Defending Zara (Mountain Mercenaries #6)(22)

“Your friends will be able to find it?” he asked, wanting to make sure. The last thing he wanted was for this obviously important and necessary mode of transportation to be lost to those who needed it most.

Zara nodded. “This is a usual hiding place for it. And Mags knows, if I don’t show back up, to come looking for it. That I went with you.”

Her explanation made sense, and he was impressed with how well she and her friends had worked around the obstacles they faced in their everyday lives. His chest swelled with something that felt like pride.

Meat had no idea why this slip of a woman affected him so much. He’d just met her a few days before, but she’d managed to impress the hell out of him. Despite that, he still wanted to be the one keeping her safe from anything and everything that had hurt her in the past.

Stockholm syndrome? He didn’t think so. Yes, she’d basically kidnapped him, but he knew now that she and her friends had done so with the best of intentions. They hadn’t chained him up, and he could’ve left the doctor’s house at any time. He wasn’t sure how his friends would see the situation, but Meat didn’t care. He felt a connection to Zara that he hadn’t felt toward anyone.

“How is your ankle? Can you walk all right?” Zara asked.

Meat nodded without thinking about it. He knew he didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t lean on her, because it would look weird for a grown man to be leaning on what everyone assumed to be a teenage boy. It would bring unwanted attention. He didn’t look like the badass American soldier he thought he was, not with his scruffy clothing and his three-day-old beard and greasy hair.

“Remember to call me Zed,” Zara muttered as they headed down the alley toward the street.

Meat’s senses were assaulted when they finally got to the street and began walking toward the barrio. Rapid Spanish voices rang out all around him. The smell of garbage and smoke from fires filled his nose. He’d been in the barrio before, but knowing that this was where Zara had lived for so many years made the area seem even more depressing.

The sun felt good on his face, but he could feel the sweat dripping down his temples and soaking through the shirt at the small of his back. The hair on his arms stood straight up, and Meat felt naked without any kind of weapon. He was out of his element and didn’t like it one bit.

Then a thought struck him.

How would he feel if he was ten years old and had been dumped here like a piece of unwanted trash? Would he have been able to survive like Zara had?

He doubted it.

His admiration went up another notch. It was one thing to hear her story when they were sitting in a relatively safe place; it was another altogether to see the world she’d conquered through his own eyes.

“Okay, we’re coming up to the back entrance. There are two military guys there, probably on the lookout for you. Remember the plan?”

“Yes,” Meat said, not in the least offended that she’d asked. They’d gone over it at least ten times, but she had a lot more to lose here than he did. He wanted to reach out and take her hand in his, but didn’t dare. “Be careful out there, Zara,” he said softly. “No matter what happens in the next thirty minutes, remember that I’m on your side. I’m going to help you.”

“Don’t panic if things get crazy,” she responded. “It’s just the distraction.”

Meat nodded.

He heard something to his left and craned his neck to look. Seeing nothing, he turned to reassure Zara one more time—but she wasn’t there. One second she’d been by his side, and the next she was gone.

Taking a deep breath and trying not to worry, Meat approached the break in the wall that surrounded the barrio. The military men looked up in disinterest, but the second they saw him, they shot to attention.

One immediately reached for the radio on his side while the other stepped up to him. “Hunter Snow?” he asked.

Meat nodded. “That’s me.”

Within minutes, it seemed as if there were a dozen men from the First Special Forces Brigade surrounding him.

Three days ago, he would’ve felt comfortable and relieved to be in their presence, but after learning about the rampant corruption, and how most of the residents of the barrio were scared of the military, he was anxious to see his teammates.

The Peruvian men talked among themselves, and just when Meat was wondering what was going on, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a commotion.

Turning, Meat couldn’t keep the huge smile off his face.

Running at full speed toward him were Gray, Ro, