Chapter 8
It was mid-morning when he finally called a halt.
Ethan expected Velda to complain before now, but she had stoically followed him, getting quieter and quieter.
They’d managed a few hours of sleep the night before, on the bank of the river, and had then continued on as dawn broke.
“Rest time.”
She didn’t respond, just took off her pack and sat down where she was standing. Then lay back on the ground.
“You should have told me to stop sooner.” He looked down at her, worried now.
She blinked up at him. “I’m fine.” She sat up, took off her boots and socks, rolled up her trousers, and then scooted on her behind to the edge of the river, which they had finally met up with again.
It was why he had decided to stop here. The water was clear and shallow.
Velda slid into the river bed, and closed her eyes.
“Cold?” he asked.
“Freezing, but my feet are thanking me for it.”
He looked at her boots, and realized they were fancy city boots. The heel was low, and they looked well-made, but hiking material they were not.
He guessed if she had anything more suitable in her personal pack, she would have put them on.
When he looked back up at her, he saw she was watching him.
“If I needed you to slow down, or if my boots were hurting me, I’d have said.” She heaved herself back onto the bank and wiggled her toes. “I’m your boss, remember?”
“I remember.” He grinned, crouching beside her, and picked up one of her feet. He studied it, just in case.
She was right, her feet were fine. He began to knead the one he was holding and she groaned and lay back down again.
“Keep going,” she demanded. “And that’s an order.”
He chuckled, massaged the other one, and then reached for his pack to get the pot for some water.
She sat up again, cross-legged, and sorted through the meals. “You ever been this deep into the range?” she asked.
“No.” The mountains were all around them, now. So far, they had managed to find a way through that was fairly easy going, dipping down to the river a few times, but mainly sticking to the ridge just above it.
At some point they’d leave the river behind them, as it rose to its source, but hopefully they’d pick up a new stream running in the opposite direction eventually.
“We’ve gotten further than I thought we would have in the time.” She handed him a meal and leaned back on her hands to look around. “It’s beautiful.”
He glanced around, but it was her who caught his attention.
She was slightly disheveled, not sporting the smart, sophisticated look he was used to, but she was just as breathtaking.
He had it bad, he admitted. And he wasn’t sorry about that at all.
His silence obviously alerted her, and she was suddenly studying him, her gaze steady.
“None of that,” he said. “We’re on a tight schedule.”
“You started it,” she pointed out, and he couldn’t disagree.
He reached over, got one arm under her knees, the other around her back, and lifted her onto his lap.
“Now what, Commander?” she asked, and he was close enough to see her eyes darken.
He reached down and began to unbutton her shirt, and she squirmed a little in his lap, as if just the thought of what he was going to do was affecting her.
“This is going to go faster if you keep doing that,” he warned.
“Good.” She gasped as he got her shirt off.
And going faster turned out to be more than just good, he had to admit.
He’d left them vulnerable, though, because when, at last, she was snuggled up beside him, naked and sleepy, he couldn’t remember any sound, any movement, except the sound of her breathing, how it caught as he touched her with his lips and hands, and the way she moved against him, around him.
“Fuck, that was reckless.” He rose up on an elbow.
She sniggered against his shoulder.
“Seriously, Velda. We’re being hunted. This wasn’t a good idea.”
“We’ll do better next time,” she reassured him, patting his chest.
He snorted out a laugh. “That’s the spirit.”
She stood up, looking at him over a naked shoulder, and then up at the sky, at how much the sun had moved. “I suppose you’re going to force march me a little more?”
“Sorry. But yes.”
She sighed and climbed down into the river, gave a little shriek, he assumed at the temperature, and then submerged herself.
He had to go into the water after she got out, just to stop himself going down the road of failed good intentions any further than he already had.
“So stoic. So noble,” she said, and patted his arm as he grumpily packed up.
He didn’t let her see, but he grinned at her comment.
He had fallen for her well over a year ago, but he’d kept his distance. He had never known until now how funny she was, how sharp and witty.
He set a slightly easier pace, and then chuckled when she muttered something about how she would have slept with him sooner if she knew he’d let up a little for sexual favors.
It was late afternoon, and they were sitting sipping water from their bottles, both looking up to check if the flash of debris had abated, when a blinding blast of light flared far to the south.
They both shot to their feet, looking toward Demeter.
“That was a laser strike on the city.” Velda’s voice was raspy.
A second strike lit the sky, and she grabbed his arm. “Ethan.”
“There’s nothing we can do.” He could hardly stand it. He was Commander of Demeter Special Forces, and his city was under attack. It was almost unbearable.
Without conferring, they kept going, moving faster than they had before, pushing themselves, until it got almost too dark to see a path.
The river was quite far below them, and Ethan emptied his pack, took all the water bottles, and climbed down to fill them while Velda set up the small burner stove and heated their dinner.
They ate and drank leaning back against a wall of rock, with a small fire right in the middle of the narrow track they’d been walking on.
Ethan kept looking toward the city, and so did Velda, but if there was smoke and fire, they couldn’t see it from their current position.
“Maybe we should have let the rescuers finds us,” Ethan said, for the first time admitting to doubts about his original plan.
“We could never have anticipated a laser strike on the city. Never.” Velda tipped her head back, and Ethan glanced upward as well. The flash and flare of falling debris continued.
It made him sick to the pit of his stomach, because he couldn’t believe how much of it there was. He worried the entire space observatory was gone.
And now, Demeter.
They could do nothing about the rescue team now, anyway. He’d made the call for them to go it alone, and that was that. Too late for regrets there.
They needed to concentrate on getting through the mountains and making for the city.
He settled back against the rock wall, legs stretched out in front of him, Velda pressed up against his side, and closed his eyes for a moment, just absorbing the hushed peace of their surroundings.
“Do you hear that?” Velda asked.
He opened his eyes, found her leaning forward, head turned to the right. She was frowning.
Ethan concentrated. Then he heard it, too. The throb of an engine.
“Could it be the rescue team?” Velda wondered.
“Could they have gotten ahead of us?” Ethan asked. “I don’t see how, but that’s definitely an engine.”
He stood, and Velda got onto her haunches to pack the bags.
“You want to investigate?” he asked.
She nodded.
He wouldn’t have left her, but he was glad she was up for walking further in the dark.
He would not be able to sleep knowing there was someone out there. Perhaps with a faster way to get back to Demeter.
He doused their camp fire and swung his pack onto his shoulder, interested to note that the engine didn’t seem to be moving closer or getting further away. Whatever it was, it was staying in one place.
Who the hell was out here in the mountains, running equipment or a hover, he wondered?
They were about to find out.