Chapter 73
Nothing ever fully prepares you to come face to face with a ghost.
I’m vaguely aware that there’s a pain behind my sternum. Any doctor would probably be alarmed, but I know I’m already dead inside so there’s nothing left to break in that particular cavity.
Out of all the people standing around staring at the woman who just shouted, my team leader shoves me. “Go get her.”
As if there’s a disconnect between my brain and my feet, it takes a moment to get all six-foot-six inches of my skeleton moving.
It’s damned hard to walk toward the thing that could put you in the grave. Again. This time maybe for good.
My long strides cover the ground with some momentum once I get on a roll. I need to get this done and figure out how to dig myself out of the dirt for the second time in my life.
Or hell, maybe I’ll just stay there.
“Allison?”
Shit, I sound like I feel. Hollow and wrecked.
The apparition folds her arms over her frame—her too thin frame—watching me warily as she stands in the rain. I’m reminded of a deer, all delicate and nervous with luminous oversized eyes.
She doesn’t just look ethereal, she wears her exhaustion like a veil.
“Who are you?” She asks instead of answering my question. This biting reply comes just about the time I’m turning from stunned to angry myself.
Not angry.
Furious at the world for bringing her to my fucking doorstep looking like the one person that haunts my sleepless nights. The one person I’ll never see again.
“Our team’s been looking for you.”
She tightens her hold on herself. “I know.”
I’m not really sure what the fuck is going on here, but an uneasy feeling works it’s way into my gut right alongside the paralyzing grief that’s been there for too fucking long.
“It’s all a scam.”
Weird remark.
I’m not sure why, but I get close enough to reach out and grab her if she decides to take off. “What’s a scam?”
“All of it. Whatever my father told you.”
I’m not sure why, but her attitude is all over my last nerve for no good reason. Or maybe for every good reason. But there’s a tornado inside my head right now and I can’t see clearly for the debris.
“Oh really? ”
The woman stares at the center of my chest as if there’s something interesting there. Maybe the black, smoking fucking cavern where my heart used to live.
If she stares long enough she’ll probably see a curl of smoke.
The whole ‘not meeting my gaze’ irritates me too. Women look at my eyes and fall in. That takes care of the other mixed-bag of body language my soulless carcass gives off.
“Hey, I’m up here.”
She mutters, “Tall men are such tools.”
I smirk at that stab. I don’t know about all tall men, but I’m well acquainted with my assholeness. I pull it out regularly.
“I know a few remarks about blond women. Shall I share?”
Boring her gaze into my pecs, she sighs dramatically. “Spare me. I’ve probably heard them all and something tells me you’re not very original. The taller they are, the smaller the brain.”
Oh, damn. This woman’s got a razorblade behind those straight white teeth.
“Okay, let’s cut the bullshit. Where have you been?”
Shifting between her feet, she frowns, causing a crease between her delicate brows. “Around.”
“That’s damned cryptic.”
I’m living up to her expectation that I’m a tool.
Grumbling, I jerk my chin toward the party of onlookers that are leaving this shit up to my ass like I’m the greeting committee and interrogation team all rolled into one.
“Come with me. ”
She takes a step back, glancing around nervously. “No, I should go.”
This is when I do reach out and snag her.
My arms are way fucking long and she probably thought she was out of range, but I grip her wrist in a lose ring formed by my long fingers.
No need to use force. She’s easily a hundred-fifty pounds lighter than me and she’s got nowhere to go. I’d chase her down in four seconds flat.
Or maybe I’d just chase her away so I wouldn’t have to ever look at her again. But I’m more honorable than that.
“Hold on a hot minute. We’ve got questions.”
A look of alarm transforms her face, blanching her pale color even more and I realize she’s looking up at a 6’6” stranger with a scowl that’s been known to scare grown men so bad they piss their pants.
A lot of people.
And some begging for their life too.
For a fraction of a second I feel human like I never do during interrogations of tangos, and I feel sorry for her.
“Look, I’m not going to hurt you.”
She tugs her hand free—I let it go with my hand stinging weirdly from the contact.
Okay. Allison Westerly is not an apparition. This is not a bad dream, but it is a nightmare. She’s warm, and delicate, and fucking with my head seriously hard.
She looks even angrier now as she wraps her arms around herself again, pinching her black raincoat to her middle. “You and your people need to stop looking for me.”
Taking my time to look her over, I take in all of Allison Westerly, the woman our team refers to by the initials MZ. The target we’ve been hunting for weeks. She’s a walking, talking page right out of my past that makes me realize just how fucked up I am.
I really am dead on the inside and I hate her for reminding me.
When I looked at the photos in her file, I tried to ignore that she was very, very similar to Hope’s likeness.
This isn’t similar. It’s…unthinkable.
A shudder rolls through me, leaving behind a longing so destructive, things inside of me creak and break like rotten timber that can’t hold the weight of my existence any longer.
But I’m not so fucked that I don’t see that she’s suffering. Scared too. Alone. Caught up in something if our intel is right.
Not that we have much. The woman isn’t just the ghost from my past. She’s an enigma, so elusive a whole damn team of SEALs haven’t been able to locate her. Until she locates us.
“Are you alone?”
There’s not another person in sight that isn’t part of our team or associated with the dangerous cave diving rescue we were about to attempt to find her.
More elusive silence follows.
I press, “Do you have a guard?”
She blinks at me, her soft green eyes widening a fraction, before she flicks her gaze away. “I um…I did. Not now.”
“You’re not going anywhere then.”
A swirl of panic flares behind her eyes. Her voice rises an octave and the image of that frightened deer returns to my brain.
“No, you don’t understand.”
“Ma’am, I don’t think you understand. We’ve been hired to make sure you’re safe and right now I’m looking at a woman that’s ten pounds thinner, a whole lot paler than her photo, and skittish as fuck. She’s also alone in a country with dangerous rebels. So you can forget about us stopping this mission until we know what’s going on.”
This time she meets my gaze and there’s something blazing there. Anger?
Biting words come out of her pretty mouth. “You need to leave me alone. You could die. All of you could die because of talking to me.”
Like that’s going to happen. “You’re not walking away until you give us answers.”
Closing her eyes, she mumbles something under her breath that ends in a snarl of her broad, pink upper lip that makes cold sweat bead between my shoulder blades.
“What was that, ma’am?”
“I shouldn’t have come.”
Too late for that. She’s caught now.
“Why did you?”
She exhales, and shakes her head causing her damp hair to cling to her cheek. “I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to innocent men who dive in that lethally dangerous cave because of some bullshit story my father sold you on.”
I know I’m staring, but there’s nothing I can do. And when tears build on her lashes, I curse silently. Don’t cry. Don’t fucking cry.
I might not trust myself to keep my act wired together when a woman that looks like my former fiancée is crushing my careful facade, but she will be safe with our team.
That’s guaranteed.
“You can trust us.”
The first tear falls. Then I do.
“I don’t have anyone that I can trust.”
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That’s all for Aria and Scout’s Story! Thank you so much for reading.