Right Through Me (The Obsidian Files #1)(116)

The three men went inside. Their heat signatures were soon lost to sight.

Noah risked lifting the faceplate on the shield, and peered bare-eyed at Zade and Sisko’s positions. “He’s in,” he said into the comm. “Get into position.” He scanned one last time for heat or energy sigs—

And saw a ripple of movement in the leaves. Not wind. He searched again. Close to Zade, too close. There. Animal?

No. The f*cking tree wasn’t swaying back and forth, it was moving forward. Zade couldn’t hear it because of the protective headphones he’d wired into his helmet to block his stun and kill codes. Shit.

“Zade! Behind you!” he shouted into the comm, as the attacker sprang.

Zade spun around and went down in a flurry of thrashing foliage.

“Hannah!” he shouted. “We’re under attack! Get Caro out! Now!”

Trees bent and branches cracked. Zade was still fighting. Which meant that the attacker hadn’t used the code. And Zade could fight like a demon straight out of hell.

Noah sprinted toward Caro.



*



Caro shivered. That beam of bright, blood-tinged light made her feel like a witch doll on display in a glass case. But she was still alive, and Noah’s final, searing kiss still tingled and burned on her lips.

Asa had left. So strange, to just stand there and wait, offering herself up. She stared down at the man Mark had sent to monitor her. Big and strong, weapons slung all over him, but his eyes looked dull. Lost.

Familiar, too. She studied his face as recognition dawned. The TV interview she’d seen online. This was Brenner Jameson, father of two-year-old Callie.

The door into the box behind her crashed open. Hannah beckoned. “Come on!”

She whipped her head around. “What happened?”

“We’re under attack!” Hannah grabbed her hand. “Noah said to pull you now!”

Caro sprinted after her, and even so Hannah practically yanked her arm from its socket, dragging her faster. Hannah dragged a camo tarp off a massive motorcycle, and straddled it, revving the engine. “Get on!”

Caro obeyed, clutching Hannah’s body as the bike took off, banging and thudding over the rough terrain.

A flickering shadow, and the sky fell. The ground swung up and smacked her hard, knocking her breathless.

When she focused again, she saw a woman in dark camo shoving a hypodermic needle into Hannah’s throat.

Caro lunged to stop her. The woman held her back with startling ease, barely reacting to Caro’s frantic clawing. She was supernaturally strong. A modified supersoldier.

Useless to struggle, but Caro couldn’t stop. The woman jerked her around and slammed her to the ground, fastening her arms behind her with zip ties.

The she-beast dragged her backwards toward the house by her arms, wrenching brutally hard. Caro scrambled to keep her feet beneath herself.

Noah burst out of the trees. His visor was up, showing the glowing amber of his eyes. That split second that their eyes met pierced through her panic, and touched her depths. She knew he’d do anything to save her. Sacrifice anything. Everything.

She felt it, with a wild, screaming intensity. Everything that they were about to lose. How beautiful it was, how precious. How fragile.

He raised his gun, and took aim.

Caro lurched to the side as the gunshot sounded. The woman who held her jerked sharply, but didn’t release her grip. She kept moving. Noah slowed to aim again—and two flashing silver things swooped into her vision, hovering.

Noah swung his gun up and shot one of them right out of the sky. Small, shining pieces flew—

Suddenly, Noah stopped, staggered . . . and then collapsed.

Caro screamed, twisting in the woman’s hard grip. She could just barely see another man running toward the spot where Noah had fallen before she was dragged around the corner of the house. Noah was lost to sight.

She went wild, screaming, flailing. Something hit her head. Darkness. Excruciating pain.

She came to on a floor somewhere . . . and she wished she hadn’t.

Asa lay on his belly near her on a bloodsmeared floor. The cords in his neck strained as he lifted his head. His hands were cuffed behind him, and the slave soldier she’d identified as Brenner sat on top of him.

Both of Asa’s security men lay still and silent. One lay just a few feet from them, a dart piercing his chest. Another one lay close to the entrance.

Another man, maybe Mark’s, was sprawled on the ground, a bullet hole between his eyes. Brain tissue was spread out on the floor behind his head in a splattered pinkish fan.

Asa’s eyes met hers asking a silent question. She replied with a tiny shake of her head, still half deaf from the blow to her head.

His lips pulled back from his teeth in a hiss of dismay. No help on the way.

The toe of a heavy black boot nudged her face, forcing her to look up.

Mark’s unshielded eyes had an eerie glow, like arctic ice.

He grinned. His teeth seemed unnaturally white and sharp.

“Caroline,” he said. “Finally.”





Chapter 33


Noah heard sounds in the vast emptiness. Faraway, tinny. He latched onto the faint stimulus, using it to drag himself up. Toward consciousness.

Closer. His battlefield processor assessed his condition while random images and thoughts pinged wildly around like an insane pinball machine.