Chapter 28

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

PATCH

" P atch?" Remy's voice penetrated the dull roar left behind by firing the gun. It didn't matter how steady my aim had been, I couldn't look away from the two bodies piled on each other. I'd emptied half the magazine into the pair.

Pulling the trigger repeatedly had left me deafened. But I couldn't look away. The lights had gone off. The car was still out there. My screen was still on and the guys were on the line.

"Almost there, Sugar Bear. Are you secure?" McQuade's voice trickled past the ringing. It sounded like he was a thousand miles away.

He wasn't there. Neither was Remy. It was just me and the two dead men.

"Just keep breathing for us, luv. Let out another long breath, you don't have to say anything."

Remy was in Dallas. Locke and McQuade were…

"Sugar Bear, in three minutes, you're going to see our headlights on the monitor. The alarms will probably go off again. It's us."

They were close. That was good. My chest hurt, and my lungs burned. Oh. I was holding my breath. I blew out a long sigh.

"There she is," Remy said. "Don't let go of the line now, luv. We've got you and we're not letting go."

"Two minutes," McQuade counting it down helped. Particularly when it was an eternity between three minutes and two.

"We're on the dirt road," Locke added as McQuade said "one minute," and another shuddering breath left me. Their headlights glowed on my computer monitor.

"Can you see their headlights?" Remy verified.

"Yes." Oh, that word came out so very small.

"Good girl," McQuade said, the rubble in his voice adding more of a growl than normal. "That's my sugar bear. I'm doing a little dance as we walk up… can you see me?"

I had to drag my gaze from the downed bodies to the screen again. It was hard to refocus but there were two men, just like there had been two who came in the door.

The air backed up in my lungs.

"I'm dancing, Sugar Bear. Tell me you can see me." McQuade's order snapped through the haze and I blinked. One of the men was dancing. It was a lot like John Travolta in that movie…what was that movie?

"I remember that one," I said slowly. "Wasn't Uma Thurman in it?"

Why couldn't I remember the name?

"Pulp Fiction," Locke said. "You're right. He's doing that weird dance. Remind me to get you real lessons, McQuade."

"Fuck. Off." The familiarity in the teasing and grousing helped to crack more of the wall that separated me from the rest of the world. I didn't even know when that wall went up.

My hand trembled.

"They're coming, luv," Remy said, his accent seemed softer somehow, kinder. "Hang on. Are you still pointing the gun at the door?"

"We're here, Sugar Bear," McQuade called from the same direction as the pair of bodies. I heard him on my headset and with my own ears.

I tried to swallow around the lump in my throat. "Is—is Justus with you, still?"

"Yes," Locke answered himself. "We're here and we can see the bodies."

"Hell of a shot, Sugar Bear, hell of a shot." That was McQuade again. They were here.

The shaking in my soul translated to shaking in my arm and my hand. Everything trembled. The pain of keeping my arm pointed hit me and all the numbness holding me in position drained away. It left me pained and cramping.

"You can let them in," Remy said, his words were so soft in my ear. It didn't play in stereo like Locke or McQuade. Because Remy was still there, and the guys were here.

I flicked a look at the screen on my computer. They'd left the headlights on their acquired vehicle on. It illuminated Locke.

"It's us," he said, directly to the camera. Had he been talking to me through it since they got here? Like someone cut my strings, I sank to the floor abruptly and lowered the gun.

"Come in. I'm lowering the gun." I barely seemed to have finished the words and Locke was there. He'd left the bodies to McQuade, who was checking them. When Locke plucked the gun from my hand, I let it go and then I was wrapped in his arms.

The adrenaline crash was profound. I fought the waves of nausea that hit and let Locke just hold me.

"You did good, Sugar Bear," McQuade said and I managed to force my eyes open to meet his gaze. He was checking the bodies. "I'm gonna deal with this…"

"I can?—"

"Stay right here," Locke said, before he slid an arm under my legs and lifted me off the floor. "In fact, you're gonna take a little walk around to the other side. You don't need to see this part."

"Let them take care of you, luv," Remy said, he was so solid. "I've still got eyes on these guys, but tell me right now, do you need me back there?"

I wanted to say yes. I wanted to say yes really bad. "I do want you here…"

"Want is good, luv. But do you need me? Cause if you can let them look after you, I can stay on these guys and see if I can get us more."

It was a choice. Eyes closed, I tucked my head against Locke's shoulder. The steadiness of his heart helped. The fact he was holding me helped.

They came.

I hadn't been alone this time. Or unarmed.

Wait, I'd been armed before. I just hadn't been able to get to my weapon before they were on me. That reality dawned with crystal clear clarity.

Dammit.

Pain lanced through my head, an icy spike that seemed to stab deep into my brain. The tears burning in my eyes offered no relief, only anger. Gradually, the fact Locke rocked me slowly registered.

We weren't near my computer anymore and my headset was off. Instead, he sat on the bed with me in his lap. The gentle sway accompanied the circular rubbing of his hand against my back. All of it worked to push back the nightmarish reality.

Nothing could make it go away fully. Nothing.

At the moment, I wasn't even sure answers would fix this. In the past few weeks, I'd lost the security of anonymity. I'd been found by three men I trusted, but had never "met" before. At the same time, I'd been compromised and tortured.

The scars decorating my skin served as a road map to some of what had been done to me. I could imagine the rest. I had a very good imagination. If not for them, I would still be in the hands of my tormentors.

The information I'd taken might be the only currency and leverage I had left. Yet, I couldn't help but feel like I was being herded in that direction. The plan they'd drawn out, how "release" might have been manufactured and allies created for me left me wondering how could I ever know if something was real ?

