neither was he. It took all his self-control not to pull her onto his lap and rub her back until she slept in his arms. “You’ve held your own the past few days and tonight. Remind me never to piss you off.”

“You already did,” she said wryly, before looking away. “I wondered if I would ever see you again. I wanted the chance to tell you… Well, doesn’t matter now.”

“What doesn’t matter?” he pressed. “We have all night.”

“It’s best we don’t go there, not now.” Her face closed up fast. “I had thought we could use this time to talk some things through, but I’m realizing this isn’t the time or the place to go into that after all. I just can’t afford to risk losing it. Not now. I have to focus everything on keeping myself together until we’re out of here.”

He pulled back, raising his hands. “Okay, okay.”

“I apologize,” she deflated. “I’m just on edge. I was really starting to lose hope back at the compound.”

He could see she was about to crumble now. She needed an outlet of some sort, comfort, but she wouldn’t want his comfort. So he opted for something she would accept. Humor.

“Sorry if we didn’t mobilize a major rescue operation quickly enough for you.”

A smile tugged the sides of her cracked lips. “I’m an ingrate, aren’t I?”

He passed her lip balm from his survival vest. “Olive branch?”

She touched her lips. “Are you saying I look like hell?”

“You look… alive.” That one word was everything.

Slowly, she took the lip balm from his hand and slicked it over her mouth. She put the cap back on with careful precision. “Alive is definitely a bonus today, one I wasn’t sure I would get.”

His eyes held on her mouth, the night and frenzy of what they’d been through gathering in his gut, making him thirsty for a taste of her.

He wanted to hold onto his sobriety coin right now so damn bad. “How did they capture you?”

Shadows chased through her green eyes, like clouds over the midnight moon. “I got careless.”

“I know you. You’re never careless. I’m the impulsive one.”

She shook her head. “It’s my fault two people died. I should have done something.”

“It’s not all about you, babe, and trust me, you don’t have a corner on the market when it comes to second-guessing yourself.” He toyed with the end of her ponytail, tugging lightly. “Hey, where’s the Stella I know? The tough cookie who chewed me out a few minutes ago because I didn’t show up earlier?”

“That was just the hypoglycemia talking. I missed breakfast. Low blood sugar and all.” She rolled the lip balm between her palms, back and forth. “Give me a glass of OJ and I’ll be my normal chipper self again.”

“Chipper?” He snorted softly. “Not a word I would think could be found on any of your agency psych profiles.”

“Psych shmike.” Her slicked lips went tight. “It’s my job to pretend to be the person of the day. Maybe chipper wasn’t on the menu… And speaking of menus, I could really use something more to eat. I wasn’t joking about the low blood sugar.”

“Another protein bar?”

“I’m so hungry I’ll even eat that.” She extended her palm, her fingernails cracked and torn.

He passed over a peanut butter crunch bar and not for the first time wished he had more to offer her. “You still haven’t told me how you got captured.”

“I’ll talk in debrief.” She tore open the wrapper. “You don’t have a need to know.”

She bit off a quarter of the bar and chewed, making it quite clear she wasn’t saying a word more than she wanted. And that fast he saw her find that strength he’d been nudging her for, except she used it to put space between them. Shutters went up in her green eyes and she crab walked toward the lean-to with the rest of her protein bar.

What wasn’t she telling him?

His mind churned with horrors and he had no one to blame but himself that he’d given up the right to press her for answers.

***

Ajaya curled up under the floor of the compound where they’d held those American students captive.

His muscles were cramping, but he didn’t dare get up even though he’d stopped hearing American soldiers stomp around hours ago. Now the revolutionaries had come crawling in afterward, searching. If they found him, they would make him join up again. Shoot people. Get shot at. The punishment for disobeying…?

His throat burned with puke.

Sweat trickled down his head and into the mud, sticky from the perspiration pouring off his body from more than heat. A scorpion scrabbled past him fast and he didn’t so much as flinch. He was scared to death. Not of the lethal sting. He was scared to hope he could escape today.

No more beatings. No more blood.

He’d been taken from the orphan school eight months ago, forced to join their “army.” His first kill had been with a knife. Then they’d rewarded him with a gun. Every time they made him shoot, made him kill, he vowed to be the best so he could turn the weapon on them one day. He imagined what it would have been like to have this gun earlier to protect his mother, his sister, and little brother before they died, along with his father. He would have used that gun to take his family somewhere safe.

Ajaya came from a Sanskrit word, jaya, victorious. Unconquered.