WAR: Opposition: (WAR Book 3) (40 page)

No. That wasn’t right. Kirra wouldn’t be crying. Not in heaven.

Seth struggled to open his eyes. Kirra knelt over him, a pistol in her hands.

For a second he thought she was so angry at him that she’d decided to finish the assassin’s work. “Do…it…” he murmured.

“Shut up, you idiot.”

Darkness reached out to embrace him. He wanted it to take him. Then debris hit his cheek. Annoyed, Seth slitted open his eyes and watched the Black Hawk touch down lightly on the strip of dirt next to the river. Typical Marcus Jones. No one else had such a light touch.

Except Seth. But he had to be hallucinating. The pilot couldn’t be Marcus, because…

Seth couldn’t remember why. Something Dev had said. Or done. Or…

He lost touch again, only to be roused by a familiar Texan voice issuing from a PA system. “Lower your weapon, ma’am.”

Seth struggled to raise his lids. Kirra had straddled him and had the pistol aimed at the men in black combat gear exiting the helicopter.

When Kirra didn’t lower her weapon, Marcus ordered, “Call off your guard dog, Parakeet.”

If he’d had the strength, he would’ve given Marcus the finger. He hated that damn nickname. But the world was starting to tip sideways. “Kir-ra…love…you…”

Then at last the darkness swallowed him up.

“
S
eth
!” Kirra didn’t dare lower the pistol to check his pulse. No matter that the man flying the helicopter seemed to know Seth, she didn’t trust the pilot or the soldiers racing toward her.

Two men detached from the group and stopped beside Dev. The blond man bent down and helped her brother to his feet. From the way Dev’s mouth curled, she knew he’d made a joke to hide his pain. The man shook his head and rolled his eyes before he braced himself underneath Dev’s arm.

All right. Maybe these were friends of Dev’s. That didn’t mean they would be friendly to Seth.

She repositioned her feet so that she straddled Seth’s body and watched the remaining men approach. Two of them lifted the assassin’s body onto a stretcher and carried him to the helicopter. She wasn’t sure if he was dead or just critically injured. And she didn’t really care.

Three of the soldiers stopped a couple meters in front of her and Seth. Kirra aimed Dev’s pistol at the lead man. “Don’t touch him.” She wasn’t turning Seth over to the authorities if they were going to lock him up or execute him on false charges.

“Whoa!” The man put his hands out in the “I’m innocent” gesture, while his lips quirked in amusement. “We’re the good guys, ma’am. I’m a medic. I’m not going to hurt Mr. Jarrod. I just want to stabilize him so we can transport him to the hospital.”

Kirra kept the pistol aimed at him. “You’re with the United States government. How do I know that you’re not going to arrest him?”

“We’re temporary contractors for the U.S. government. Our mission objectives are to bring the assassin to the Americans to face murder and terrorism charges, and to hand Jarrod over to protective custody. I promise, we’re not here to arrest him.” He glanced pointedly at Seth’s bloody chest. “If you don’t let me plug that hole, he’s going to die.”

Kirra couldn’t look directly at the wound without feeling sick, so she eased back, letting the medic have room to work. She kept her gaze on the medic’s face and her pistol aimed at his heart.

The corner of his mouth rose in amusement, then sobered as Seth gasped for breath. Kirra heard a gurgling sound and the medic cursed. “Stretcher. Now,” he barked as he pulled something out of his pocket and slapped it over the wound.

Seth’s breathing immediately sounded better.

The two men who’d carried the assassin away raced up with a stretcher. A dark-haired man with a devilish gleam in his eyes reached them first. Lowering the front of the stretcher, he said, “
Co!
Dev never said his sister was a warrior lady.” His accent seemed to be a mix of the American South and French.

She glanced over his shoulder and saw that Dev was watching her with a puzzled look on his face. “That’s because my brother doesn’t know me at all,” she muttered.

She lowered her pistol as the men loaded Seth onto the stretcher. Then the entire group sprinted toward the helicopter. Kirra reached the door at the same time as Dev.

Her brother winced as he was helped on board. “I thought you weren’t hurt,” she said.

“Even with a vest, getting shot hurts like a mother,” the blond man said cheerfully with an accent Kirra thought might also be from the American South. “He’s probably got a couple of cracked ribs.” He gently lowered Dev to the metal floor.

Kirra had never been inside a helicopter, so she didn’t know if the spartan interior was typical. But the area was bare except for seats along the sides and gear bags on the floor at the rear.

Everyone except the medic and the unconscious men strapped into a seat. Then the helicopter took off in a cloud of dust.

"You want help removing the vest?” the blond man asked Dev once they were airborne and the men had removed their harnesses.

Her brother waved him off, so the blond man went to talk to one of his teammates.

