Chapter 5 #2
Rogue scraped the eggs onto a plate. “Since there’s no bread, but I found crackers and a jar of jelly.
Close enough.” He handed her the plate and tipped his head toward the table he’d set with cutlery, crackers and the jar of jelly.
“Have a seat and eat while it’s hot. It won’t take me too long to make mine. ”
She scooted past him, careful not to bump into him. “Do you cook often?” she asked to talk about anything and learn more about this man.
“I grew up in a military family. My mother and father met when they were both on active duty. After she had my sister and me, it got too hard to get joint assignments. She left active duty and went to college to get a degree in teaching. My father insisted we each do our part as members of the family. We learned to cook as soon as we were tall enough to stand in front of the stove. When Dad wasn’t deployed, he took over KP duty to give my mother a break.
We did our own laundry, made our own beds and even had crisp corners like my parents learned in basic training.
” He smiled. “So, the answer is, I cook when I want to eat.”
Her heart pinched hard in her chest. “And your family? Where are they now?”
Rogue grinned. “Mom and Dad bought a house on the Greek island of Patmos. They live there ten months out of the year and come back to the States to see us, spending most of their time at my sister’s in Florida.
I followed in my father’s footsteps and joined the Army.
My sister got her doctorate and is a professor at the University of Florida.
Her husband is a tenured professor there.
They have two beautiful little girls, my parents love to spoil. ”
“Sounds like the perfect family,” Keira said, glad for Rogue and sad she was the only one left of her small family. She hadn’t even been able to protect her little sister from the horrors of human trafficking.
Rogue scraped eggs onto a second plate and carried it to the table, where he took the seat across from her. “What about you?”
Keira stiffened. “What about me?”
“Tell me about your family.”
Her appetite died a sudden death. “Dead,” she answered and pushed the plate of reconstituted eggs away.
Rogue reached across the table and laid his hand over hers. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “Not all stories have a happy ending.”
“No, they don’t.”
When she tried to pull her hand away from his, he tightened his hold. Not brutally, but enough that she knew he wasn’t going to abandon her.
“What happened to them—if it’s not too painful to talk about them? I’d like to know.” His fingers tightened around hers. “Keira, look at me.”
It took all her control to raise her head and meet his gaze without flinching or looking away. “Why do you want to know about them?”
He smiled gently. “Not out of morbid curiosity but because I want to know more about you.”
She held his gaze for a moment or two longer before looking down at his hand on hers. “You don’t want to know about me.”
“Yes,” Rogue said, “I do.”
She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“My parents were like most parents. They loved their children and made a good life for us. My mother used to sing to my sister and me when we were sad or didn’t feel well.
She made cakes for our birthdays and sewed dresses for us to wear to church.
My father taught us how to throw a baseball, grow a garden and how to fish. ” She shrugged. “Then they died.”
“What was your sister’s name?” Rogue asked.
Pain stabbed through Keira’s heart, and tears welled in her eyes. “Why do you need to know this?”
“I don’t. But she obviously meant a lot to you. I’d like to know her name.”
Keira swallowed hard on the knot forming in her throat. For a long moment, she couldn’t speak, couldn’t push air past her constricted vocal cords.
His gaze veered away. “It’s okay. We can talk about something else.”
“Kit.” She glanced up. “Her name was Kit. She was the sweetest, kindest little girl who’d never hurt a fly. I thought I could save her from a bad foster home. Instead, I led her into the streets, where we went from bad to worse.”
“You must have loved her very much.”
Keira’s lips tightened. “Sometimes love isn’t enough.” She pushed to her feet and carried her uneaten eggs to the garbage pail and scraped them from the plate. “Thanks for cooking. I don’t know why I keep powdered eggs. They’re never as good as fresh.”
“I’ve had some pretty tasteless meals in the Army. Still, food fuels the body. So, I eat.”
Keira shook her head, though she silently agreed. “What made you join the Army?”
“Besides the fabulous food?” He chuckled, and then he lifted his chin. “I wanted to be a part of something bigger than just me.”
“You wanted to belong.” She sighed. “We’re not that different.”
“The biggest difference is that I joined the Army because it’s what I wanted.
You were manipulated into joining Onyx.” Rogue brought his empty plate to the sink, rinsed it and set it to dry in a rack.
His cell phone chirped with an incoming text.
He glanced down and nodded. “Royce says the package should be here.”
