Bullet to the Heart (34 page)

Her arm had stopped throbbing yesterday. It was completely numb and useless. Had she a bamboo covering over this pit as she’d had with Rand, Bullet wondered if she’d be able to lift herself out of the water one-handed.

Maybe hours ago, but not now.

Her eyes drooped and she fell to a knee but she never lowered her gaze from the sky. It was the darkest part of the day. It was time to sleep.

“
Bayu-bey
, all people should sleep at night,” she whispered, and it did not startle her when shadows twirled in the wind above her, hovered over the edge, and reached for her.

“I will not break!” she screamed, then laughed maniacally when it came out only as a grunt.

She mustered the last of her will, pulled it inside deep, and let it bounce around in her soul. She stood then, both feet frozen. Bullet hadn’t felt them in hours.

“Gretchen,” a beloved voice whispered. One of the shadows maybe?

“I am here,” she replied, joy breaking through her.

“I know you are. Give me your hand,” the shadow whispered.

She tried to focus but the black was hard to see against the backdrop of night. “You will take me now to the blue-blue sky?”

“I will take you
home
. Give me your hand.”

She laughed and couldn’t contain her elation as it rippled over her skin and bubbled from her lips. “Yes. I am ready to go home now. I have done my work, and though there is more to do, I am tired, I think.”

“Give me your hand.”

Confusion replaced her happiness. This shadow sounded familiar, but it did not sound like her mother. Ninka had said her mother came for her in the blue-blue sky. Bullet had hoped . . .

“Give me your hand!” Sharp command, it sliced through her confusion yet she was too far gone now.

Her heart slowed and her tongue thickened. She tried to raise her left arm and the shadow hissed at her. She fell then on her backside in the water. It flowed over her and up her nose. She tried to rise, felt hands reaching and sliding over her skin—so
warm
.

But she couldn’t breathe and thought it better that way.

A hand grabbed her left shoulder and she was the one to hiss, the pain no longer cradling her rather making a sharp appearance with vicious claws. There was no more fight for Bullet. If this was death, perhaps these were the spirits of the ones she’d killed over the years come to usher her into the next life with fear and pain.

“I will not break,” she pushed from a throat gone dry long ago.

“I know, baby, I know. I’ve got you,” a man whispered in her ear.

It was Rand, but he had not died. She had missed him intentionally . . . who was this spirit then? She wanted to struggle, but she was gone now. She sighed as grayness edged her vision and rushed upon her. Regret filtered through her mind, the faces of her sisters and Ninka flashing behind her eyelids, followed by Rand. She’d done what she could, and with one last exhale, Bullet let go.

Rand laid her gently on the ground beside the hole and covered her quickly with a heat blanket. Dmitry moved to her other side as Ken stood over them all.

“She’s not breathing,” Dmitry whispered, urgency threading in his tone.

“Scouts coming, six o’clock,” Adam’s voice was cold over the communication link.

Rand looked up at Ken, his friend’s expression bleak, and Rand refused to accept what was in his eyes. He turned to Dmitry. “Fix this now!” Fear was ash in his mouth.

Dmitry nodded and began chest compressions, stopping to breathe into her mouth and begin compressions all over again. He checked her pulse, the answer to Rand’s query on his face.

“Goddamn it. How close, Adam?” Rand asked.

“Less than three hundred yards. Fall back or we’ll have a war.”

Rand cursed. “Raines? Can you take them out, and how much time will that buy us?”

“I’ve got them.” Raine’s voice was death over the link.

Two men rounded a small corner and headed in their direction. Behind them shadows morphed, and the men went down, never knowing what hit them.

“Another round will be headed our way in less than ten minutes. Get her out of there, Rand,” Adam urged.

Rand looked down at the woman lying so still on the ground before him. Tempered steel that had bent under enormous pressure. “You will not break, Bullet. Goddamn it, you fight to live,” he demanded at her ear.

He watched Dmitry work, mouth tight, eyes desperate. “Nothing.”

Rand leaned over, placed his mouth over hers and breathed into her deeply, giving everything he was to her, commanding her to live. “You will not fucking die on me, damn it. We are not finished with this.”

“Breathe,” Dmitry ordered, and waited for Rand to breathe into her mouth again.

