Chapter 10 #2
The guy, who is smarter than he looks, abandons the vehicle right as I pull the trigger, making me miss my shot. Before I can recalibrate, he picks up something from the ground and blindly throws it at me.
I dodge the flying object—a fist-sized rock, for fuck’s sake—but it hits my pistol, killing it dead. These are made of a lighter polymer, something that can be broken and easily discarded if necessary. Great for cleanup, terrible in the middle of a firefight.
I’ll make sure to add that to my post-op report.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I’ve still got a bad guy to kill.
In the meantime, someone—probably Hedy—directs the Wimberley vehicle’s headlights toward the fight. Thank Christ for sunglasses. Those high beams are powerful.
I close the distance between me and the rock-throwing asshole. He tries to come at me with a haymaker. I dodge and break a few of his ribs as payback. He spits a gob of blood at me, which I also dodge before breaking his nose. He swings at me again, a glancing blow that knocks off my sunglasses.
The bright LED headlights sear my brain. Frustrated and worried about my cousins dealing with those assholes in the second truck, I let out a roar and rip out the guy’s throat.
Warm blood hits my face, and hell yeah.
I like the efficiency of the newer pistols, I do. But there’s nothing like the smell of copper on my skin. Sliding into a dark chuckle, I turn to check on Oakley.
Oh. Huh.
His eyes are enormous, his mouth a funny little O.
Shit.
Knowing about me and seeing it in a controlled environment is one thing. Seeing it in the field is a horse of a different color. I sweep the ground and find my sunglasses, quickly putting them on. Which is silly because he’s already seen the black.
We’re still in the middle of a firefight, though, so I refocus.
Good thing, too, because there’s a man taking advantage of the dark between the headlights, running up on Oakley’s six.
I think the fuck not.
Grabbing the knife from my vest, I throw it as hard as I can. It whizzes past Oakley’s shoulder and into the man’s eye.
God, I love the sound a body makes when it hits the ground.
Oakley turns, surprisingly calm as he takes in the knife sticking out of the guy’s eye socket.
“Clear!” Uncle Anders calls out.
“Clear!” Uncle Odd follows. After everything that went down on our last big op, I don’t think he plans to sit another one out. From what I can tell, he hasn’t lost a step.
I double-check the SUV. “Clear!”
Honoré and Holmes come up, double-ashing the bodies with their rifles. Oakley’s staring at me like I’m an alien and Hedy’s off to the side looking guilty. Like maybe she knows she made a bad judgment call, dragging Oak into a field operation.
“Well,” she says, making her way over to us. “That was…not how I thought this was going to go.” She turns to Oakley. “Are you okay?”
Oakley ignores her question. “Look. I know this is why we were never allowed to play with Silas as kids,” he says, gesturing at my face. “But he’s clearly in control of himself now, and while I know I can’t share that with my fathers, why can’t you?”
My heart, which hasn’t gone above eighty beats per minute this entire mission, trips into overdrive.
Oakley sees me. He really sees me.
Hedy doesn’t answer and instead takes in the scene around us.
We’re in the middle of a country road surrounded by fields and trees, the Texas sky sparkling with stars above us.
There’s one SUV in a ditch, another smoldering off to the side, the piles of ash adding up. She turns, gesturing the length of me.
“Why are you covered in blood?”
I’m tempted to lie, but she’ll see it on the playback.
“I, uh…” I shrug. “The guy broke my pistol, so I had to resort to hand-to-hand combat.”
“Okay…”
“And he pissed me off, so I tore out his throat.”
Not quite ripping off the heads of my enemies, but I’m getting closer.
Hedy’s eyes ping between Oakley and me. She rubs her forehead. “Welp. This just got complicated.”
Oakley steps up next to me. “Don’t be mad at Silas for saving my life.
” He puts a large hand on his chest. “My heart’s still revving like an F1 race car, but don’t think I didn’t notice that you haven’t answered my question.
Why can’t you tell my fathers that Silas is well controlled and not, you know, a threat? ”
She gestures at the blood splatter. “Because he just ripped out a man’s throat with his bare hands.”
“Which was the most appropriate weapon in the circumstance,” Oakley insists, putting a protective arm around me.
Don’t get hard. Don’t get hard. Don’t get hard.
Hedy looks at me and grimaces. “It’s not that I can’t share this information with your fathers. They already have clearance. They could actually look it up for themselves.”
“Then why—”
I sink into his side embrace, placing my head on his meaty shoulder as I answer his question.
“It’s because your dad has already decided that I’ll never be trustworthy.
There’s nothing anyone can say, no proof that he’ll accept.
No matter how small the chance that I’d ever harm a single hair on a Wildling’s head, in his mind, I’ll always be a danger. ”
Hedy’s listening as she scans me, the dead piles of ash, and the scene again. After a moment, she nods.
“Given what went down between Sy’s father and Ronan, plus the obvious signs of genetic manipulation…your dad is stuck in a trauma loop.”
Oakley is already shaking his head before she can finish her sentence. He tightens his grip on me. “Bullshit. Dad isn’t stuck. He decided, and none of you were willing to argue with him.”
Hedy’s expression shifts like she’s just now noticed that he’s holding me.
Protecting me. She thins her lips, a tacit acknowledgment.
“I’m sure you have a lot of questions, which I’ll answer—to the extent that I can—once we’re back at the office.
” She gestures at the bloodied man on the ground.
“And we’ll definitely be debriefing all of… this.”
“Fine, but you should know that, in my limited experience, I felt that Silas acted quickly, using appropriate force where necessary.”
He emphasizes this with a kiss to the top of my head.
Don’t. Get. Hard.
Hedy’s brows go up ever so slightly, yet she dips her chin in acknowledgment.
“We’ll still need to review the videos. But…
your opinion carries a lot of weight.” She shifts her attention to me.
“Since one of Oakley’s jobs is to help me follow up with all operatives after an active engagement, and you’ve already been through that process with him and live in the same building, would you mind if he contacted you in the next day or two? ”
Oakley releases me and sends me an encouraging smile.
Between the shooting, the blood, and that fucking smile…I want Oakley to lie on top of me while I bury my face in his pecs.
Suffocate me, big boy. Then fuck me into the mattress.
God, why am I always so intense?
I shake my head, returning to the conversation.
“Uh, I don’t mind. He can contact me.”