Rogue Alliance (6 page)

             
Not wanting to make a scene, Shyla
pulled them down as quickly as she co
uld in one smooth motion. W
ith a jerk of her leg she shook
them a
side and stood before him shivering.

             
It was not
because it was cold.

             
A sick gleam lit in his eyes. When he got closer, she could smell the whiskey and beer on his breath. Her stomach lurched. When he put his hands on her s
he closed her eyes out of
instinct. Trying to back away
,
she bumped into the cou
nter behind her. She
reach
ed behind to grasp the edge and her
fingers came into contact with the handle of the steak knife. Her skin crawled as his hands slithered over her skin.
Her mind dulled and pulled away from the moment as if watching from a distance.

             
She didn’t think of her actions.
She wasn’t conscious
ly aware of how
easily
her palm gripped the knife.

             
The next thing she remembered she was sitting silently in a police car outside her house. It was pitch bl
ack outside except for the red
and blue lights which lit up the neighborhood like two-toned Christmas lights. She shivered. A woman, someone she didn’t know, spoke to her. Her hearing was muffled, like she was swimming under water.

She shivered again and the woman wrapped a scratchy, wool blanket around her s
houlders. She felt something crusty at her fingertips
and looked down the front of her shirt.

             
Dark red blood; a
gruesome
sight which reminded her of a
scary movie she’d watched at Stacy’s house a few weeks back.
Like now, there had been so much blood.

She started screaming.

*

             
Shyla woke up with a scream in he
r throat. She bolted upright but it wasn’t enough; s
he had to get out of bed. Pacing, pacing, pacing. She had to walk it off.

             
“Shit, shit, shit,” she said into the dark of her b
edroom. She turned on the light.
             
The dream had been coming since that night. It was always the same. It never varied. It never lessened in its intensity or ability to shake her to the core.

             
Fortunately, it hadn’t been coming as often the past few years. It wasn’t surprising that the idea of going back home, to where it had all gone down, was conjuring it up again.

             
Shyla
sat on the edge of her bed and took three deep breaths, seriously contemplating whether or not she could actually follow through with the move.

             
“God
damn it all to hell.”

             
She stood up and marched out of the bedroom. Opening up her liquor cabinet she took three hefty swallows straigh
t out of the bo
ttle of Patron,
h
er favorite tequila. She was damned if she was going to give up the case of her lifetime. Yeah i
t was in Redding, but s
he was either a good cop o
r she wasn’t. No matter where she
was. S
he would do what it took to take down Victor Champlain.

             
She took anothe
r long slug
. It burned so nice
ly
. Her heart rate slowed. She would just take the bottle back to bed with her. She was going to go back to sleep. She was going to sle
ep through till morning
without dreaming about that night. She was going to move to Redding, Californian. And she was going to wrap up this case nice and tight
ly
and send the bad guy to jail.
I
t was what she had trained for
.

SIX

             
Brennan was silent as Victor drove across
the Oregon border into California.
The scenery was breathtaking,
with t
all evergreens as far as he
could see. The winding switchbacks of Grants Pass made his stomach queasy. He hadn’t be
en in a vehicle in well over a decade
.
Still, h
e swallowed down the rising nausea
and enjoyed the drive up the mountain.

             
Whilst
he took in every detail of his surrounding
s
, his mind
wandered to his current and sudden change of plans. Not that he’d had any specific plan before. He’d just known he had to find a way to break out of the facility. He hadn’t expected his opportunity to show up in the form of a strange ally.

             
Victor had been silent since they departed in a cloud of dust. The vehicle was unlike anything he’d seen before.

             
“Hurry, get in the Hummer,” Victor had shouted as they ran out of the compound into the bright sunlight.

             
Brennan glanced around the ins
ide of the car. It looked fairly
indestructible yet
very comfortable, exotic even. He rubbed the leather seats.

             
“This
is nice.”

             
“You bet your ass it is,” Victor said, shooting a glance in his direction,
“y
ou like it? Have you ever been in one?”

             
Brennan shook his head and looked back out the window.

             
“No. I haven’t been in anything but the facility for a very long time.”

             
“How long?”

             
“I’m not exactly sure,” Brennan sighed, “b
ut I once heard Shinto say something about me being sixteen when he brought me
in. I think I’m about thirty, so…I guess maybe fourteen
years.”

