Chapter 5
MAVERICK
What the actual hell had just happened?
I stared down at Payton’s prone form.
My night vision had adjusted while we crept through the fort in search of her, and I’d seen every step that drove her into the wooden beam stretched across the ceiling.
The fact she’d knocked herself out bothered me less than the drying blood on her chin. Who had dared put their hands on her?
Tarron and Reed bolted toward me, their steps light and quick as ghosts.
“We’re supposed to be rescuing her, not knocking her unconscious.” The progression of events baffled me. “How did this happen?”
“Can we talk as we run? Kind of got an assload of mercenaries about to figure out we don’t belong here.” Tarron bent and put his fingers to Payton’s throat. “She’s alive. Pulse is rapid but steady. I’ll give her a full assessment when she’s awake.”
“Wake her up.” The sheer brunt of the need that drove me to make the command brought Tarron’s head up.
Even Reed took a step away from me, his eyes going wide. “Uh, you might like her better asleep. She damn near took out my lungs with that solar plexus bullshit.”
“What are you talking about?”
Tarron grinned up at me and stood. “He’s talking about this little hellcat taking me and Reed down while we were trying to rescue her.”
“For fuck’s sake.” I lifted Payton up and over my shoulder. “Didn’t you tell her we were here to rescue her?”
Reed shot a look at Tarron, who shrugged. “Slipped my mind. Guess I’m not used to these rescue missions. Figured she’d realize we were the good guys.”
“How was she supposed to know that?” We all looked the same.
That was the point.
I eyed Reed, who seemed none the worse for his run-in with Payton.
Tarron, on the other hand, was sporting a split lip that was trickling blood down his chin.
Just like Payton. “Who hurt her?” The question came out in a guttural growl.
Tarron loped ahead of me, talking as he checked around corners. “No idea. She was bleeding when we went in.”
“Probably the motherfucker who walked out when you mentioned shift change.” Reed fisted his hands so hard his knuckles cracked. “Want me to take care of it?”
“If the situation calls for it, but we’re not here to deal with them.”
Even though I wanted nothing more than to punish the man who’d hurt Payton.
Revenge would have to wait, even if we served it up as justice. Payton took priority.
I shifted her weight to rest better on my shoulder.
She let out a tiny breath, more of a whimper than anything, and my insides melted. “Time to go, boys.”
“On it.” Tarron slowed to a stop at the next corner, holding up a closed fist to stop us all in our tracks. “Got one coming, more in the distance.”
Footsteps rang out behind us, angry voices surging. “What happened? Did you see her run this way?”
“Shit,” Reed muttered the curse loud enough for me to give him a glare that he completely ignored. “We can’t take the time to climb up the rope, not with her unconscious.”
I’d already thought of that. I could haul her up, but it would be a slow, painstaking process that we didn’t have time for.
The plan had been to help her climb on her own. Her father had insisted Payton was stronger than she looked and could handle almost any challenge.
Based on how she’d taken out Tarron and Reed, I was inclined to agree with him.
But I couldn’t take the time to wake her up, then demand she climb her way out of this mess.
That’s what we were here to do.
“Out the front. You two set up cover fire. I’ll take Payton straight to our rendezvous point.”
“We got your back.” Reed slapped a hand against my shoulder. “Go on my count.”
The pounding steps closed in behind us. Tarron took up a position on the other side of the wall, facing the intrusion. “Lethal action?”
“If necessary.” I gave him the all clear to act in whatever manner he deemed necessary.
None of us enjoyed killing, but we did what we had to do to survive, especially when faced with men who took pleasure in maiming and killing innocents.
“Find her and bring her back. I don’t care what it takes, as long as she’s alive,” the man who’d threatened her called out the command from close by.
“Time to go.” I slipped up beside Reed.
He nodded. “One guy coming this way. I’ll tag and drop him, then you run.”
I tightened my grip on Payton’s legs and prepared for the rush of adrenaline that narrowed my vision to my one goal: get Payton out of the fort and to safety.
Nothing else mattered.
Reed aimed and fired, the single shot dropping the approaching mercenary flat on his back.
He tapped my shoulder twice, our signal to move.
I burst into motion, leaping over the fallen man and sprinting toward the open door that led to freedom.
Reed’s steps were silent behind me, but I felt his and Tarron’s presence as easily as my own skin.
They were my friends, my comrades in arms.
They had my back when no one else did, and I literally trusted them with my life as I burst out into the world gone white with snow, and tore a path toward the trees.
Make it to the snowmobiles.
My breath caught in the balaclava, preventing warm air from clouding up in front of my face.
The tramped-down snow made running easy at first. Until I hit the edge of the woods where it deepened.
Up the hill, over the top, and down the other side. I worked each leg forward at a furious pace that made every muscle burn. I relished the sting of pain.
It meant I was alive.
Adrenaline carried me only so far.
Sheer stubborn will did the rest.
Payton made another low sound in the back of her throat. “Dad?”