Since the medic was working on Seth, Kirra unstrapped her harness and knelt in front of Dev. “How about you let me take the vest off?” She had to shout to be heard over the noise of the rotors.

Dev nodded. The bullets had torn through his shirt and lodged in the vest. Her breath shuddered on the way in. Had Seth known Dev was protected when he’d fired? She wanted to think so, but what if he hadn’t? The noise was too loud to ask Dev if he’d told Seth about the vest. She wasn’t going to shout out the question for everyone to hear. Besides, she wasn’t certain she wanted to know. Not quite yet.

She pulled apart the velcro fastenings and slipped the surprisingly heavy vest onto the floor.

Dev exhaled heavily, then winced and put his hands over the ribs on his right side. Sweat had darkened the t-shirt he wore underneath, but Kirra didn’t see signs of other injuries.

Settling back into the seat next to her brother, Kirra put her hands over her ears. A moment later, the blond man returned and handed her a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. She gave him a grateful smile and the man responded with a flirtatious wink.

“Watch it, Hoss,” Dev shouted, accepting a second pair of headphones from his teammate. “That’s my sister.”

Hoss gave Dev a cheerful thumbs-up, blew Kirra a kiss, then danced back when Dev swiped weakly at him. Bemused, Kirra watched the man walk away as she fitted the headphones over her ears.

Kirra felt as if she’d fallen down the rabbit hole. Clearly these people knew and respected Dev, yet none of them were South African. So just what kind of work was her brother doing these days?

Her eyes sought out the medic and another man who were working on Seth. She clutched Dev’s hand and tried not to think about the possibility of Seth dying.

It seemed as if they’d only just taken off when the helicopter banked sharply over an airport and landed.

The soldiers picked up Seth’s stretcher and raced over to a cargo plane painted army green. They disappeared inside the open door in the tail of the plane and were quickly followed by men carrying the assassin’s stretcher. Two of Dev’s teammates grabbed him under the arms, lifted him off his feet, and ran after the others with Kirra trailing close behind.

The door of the plane had barely shut when it began taxiing.

Kirra grabbed onto a handle set in the side of the plane and looked around in astonishment. The interior had been set up as a medical facility. Compared to the helicopter it was brightly lit. The walls must have been insulated, because it was quieter than she remembered from the plane flight up from Johannesburg.

“We’ve got immediate clearance to take off and they’re prepping an operating room for us at the other end.” The speaker, a vaguely familiar woman wearing a doctor’s coat, motioned for the men carrying Seth’s stretcher to follow her through a door at the far end.

“Wait. Where are they taking him?” Kirra demanded. She still didn’t know if Seth had intended to kill Dev or not, but that didn’t lessen her protectiveness. He was hers until she decided otherwise.

“Don’t worry,” the medic told her as three men wearing U.S. army uniforms followed Seth’s stretcher through the door.

Kirra took a step forward, but the medic blocked her way. “You said he wasn’t going to be arrested!”

“Calm down. The soldiers are there to protect him.”

She stared helplessly at the door, barely registering that four soldiers escorted the assassin’s stretcher into the room.

“That’s an operating room,” the medic explained. “Dr. Kirk will take good care of Jarrod.”

That’s
why the doctor had looked familiar. Dr. Helen Kirk was the American trauma surgeon who’d been one of the few survivors of the Hospital Massacre. She was also part of the committee that had organized the benefit concert. Kirra recognized her from the Skype meetings.

Dev’s teammates lowered him into a seat that pulled down from the wall. He fastened a safety belt around his waist, then nodded to indicate that Kirra should sit next to him.

A dark-skinned man wearing a tunic that identified him as a nurse approached Dev. He had her brother remove his t-shirt, then began his examination.

Meanwhile, the medic approached Kirra. He held up a small medical pack. “If you don’t mind, ma’am, I’d like to clean your wounds.”

Kirra shrugged and held out her right hand. As soon as he’d unwrapped the bandanna, showing the bloody X the rebel had cut into her skin, her body convulsed.

The blood welling from the cut she’d made on the rebel’s hand.

Kirra swayed forward.

“Hey, steady there.” The medic reached out, but Dev’s hand found her shoulder first and gently tugged her upright.

“Kirra, can you sit up on your own?” Dev asked.

“Yes, sorry. I can’t tolerate the sight of blood. And…uh…I had to cut a rebel in order to escape.”

Dev cursed in Afrikaans and exchanged a glance with the medic.

Focusing her attention on the other side of the plane, Kirra said, “Go ahead, sir.”

“Lance,” the medic said. “I’m Lance.”

“Would you like some water?” asked the man who’d just finished checking Dev’s ribs.

“Yes, please.”