It seemed it went on forever, but logically Rand knew it was a minute at most. Dmitry placed his hand over her neck and hissed, “Pulse. Let’s move.”

Sweeter words Rand had never heard. Her face as she’d looked up at him from that fucking pit—he would never forget it. It was emblazoned on his memory, and he wanted to cut Joseph Bombardier’s still beating heart from his chest.

Her body had almost given up. But she had not broken.

“Head back the way you came. We’ll meet you at the rendezvous point.” Adam had coordinated this extraction. Damn good at what he did, Rand had never been happier to have the man at Trident than he was this night.

“Me and mine will wait ’til you’ve left the two-mile radius. Never know when a little kill action might be necessary,” Raines said mockingly across the links.

“Just get back to the air strip before we take off,” Ken responded.

Rand picked her up in his arms, heart beating hard at her slight weight, and he started running. Once they’d reached the rendezvous point, he waited for the litter they’d brought to be put together.

When it was complete, he laid her on it, wrapped her in more heat blankets, and then he and Ken each picked up an end of the litter. They began the journey to the Jeeps.

“Dmitry, do you have what you need on the plane to get her stable?”

Dmitry glanced at him, face drawn and worried. “I don’t know, Rand. I think her left arm is broken and she’s definitely running a fever. I’ll have to triage when we’re on the plane and in the air.”

Rand nodded. They walked three miles, always anticipating Joseph’s retaliation, but it never came.

“Beckett?” It was Raines.

“Yeah?”

“He knows she’s gone. He stood over that fucking hole for twenty minutes just staring. He’s one crazy motherfucker, because he raised his head to the sky and just laughed like a goddamn loony tune. We are on your six now.”

Chills swept down Rand’s spine. Joseph would never give her up. He may not have anticipated Rand would come for her, probably banking on the fact that Rand would hate her guts for shooting him, but the bottom line was Joseph was always ready for every contingency.

He glanced down at her face so still in the darkness. The son of a bitch had cut the hair from her head. Ragged cuts marred her skull, deep and bleeding sluggishly. His heart stuttered and kicked back into a normal rhythm. There was not an inch of her body that wasn’t bruised. He had to look away or the rage would overwhelm him.

Rand blanked his mind, careful not to jar her too much, but making haste to get her help faster. It took them another hour, but they reached the Jeeps and settled everyone inside. Within another hour, they were at the airfield and loading into the jet.

“We have to leave, The Collective has sent out a call to lock down the airstrip,” Adam said.

Dmitry was working on Bullet in the plane’s bedroom cabin. She’d not roused and though her pressure was stable, she was hurt badly. He’d made her as comfortable as possible, but until they got back to the states, there was no way to set her broken arm or determine the extent of her other injuries.

“Load up the children, give Raines another ten minutes to get here. He doesn’t make it, he’s on his own, but I’m sure he’ll do fine.”

“Ten four,” Adam responded with a grin.

Raines was a tough bastard. Though he refused to join Trident, he aligned with them frequently. A good man to have at your back, his sense of justice flowed from a deep, deep well. Joseph had made a horrible enemy. When he’d discovered what Bullet had told them was true, he’d spit and said, “He’s a dead motherfucker walking.”

Hell, Raines may stay on his own just for some get-back. Rand needed him and hoped he made it to the jet, but he understood if he didn’t.

“Gonna leave without us?” Raines’ voice sounded from the door of the plane.

“You’re slow, man. Thought I was going to have to send up an emergency flare for you to find your way,” Rand said with a grunt.

“Fuck you, dude. The day you have to send out a flare for me to find my way is the day hell freezes over.”

Rand grunted, and then turned away and watched as everyone settled in.

“We have activity headed our way,” Adam called out.

“Get us wheels up,” Rand said hurriedly.

Adam sighed. “Doing it now, but you might want to hold on in case they have something larger than a gun to shoot at us.”

A huge explosion rocked the ground beneath them.

“Holy fuck, that was close!” Adam said from the cockpit.

Rand looked out the window, watching in disbelief as huge balls of fire followed successive blasts approximately a mile away.

“Those crazy bitches did it,” Raines murmured as he looked out the same window Rand was.