Keira frowned. She didn’t like the idea of a delivery van appearing at her cabin. The less anyone knew about its existence, the better. “Any idea how it will be delivered?”
“No.” He left the kitchen and hurried into the living room.
Keira ducked back into her bedroom for her handgun and came back out to find Rogue at the front door, struggling with the locks. She tucked the gun into her waistband and brushed Rogue’s hands aside to flip the levers. Before she pulled open the door, she brought out her gun.
“Ready?” she asked.
He nodded.
Keira stood to the side of the doorframe and pushed the door open, her pistol pointed outside.
From where she stood, she could see the rutted path that served as a driveway.
It was empty. Nothing moved in the shadows beneath the trees surrounding the cabin.
A persistent hum sounded overhead.
Keira glanced up to see a drone hovering over the camouflage netting. It moved toward the rutted path leading up to the cabin. Once again, Keira glanced around at the shadows cast by the trees and the netting.
“I’ll get it,” Rogue said. “Cover me.”
Keira aimed her pistol at the shadows and the path.
Rogue hurried out of the cabin, down the steps and followed the drone.
Once the drone cleared the netting, a cable descended between the trees with a sealed container attached to a hook. When the container touched the ground, the hook released, the cable retracted into the drone and the device disappeared over the treetops.
Container in hand, Rogue brought it up the steps and into the house.
Keira closed and locked the door and then turned to find Rogue pulling items out of the box.
“Royce sent a satellite phone.” He held up the device briefly and went back to the box for other items. One by one, he held up an encrypted laptop, two handguns, several magazines full of bullets, medical supplies, cash and a handwritten note from Royce.
Keira leaned over Rogue’s shoulder and read the note.
Situation is worse than we thought. Strickland has activated a manhunt for you, claiming you've gone rogue and kidnapped a witness.
There's a kill-on-sight order. The current administration officially disavows SOS, but Senator Hartley and two other members of Congress are working with me.
We're building a case, but we need hard evidence and witness testimony.
Protect the witness. Get her story on record. I'll handle the rest. Stay safe. —R
Keira snorted. “He called me a witness. That’s new.”
Rogue spread the items out on the coffee table. “Royce thinks of you as a person, not a mission. He sent me out to find you with the intention of rescuing you if we were being fed lies and you weren’t actually the senator’s murderer. Like I said before, Royce is one of the good guys.”
“Are there any real good guys?” Keira asked.
“A few,” Rogue said. “We’re going to find the ones who aren’t.”
Keira’s laptop pinged with an incoming message. She hurried over to it, tapped the keyboard and read.
Jade: Training exercise, my first year. You helped me when I failed the sleep deprivation test. You told me Viktor was wrong—that I wasn't weak. You said, “Strength isn't about not breaking. It's about what you do after.” You never told Viktor I collapsed.
Keira’s eyes misted. “It really is Jade.” She turned the laptop toward Rogue. “I remember that day. She was a new recruit. I’d been there for a couple of years. I knew she wouldn’t last if she didn’t toughen up. She wanted what we all wanted. To prove herself. To belong.”
As she stared down at the message through blurry eyes, the computer pinged with another incoming message. Jade was there. Online. Now.
Jade: I want out. Like you. But they have leverage. They always have leverage. Can you help me? Please.
Keira’s pulse quickened. “How can I help her when I’m struggling to stay alive?”
“I’m here to help you stay alive,” Rogue reminded her.
“And you’re risking your life to do that.” She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Still, I have to help anyway I can.”
Keira: I’ll try my best to help. We need to meet. Face to face. Your terms, your location.
Jade: There's an abandoned barn on an old ranch on Willow Creek Rd west of Bandera. I'll be there at sunset tomorrow. Come alone. If I see anyone else, you won’t see me. I’ll disappear.”
Keira: I’ll be there. Stay safe.
No more messages came across.
“You’re not going alone,” Rogue said softly.
“She won’t show up if she sees anyone with me.”
“Then she won’t see me. I’ll move in from another direction before you set foot on the ranch.”
Keira shook her head. “I don’t know.”
He took her hand. “You can’t go alone, Keira. It might be Jade, all right. But it also might be a trap.”
“I don’t think she’d hurt me,” Keira said.
“They might be forcing her to set up this meeting.”
Keira knew he was right. They’d manipulated the girls of Onyx for so long that it was easily something they would do to get to the one who’d dared to escape. She stared at his hand on hers and then met his gaze. “Okay. Tomorrow. Sunset.”