             
“Holy shit!”
Victor scoffed, then paused. H
is tone shifted.

             
“Well that
’s in the past now, buddy,” he said,
“y
ou’
re out. You work for me.
We’re a team.
Y
ou will
never be bothered again…
by anyone. Now, what’s your name?”

             
Brennan turned and looked straight into Victor’s gray-blue eyes.

             
“Brennan. Brennan Miles.
Who are you? And what exactly is it that you want from me?
”

             
“My line of work is dangerous,” Victor sighed,
“t
hroughout my life, I have had the opportunity to meet some very powerful people. People who
make their own rules and codes to live by. They build strong loyalties with few and make enemies with the rest. I’ll be honest with you- what I do for a living is illegal. But what’s legal and illegal in this country is pick and choose anyway- at least that’s how I see it.
”

             
There was a brief
pause as his grip on the steering wheel tightened.

             
“
I could serve life in prison if
the authorities were ever to bust me
- which they won’t
.
”

             
When Victor looked his direction, Brennan gave a slight nod of the head to acknowledge that he was listening. Otherwise the silence was heavy.

             
“
The point I’m trying to make
,” Victor said,
“
is that whether my job is ethical or not is irrelevant. It is what it is. It’s illegal. It’s dangerous. And I have more than a few enemies. Even
most of
those who I do business
with on a regular basis
aren’t pe
ople I can trust. We negotiate and strike deals
. But if they ever got greedy, or in trouble, I would be a sacrifice many of them would be willing to make. Then there is the law. They would love nothing more than to bust my balls and throw away the key.

             
“Long story short-
I need someone
that
I can trust- someone who works side by side with me. I essentially need a body
guard- someone who always has m
y best interests in mind and has my back.
”

             
“And you think that someone is me?”

             
“
When I
heard of your particular skills,
I
thought ‘who
could be better?
’.
With your strength and speed, and basic instinct for survival, you are the perfect person for the job.”

             
Brennan noticed that Victor used the word ‘person’ this time. He also took note that he was very direct in his speech and took his eyes from the road many times just to look him in the eye. He sensed that Victor spoke only the truth. He just had to decide if he really wanted to make
an
allegiance with someone like him when he
had
only just
acquired his freedom.

             
But then again, hadn’t he already?

             
“You said freedom for loyalty. How does working for you equal freedom for me?”
Brennan asked.

             
“There’s no way you could be free without me, Brennan. Let’
s face it,
some very influential people are going to be angry that their project just fled their facility.
They are go
ing to be looking for you. I
f word gets out to the public
- and it always does
- there will be hordes of people wanting you caught. People who are afraid of you, people who want to experiment on you, and people who just want to kill you.

             
“You would be on the run for the rest of your life. And with no one on your side, you would eventually be caught. You haven’t been out in the world for a long time. Thin
gs are brutal out here. With me,
you have a friend, someone who has your back, too. Like I said, we’re a team. That’s freedom.

             
“Now, my next question is, how long can you go before you need your next supplement?”

SEVEN

             
Shyla drove her Range Rover
into
the
Redding city limits
with
a
familiar
lead weight in her gut.
She drove st
raight to the apartment
she’d already
rented. She’d done her homework an
d knew it was closest to the Redding Police Department
and that the names of the owners were not familiar.
             

             
As she navigated her way through the streets of her old stomping grounds, she noticed that not a whole lot had changed. The outskirts of town seemed to extend further out into the hills. There were some newer business
es
, some new paint. But there were also a few places that looked run-down and forgotten. Generally though,
it was the same. She shivered and concentr
ated on her destination
.

             
When she checked in with the management office, she held her breath as she signed the final paperwork and received her key
s
. She kept anticipating t
hat the woman
would suddenly recognize her, b
ut she didn’t.

             
“There ya are, honey. Your parking spot is 19. There is visitor parking
in each
lot but only in the
marked areas
. Your unit is v
ery clean and functional,
as I’m sure you’ll see.
Please let us know if there’s anything else we can do for you.”

             
Shyla snagged her keys. Once inside the
furnished
apartment she let out a shaky breath.

             
“Jesus, get it together already,” she scolded herself.
She scanned the apartment.
             
Clean and functional was accurate. Otherwise it
was fairly plain; no fancy cabinetry or granite countertops, no fireplace or sunken tub, like her apartment back in L.A. It was exactly what someone on a secretary’s wage could afford.