No way, Rand thought. “What crazy bitches?”

“That hot Asian chick, a scrawny white girl, and a drop-dead gorgeous Middle Eastern woman. We met them as we headed from Bombardier’s place. They were headed in and said they’d handle him if he came too close. I guess that’s what they’re doing.”

They hadn’t left her, but neither had they rescued her. It was the rest of First Team, Rand was sure of it. What the fuck was going on?

More explosions rocked the night as Adam rushed to get them off the ground and away. Every second seemed an eternity before his stomach dropped as the plane lifted off. He watched until he could see nothing but the black of the sky around them, and then he closed his eyes and rested his head against the seat. Everything that had happened over the past few days played and rewound over and over.

“We had to tranq the children, but at least they’re resting. What are we going to do about them?” Ken’s quiet voice interrupted his replaying.

“We’ll let Gretchen decide,” Rand responded, the rightness of his response solidifying in his gut.

“I hate to tell you this, but she might not be in any condition to decide anything for a long time. I saw her, Rand. Joseph fucked with her badly. We almost weren’t there in time,” he reminded him quietly.

“We’ll keep them safe. I don’t know what our next move is, but I know we have to keep them running so they’re too busy to come after us. We’ve got Gretchen’s list, let’s start with that. Carmelita can get some of her family to come stay at the house and watch over the kids. We’ll fix the panic room into a place for them.”

Ken nodded and sat down. “Agreed. Lily would want us to keep them safe.”

Rand rubbed his chest, but the image behind his closed lids wasn’t his dead wife, it was Gretchen aka Remi aka Bullet.

“I agree.”

“I don’t understand why you keyed on her, Rand, but I won’t give you anymore shit about it. She’s proven herself over and over, and while I don’t like that she’s a killer, neither will I sit in judgment any longer.”

Rand opened his eyes at the ring of truth in Ken’s voice, nodded, and got up to go check on the woman they were discussing. He stepped into the bedroom and walked to stand beside the bed. She was lying there so still, he had to watch closely for the rise and fall of her chest.

“She won’t wake up until we’re on U.S. soil. I can’t risk her moving, so I’ll keep her out. I contacted a buddy of mine at Walter Reed, and he’ll meet me at the house. He’s a doctor, Rand, and I trust him. I can’t do what she needs done. She needs stitches and that arm set.” Dmitry sighed deeply. “It looks like they wedged her arm to break it. The bruising above and below the break tells me they put it under a hell of a lot of pressure before it snapped. But fuck, she’s bruised all over and cut to hell and back. I think there are burns on the bottom of her feet.” Silence for the beat of one, two, then in a hard voice, “I want in.”

Rand shot Dmitry a questioning glance.

“When you have him where he can go no farther, I want a piece of him for what he did to her. I don’t know how she’s alive, and that’s the truth.” He ran a hand through his hair and over his face, rubbing as if to get rid of the weariness.

“Go try to get some sleep,” Rand said to him. His voice was guttural, and it couldn’t be helped. The rage clogging his throat wouldn’t allow for anything else.

“I’ll see her every time I close my eyes, man. Her face in that pit—I don’t know that I’ll sleep again without remembering that.”

Rand nodded, and as Dmitry opened the door, he said, “Thank you.”

Dmitry didn’t say anything; he simply shut the door softly, leaving Rand alone with her.

He let the silence soothe the beast inside him. He’d been a soldier for so long, he couldn’t remember not being one. But the woman before him would shame the mightiest of warriors. Before he could check his words, they poured forth, pulled from the depths of the heart he’d thought long dead when Lily and Anna had been taken from him.

He held her right hand, rubbed his thumb over the dry, bruised skin, and he talked to her. He told her about Lily and Anna, what their loss had done to him. He told her stories of his youth, and then his time in the Rangers. He told of the last seven years, his loneliness, his rage, and his quest for justice. He told her about what she stirred in him, and how he’d never felt about anyone the way he felt about her. He cursed her. He praised her. He begged her to not leave him. Minutes turned to hours, and even when his voice went hoarse and he could barely speak, the words flowed out of him into the air between them. She never moved. There was no reaction his words even reached her subconscious, but by the time his eyes drooped and his mouth had gone completely dry, Rand had made a decision.