Chapter 6 #2
Lycos stood. “Then you’ll rot in a cage for twenty years.” He paused, voice dropping to the low, lethal softness of certainty. “Or you can come with me. Put your rage to work. Be trained. Be sharp. Be aimed. Be a weapon for good.”
Levi didn’t look away. “You want a weapon.”
“I want a Guardian,” Lycos said. “The kind who runs toward fire instead of away from it.”
A long moment passed between them. Then Levi curled his cuffed hands into fists. “When?”
Lycos smiled. A sharp, rare, wolfish kind of sneer that showed Levi the depth of the man’s intent. “Now or never. This is your only shot. I walk out that door without you, and you’re just a number on a booking sheet. With me, you’ll be a free man and a Guardian.”
Levi glanced at the two-way glass to the door to his handcuffs. “I’m in.”
Levi woke from his dream to the certainty that someone was about to kill him.
His hand went for the knife strapped to his ankle before his eyes even opened, muscle memory overriding the fog of fever and exhaustion.
Pain lanced through his ribs, sharp enough to make his breath catch, but he had the blade out and ready in under two seconds.
“Easy, sunshine.” Willow's voice cut through the adrenaline haze. “Just me.”
He blinked, vision clearing slowly. Dawn light filtered through gaps in the hangar roof, pale and gray, turning everything into washed-out shadows.
Willow crouched a few feet away, hands visible, empty.
She'd changed clothes or had at least tried to clean up.
Her hair was pulled back, face scrubbed clean of yesterday's grime, though exhaustion still painted dark circles under her eyes.
The guards were gone. He registered that second, his tactical awareness cataloging details even as his body screamed at him to lie back down. No vehicles outside. No voices. Just the distant screech of birds and the drip of water from last night's rain. He leveled his stare at her.
“They left an hour ago,” Willow said, reading his thoughts. “Shift change. We've got maybe three hours before the next patrol arrives. But those two could’ve been wanderers who thought they could bully me.”
Levi lowered the knife, breathing through the pain radiating from his ribs. Everything hurt. His leg in a dull throb, his head pounding in time with his heartbeat, his chest feeling like someone had used it for target practice. Which, technically, someone had.
“You look like hell,” Willow added helpfully.
“Feel worse.” He sheathed the knife and tried to sit up properly. The world tilted, righted itself, tilted again. Fever. Definitely fever. He could feel it burning under his skin, turning his thoughts sluggish and slowing his reflexes.
Willow moved closer, pressing the back of her hand to his forehead. Her touch was cool, clinical, and fleeting. “You're running hot. Need antibiotics.”
“Don't suppose you've got a pharmacy in that plane of yours?”
“Actually, I have medical equipment. I checked through the boxes, but there are no antibiotics.” She rocked back on her heels, studying him with an intensity that made him wonder what she saw. “But I know where we can get some.”
“Let me guess. Cartel facility?”
“Medical supply depot. Morales runs it for the local villages. It’s his public relations program, proof he's not a complete monster. But it's also where he stores the good stuff. Antibiotics, painkillers, surgical supplies.”
Levi managed a grin, though it felt more like a grimace. “You want to rob a cartel medical depot while I'm half-dead from fever. Brilliant plan.”
“You got a better one?”
He didn't. And they both knew it.
“How far?” he asked.
“Five miles. Through the jungle. There's an old logging road, but it's probably being watched.”
“So, we go through the jungle.” He braced himself against the wall and stood—or tried to. His leg buckled, pain exploding white-hot through his thigh. Willow caught him before he hit the ground, her grip surprisingly strong.
“You can barely walk,” she said flatly.
“I can walk fine.” He proved it by taking two steps before his vision grayed at the edges. “See? Walking.”
“You're an idiot.”
“Been told that before, too.” He leaned against her more than he wanted to admit, hating the weakness and fever that were turning his body into a traitor.
But he'd been through worse. Probably. Definitely.
That time in Jakarta had been worse. Or was it Manila?
The memories blurred together, a catalog of near-death experiences that somehow hadn't killed him yet.
“We need to check the plane first,” Willow said, steering him toward the Cessna. “See what we're working with.”
She half-carried him across the hangar, their boots splashing through puddles left by the storm.
