Was he enhanced? Many of the soldiers were. Jodi had received a few of the basics before she became my bodyguard. Yesterday’s bruising on his face had faded while his body had lost the stiffness I’d noticed last night.
“I need to leave,” he said gruffly, running fingers through his hair in a way that suggested this was not to his liking.
The movement sent muscles rippling across his chest, which my eyes tracked subconsciously for several seconds until I realized what I was doing and snapped them away. Thankfully, he was distracted by something bleeping on his watch.
“You need to stay inside. I’ll get back as soon as I can.” His lips formed a line as he dragged his attention from the watch.
Our eyes met.
I swallowed.
Was he expecting me to bolt as soon as his back was turned? “I won’t try to leave,” I stated quickly, wondering if he would lock me in a room or, worse, tie me up if I didn’t acknowledge his order.
It had been dark last night when we arrived, but I’d seen enough to know the building was a fortress. I had no desire to draw the attention of the security personnel patrolling the grounds.
“I’ll need to lock you in,” he said, eyes never wavering from mine. I thought he was talking about the room for a wild moment, but he gestured toward the front door. “It’s security coded. If anyone but me tries to enter or leave, I’ll receive a notification.”
Lowering my eyes, I nodded. Blaine seemed impossibly larger in the light of day. It had been years since I’d been alone with a man other than the few who had joined Sanctuary. Jodi had always been there, fierce in her protectiveness. She had punched a guy once who paid me too much attention, and the next reconnaissance mission, he’d never come back.
I didn’t ask her what had happened. Whether she had killed him or sent him on his way.
She had killed men for me before—when she needed to.
Today, I had no Jodi to protect me, yet the man standing before me still didn’t feel like a threat.
I thought he should have. But some kind of weird cross-wiring was going on in my brain, and all I could think about was the way his T-shirt stretched over muscles.
I’d been with men. A long time ago now. But I did remember what they felt like over me, under me… inside me.
My memory whispered that those men weren’t built like this. Either I had a poor memory, or Blaine was exceptional.
“There’s plenty of food and stuff,” he said, breaking the stretched silence. Then he turned and headed toward the door, snatching up his duster from where he’d left it crumpled over the couch the night before.
The door shut with a soft click.
In his absence, I let out a shaky breath. The tension had been palpable. He was gone, and in a way that suggested he would not be back for a while.
Time was a blessing that could be used to come to terms with what had transpired and accept that my life was presently out of my control.
I walked over to the lounge area and that vast expansive window where I stared with unseeing eyes into the distance.
Soon, I realized that time was, if anything, a curse allowing me to wallow in despair.
I sat on the couch and watched the clouds roll by.
I cried.
I wondered about my friends and about my future, and strangely although I hadn’t done so for a very long time, I thought about my mother. And thought too, about that fateful day when the monster told me that she was dead. I’d gone to Jodi afterward and spoke the words that my bodyguard—and dearest friend—had been longing to hear.
“Get me out of here, Jodi. As far away as we can go.”
The monster hadn’t been expecting me to act so quickly, had expected me to be broken and weak so that he might mold me to his whims. But we’d fled that same night. It was the best decision I’d ever made.
Blaine
“I hear you’ve finally embraced the path of corruption and claimed ownership?”
The question distracted me just as the apartment door burst open and all hell broke loose. I copped a punch to the face, the blow catching my cheekbone and sending me flying backward. I hit the corridor wall with a thud that further rattled my teeth. My glare promised a world of hurt on Mitch before I launched myself back into the fray.
“Great timing, asshole,” I muttered. Getting a lock on a thug’s neck, I beat his head into the wall.
The fucker was high. We wrestled. I kneed him in the face and smacked his head into the wall twice more before he dropped out cold. Weapons fire dissected shrill screams and rough cursing.
Fuck me, how many people were in the apartment?
Another group surged from a back room, bullets tearing into the wall beside me, sending a spray of concrete chips.
We ducked, returned fire. They retreated; we followed in.
More screams.
A chair came flying through a doorway. Mitch ducked the worst of it but caught a leg. A thug followed through, tackling Mitch to the floor where they grappled amid thrashing legs and flying fists.
More weapons fire and screams followed before quiet descended, broken only by the muffled grunts and thrashing as Mitch fought with his new buddy.
“Get the fucker off me!”
Smirking at his overreaction, I waved the nearest soldier over, and he peeled the raging drug dealer off.
“Don’t—” I was about to suggest we save one for questioning, but Mitch had already staggered to his feet and put a bullet through his head. “Kill him,” I finished anyway.
Blood splattered the wall behind. Mitch grunted in disgust as he dropped the man to the floor. “You took your fucking time.”
“Clear!” The call came from deeper inside the warren of rooms.
Ignoring Mitch, I stepped over the body and into the back room.
“Didn’t realize you were going to be so sensitive about it,” Mitch said, following behind me.
I glanced back, then chuckled.
“What?” Mitch demanded, eyes narrowing.
“You look a mess,” I said. His teeth were coated in blood, and more trickled down his chin.
“I bit my tongue,” he said, grimacing. “Stings like a bastard. Glad all my shots are up to date. I don’t even want to think about what disease these lowlifes are carrying.”
Dirty, tattered rags hung at the window that let grainy light spill over a chaotic mismatch of furniture and an assembly of low-grade drug processing paraphernalia. The low-rise complex was abandoned, but we’d heard a gang had set up here. As part of Taylor’s post-takeover cleansing, he liked any known drug players dealt with.
I gave the signal to wrap it up. Feet shuffled and stomped as everyone but Mitch and I cleared out.
Mitch tapped his ear communicator. “Anything else to report in the sweep?” The negative confirmation came back. “Ok, we’ve got the processing area here. Clear the building ASAP.”
Rummaging in his backpack, Mitch pulled out a small explosive pack. I raised a brow as he placed it in the middle of the nearest table. I was pretty sure a grenade would do the job. “So, who’s the woman then? Carter said she came from the civilian enclave we took out?” He hefted the backpack over his shoulder and headed out the door.
“Carter has a big mouth,” I replied, following Mitch down the stairs and through the ground floor complex before shoving out the big double entry doors and into the courtyard where the team had assembled. A quick count confirmed everyone was present, and Mitch hit the remote detonator.