“It’s okay, we’re taking you to him.” I couldn’t risk saying more than that. I needed all my energy for running.
Reed and Tarron appeared on either side of me, one looking ahead while the other kept a constant vigil on our backs. “They’re coming fast. You have about a minute before they’re in firing range.”
“Almost there.” Tarron’s encouragement helped put an extra burst of speed into my steps.
We plunged over the hill, and I let gravity do the rest, sitting down and sliding toward the snowmobiles we’d left in the shadows.
Gunfire erupted behind us as I reached the first snowmobile and climbed on, setting Payton in front of me.
“Go. Go. Go.” Reed threw himself onto the second machine.
A whoosh sounded, and all three of us jerked toward the sound of a mortar launching.
The snowmobile furthest away from us burst into flames, the impact launching it into the air.
“They’re loading a second.” Tarron jumped on behind Reed and grabbed hold of his jacket. “Get us out of here.”
I revved the engine and we shot into the trees. Another resounding boom rattled the ground beneath us, but we’d already driven out of range.
“He said he wanted her alive.” What little of Reed’s face I could see had gone pale.
“Yeah, well.” I locked one arm around Payton’s waist to keep her from sliding off the machine.
Her body slumped forward so her cheek rested on my other arm.
She’d have one hell of a crick in her neck if I didn’t move her soon, but living was more important than a few sore muscles.
Icy air raced over my skin as we ducked around trees and wove our way deeper into the wilderness.
The way down to civilization rested on the other side.
The sooner we reached people, the quicker this would be over, and Payton would be home safe and sound with her father.
I wanted that for her, the peace and comfort of a home where she was loved and cared for—cherished.
A low-hanging tree limb thick with snow scraped over the top of my head, releasing a shuddering thud of snowfall behind me.
“We can’t stay on the snowmobiles much longer.
The tracks are too easy to follow.” Reed jerked his chin toward a thick copse of trees.
“I say we ditch them and hike out on foot. We should be far enough away to have a decent head start. If we keep going and they get back in range with that rocket launcher, we’re dead meat. ”
“Agreed.” I angled toward the trees and slowed enough to pass beneath the branches without getting swept off the machine or running into the tree trunk.
Reed stopped and killed the engine.
The sudden silence roared in my ears. “They’ll know which direction we traveled. Sound is a bitch out here.”
Tarron climbed out from behind Reed and slung his weapon around to his back.
He’d ridden with it in one hand, his gaze scouring the land for danger.
Reed checked his phone, then looked at the sky.
The look of concentration dented the space between his eyebrows. “If our coordinates are right, and I know they are because I calculated them, there’s a safe place we can hide close by.”
“How close?” I lifted Payton into my arms.
Reed grinned, and it told me more than the words falling from his laughing lips. “Eight miles.”
“Fuck.” Tarron shook his head. “We can take turns carrying her.”
“No.” A sudden, possessive protectiveness rammed into my chest and tightened my arms around her. “I’ll take her.”
“Let us know if you change your mind.” Reed lifted his wrist and turned so the compass on his watch swiveled. “This way.” He ducked beneath the branches and set off at a brisk pace.
Tarron raised one eyebrow at me, then glanced at Payton. “Let me know if she wakes up. I don’t like that she’s been out this long. Might mean brain damage.”
“She’s fine.” I willed the words to be true.
I’d wanted Tarron to wake her up in the fort, but now I was grateful she slept through the exhaustive task of trekking through the snow with monsters on our tails.
“What’s this place you know about?” I jogged close enough to Reed to ask without our voices carrying.
He stared ahead, his steps long and fluid. “Old ranger station I used to visit with my old man. We hunted and fished out here several times.”
I grunted. “Didn’t know that.”
“Not like I know your life story either.” He slowed and peered behind us. “The snow is deeper this way. We’ll be leaving tracks. Tarron, can you circle around and clean those up a bit?”
The snowmobiles wouldn’t have made it up the steep path Reed took.
He did his best to guide us across long stretches of rock when possible, but the thick snow stuck to everything, making every step harder.
“The ranger station is abandoned, that’s why Dad liked it so much. Loads of wildlife to hunt and no one to tell us no.” Reed chuckled, but the sound had a darkness to it that I understood even if I had no knowledge of that part of his life.
We all had our dark parts, the pieces we didn’t share.
I respected his right to privacy the same way he’d always respected mine.
“No sign of pursuit.” Tarron stopped behind us, binoculars pinned to his eyes. “Any chance they know about this place? They knew about the fort?”
“Nah.” Reed blew off the question with some of his usual casualness. “This place is off the beaten path.” He scrambled onto a low ledge and held out a hand to help me up. “You’ll love it.”
We were in the middle of the wilderness, the only other people around wanted to kill us, and Reed was treating this whole thing like the adventure of a lifetime.
I grasped his wrist and let him pull the bulk of mine and Payton’s weight onto the rocks.
We were high above our starting point, and the glory of Alaska stretched in every direction.
It was a landscape of untouched beauty marred only by the reason we were here.