In daylight, the damage to her plane was worse than he'd thought.
Bullet holes stitched a line across the fuselage, the shattered mirror hung by a frayed cable, and when she popped the engine cowling, he could see where a round had grazed the fuel line.
“That's not good,” he observed.
“Very astute.” She was already pulling tools from a storage compartment, laying them out with the precision of someone who knew exactly what she was doing.
“Fuel line's compromised. I can patch it, but it won't hold forever. And the engine took some shrapnel. Nothing catastrophic, but combined with the other issues …”
“It's a flying coffin.”
“Essentially.” She grabbed a wrench, started loosening bolts with practiced efficiency. “Which is why we need that Beaver.”
Levi turned to look at the tarp-covered plane in the corner. In the morning light, he could see more details. First, the curve of the fuselage, the single propeller thick with rust, and pontoons that had probably been beautiful once but were now just corroded metal and rotting fabric.
“You really think we can fix it?” he asked.
“I know I can fix it. The question is whether you can help or if you're going to pass out before we get started.”
He wanted to argue, but another wave of dizziness hit him, strong enough that he had to grip the Cessna's wing for support. The metal was hot under his palm, already warming in the early sun. Sweat ran down his back, soaking into his shirt, and his mouth tasted like copper and dog shit.
“Right,” he said. “Medical depot first. Try not to die second. Fix plane third.”
“Finally, a plan that makes sense.” She finished whatever she was doing with the fuel line and straightened. “Can you shoot?”
“Can I—” He laughed, which was a mistake. His ribs screamed, and he had to breathe through the pain. “Yeah, love. I can shoot.”
“Good.” She pulled a Glock from under the pilot's seat. Not the one she'd reached for yesterday, a different one, and handed it to him. “Because I'm not doing this alone.”
“You're tired of that. Being alone.”
She shot him a fierce glance. “And you like to be in control.”
“Right you are.” The weapon was a familiar weight in his hand. He checked the magazine automatically. Fifteen rounds, hollow points, he chambered a round and engaged the safety. Muscle memory. Years of training compressed into seconds.
Willow watched him with those sharp brown eyes, cataloging every movement. “Freelance engineer, my ass,” she said, voice dry.
“Very specialized engineering. And you have a very nice ass.” He stopped and shook his head. “Sorry, blood loss is turning me into an asshole. That wasn’t a nice thing to say.” He tucked the Glock into his waistband, then covered it with his shirt.
She shrugged. “Yeah, that was a misogynistic comment, but you’re right, I do have a nice ass.” She grabbed her own weapon, a compact 9 mm, and extra magazines. “We move fast, stay quiet, get what we need, and get out. No heroics. No unnecessary risks. Understand?”
Levi frowned. “You're no fun.”
“I'm alive. That's more fun than the alternative.”
“You do have a point, love. You do have a point.”
They left the hangar together, moving into the wet heat of the Venezuelan jungle.
The sun was climbing now, turning everything into a steam bath.
Within minutes, Levi's shirt was soaked through, fever-sweat mixing with humidity until he couldn't tell which was which.
His leg throbbed with each step, the bandage already feeling too tight, too wet.
But he kept moving.
The jungle pressed in close. The vines and undergrowth, along with the canopy trees, were so thick that they blocked out the sky.
Everything was layered with the sweet rot of decomposition.
Birds screamed overhead, and something moved in the canopy.
He glanced upwards. Monkeys, probably, though his fever-addled brain suggested less pleasant options.
Willow moved like she'd done this before.
He observed her more than the surroundings.
She moved with proficiency. Smooth, efficient, checking corners and sight lines with the automatic awareness of someone with combat training.
She didn't make unnecessary noise, didn't waste energy on useless conversation.
Just moved, steady and sure, while he struggled to keep pace.
“You're slowing down,” she said after twenty minutes.
“I'm fine.” He drew a breath and pushed himself to be quicker.
“You're limping.”
“Character-building exercise.” He forced himself to straighten, to move with something approaching his normal stride. Pain was just information. Fever was just data. He'd learned to compartmentalize years ago, to push his body past reasonable limits because reasonable limits got you killed.
But even compartmentalized, the pain was getting hard to ignore.