He walked over to a cabinet and removed a bottle of water.

“Uh, do you have a bowl of some sort, too?”

The man nodded and pulled out a metal pan.

Kirra used the water to rinse the lingering taste of vomit out of her mouth, then spit it into the pan. Only once her mouth felt clean did she take a long swallow.

The medic waited patiently for her to finish, then picked up her hand. A moment later, she felt a cool, wet cloth against her wounds, followed by the sting of antiseptic. She sucked a pained breath in through her teeth.

Dev laced his fingers through her other hand. He held her wrist up in front of him and gently rubbed a section of undamaged skin. “I saw the handcuffs in the back room near where the bus was attacked. You got these cuts freeing yourself?”

Aware that Lance was listening in, she nodded. She hoped Dev wouldn’t press her too hard on how she’d come by that particular skill. Because her brother was a soldier and believed in the rule of law, she had never disclosed the work she’d been doing at the time of the attack. While he had to suspect that she’d been living a criminal life, she’d been careful to give him no reason to turn her over to the police.

She cleared her throat. “So, I guess that means you received my text.”

Dev scowled at her. “Yes.” He closed his eyes briefly. “I’ve never been so terrified as I was when I saw the body bags at the scene of the bus attack. Don’t ever do that to me again.”

She squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Tell me everything that happened.” He twisted slightly in his seat so he could see her better, although she could tell from the way he held his body that even that small motion hurt. “I’d been trying to catch up with you since the moment I read your message.”

Kirra shot a glance at Lance out of the corner of her eye. His head was bent over her feet as he washed them and disinfected the cuts on her soles. Dev motioned for her to go ahead.

As succinctly as possible, Kirra explained what had happened since her plane was grounded, ending with seeing Seth dump Dev over the cliff.

Dev made a sound that she thought was a suppressed growl, but she couldn’t be sure.

“Did Seth know you had body armor on?” She held her breath.

Dev hesitated. “I don’t know. Probably. I’d just tackled him to save him from the damn assassin, so he would have felt the bulk of the armor.”

She let her breath out slowly.

“I think he shot me mostly to get the assassin’s attention off of me.” He looked toward the door to the operating room. “But you’ll have to ask him.”

“I’m planning on it.”

Dev stared into space a moment, then the corner of his mouth lifted. “The team is never going to forget how you held that pistol on Lance.”

“Sorry, Lance.”

“No worries, ma’am, I’m used to it.” Lance looked up and gave her an amused smile. “Your brother has wanted to hold a gun to my head a time or two.”

“Is that so?”

Kirra raised her brows, but Dev merely grinned and gave a helpless half-shrug.

“Yeah,” she said. “He always has been a lousy patient.”

“You can say that again,” Lance murmured.

“So…” Dev prompted. “Where’d you learn to handle a gun like that?”

Kirra waited until Lance had finished bandaging her hand and moved away to dispose of the biohazardous waste before answering. “I told you that I was taking self-defense classes.”

“Yeah, but I thought that was just basic moves on how to get away if you were ever attacked again. Not how to use firearms like a professional.”

T
o Dev’s shock
, Kirra shot him a scathing look. “What, you don’t think I’m smart enough to be able to safely handle weapons?”

“What? No.” Fuck. How did she
do
that to him? Manage to put him on the defensive so easily? He blew out a careful breath—the adrenaline had worn off and every breath hurt—and remembered what Jarrod had said about Kirra’s self-esteem. “I didn’t realize you’d gotten serious about defending yourself.” He swallowed the sudden flare of hurt and almost demanded to know why she hadn’t asked him for help. But it was obvious wasn’t it? They fought too much, and on top of that he was never around. Kirra would have known he was a bad bet.

She rolled her eyes. “Dev, I died after the attack. Of course I was serious about defending myself.”

He ground his teeth. God dammit, to this day it still terrified him knowing that she’d actually died.

“Through word of mouth, I found an organization run by former soldiers and members of the police,” Kirra continued. “They specialize in empowering victims of violent assault.”

His skin flushed with anger. He hated hearing the terms “violent” and “assault” used in relationship to his sister. But closely following that anger was fierce pride that she’d overcome the damage from the attack to become the strong woman who’d stood up to Lance and the rest of his team. She’d held herself with the confidence of a seasoned operative.

He studied her a moment. Relief that she was alive warred with confusion over the picture she presented. Her shirt and trousers were stained and torn. Cuts and bruises marred her delicate skin. Her feet were bare and had been covered in dirt before Lance cleaned them. Her flyaway blonde hair was pulled back off her face with some sort of black cloth. Yet instead of her distinctive blue-green eyes being filled with self-pity or a plea for sympathy, she looked at him with love, exasperation, and a quiet strength he didn’t recognize.