"Here. I got this." McQuade was back. Tenderness sanded down all the rougher edges in his manner and voice. I forced my swollen eyes open and then winced.

Oh that was a mistake.

"Careful, Fallon," Locke cautioned and then pressed a cool, damp towel to my eyes. It was almost heavenly. I was not a cryer. I'd never been one. Right now, sobbing seemed to be my release for fear, for anger, and even for pleasure.

"My eyes hurt," I told them in a nasally voice that held all the evidence of my weeping.

"No doubt." McQuade settled a hand on my thigh. The contact helped to ground me. "You did good, Sugar Bear. Clean groupings on both men."

Locke sighed. "I don't think that is going to help."

"It doesn't matter if it helps right now," McQuade countered easily. "It matters that she knows she took care of herself. She saved herself. She did it damn well."

I sniffed a laugh, then reached up to pull the damp cloth down so I could peer at him. Even squinting hurt. "You mean that… Don't you?"

Why I had to verify, I didn't know. But I needed to hear him say it. McQuade didn't sugar coat anything . Whether he was calling me Sugar Bear or not, whether he was grousing on the phone or buried inside of me, he was one of the most brutally honest people I'd ever known.

"Fuck yeah, I mean it. You didn't even use the full clip, which…" He mimed a chef's kiss with his fingers before returning his hand to my thigh. "Damn good job."

Somehow, that helped .

Still… "We're not done."

"No." Now there was a measure of apology in his voice. "We need to move. I've dealt with the bodies and the blood. We're better off getting back out on the highway and away from here before they send someone to look for them."

I used the damp cloth to press against my eyes as I sat up. Locke helped balance me and then eased me to sitting next to him. It was a lot chillier even with that small distance between us.

Holding the damp cloth to my face, I worked on taking a little self-inventory. The tears had stopped—mostly. The fog of panic wasn't clouding my brain anymore. Right…

I needed to focus.

"Did they have any identification on them?" I took the time to wipe my face. The tear tracks could at least be erased, even if I stayed blotchy.

"Nothing I found useful. A couple of plain white security cards with no numbers, addresses, or names. Likely access to something but who knows. Car appears to be stolen, so nothing in there. They are dressed in suits—look like government issue except…"

I dragged the damp cloth down to meet his measured gaze where he knelt in front of me. "Except?"

"Military issued boots. The suits don't fit them well."

"Wet work operatives made to look like FBI or another alphabet agency." That made a kind of sadistic sense.

"That would be my guess. Their fingerprints were burned off. I don't have time to do dental impressions but I got some DNA."

"Pictures, too?"

"Yes, but I'd rather you didn't look at those until more of the shock wears off." The guarded suggestion wasn't a bad one.

"I can do that. We need to move right now, more than we need to dig." Bit by bit, I was clawing my way back. "Remy still on Stone and the others?"

"Yes," Locke answered. "We've got him on comms still."

Right… "Okay, I need my headset and some water. Then I'll get on this."

"You can take a beat," McQuade said. "We need to get on the road and Remy is waiting for your word before he acts."

Before he puts a bullet in all three of the targets. "That's tempting," I admitted. "But I'd never know for sure without verification."

The look McQuade and Locke shared said they'd already guessed that. Honestly, that decided me even more.

"Right. We need to drive to Leesburg, Virginia."

"Leesburg?" McQuade verified. At my nod, he continued, "For?"

"We need to identify all the players. We need to know what my former boss, Stone, and the ASIS agent have in common. To do that, we need to get an item from Leesburg and then I can get the data from the dark web."

Locke frowned. "You can't just access the dark web from here?"

I shrugged. "Yes. But without the item, it won't do us any good. You or me."

Their questions seemed to radiate in the air around them.

"Look, it sounds complicated, because it is to someone who isn't me. You need the physical item and the dark web address. But even if you have both, if you don't know how to use them, you still can't get to the data." When Locke would have opened his mouth, I raised a hand. "No, I couldn't tell you how to do it. I won't know until I have both in front of me."

McQuade frowned. "It's a puzzle of some kind."

"I like puzzles. I like to make it a challenge. It's harder to hack something that changes from day to day, season to season—even month to month. Ciphers and keys are great, but you need an X factor to make something as secure as possible."

I killed two people today. I'd never done that before. Not with my own hands. Had I participated in how I helped my contractors in the field? Yes. But that was at a distance. This was much more intimate. Much more personal.

"You okay for me to drive and McQuade to be on watch with me?" It was a fair question, after the assault on the rig, they might know about it. That could create other complications. Ideally, they hadn't confirmed to anyone what they'd found before they began the assault.

"I can even do something to mask the transponder so if they are searching for it, we'll transmit something different to the highway scanners." I wiped my face again. "Give a me a couple of minutes to use the bathroom and wash my face, then we can go."

"Hey," McQuade said, catching my arm as I stood. "You're not okay."

"No," I agreed with him. "But I will be." Then, because I could, I put a hand to his chest and pushed up on my toes to brush his jaw with a kiss. The beard there teased me. Locke had risen to his feet and when I turned to him, he dipped his head for a kiss.

It was light, just a glide of lips to lips. When he steadied me with one hand on my hip, I curled between them and they crushed me in a gentle, all-encompassing hug.

Three deep breaths to scrub the scent of death and blood away, leaving only the hot masculine scent of them.

"Okay." I pushed back and straightened. "Let's get to work."

Ten minutes later, I had my headset back on, my chair locked and a seatbelt in place as the rig began to move. Tapping two buttons, I exhaled a deep breath. "Remy—we have a plan."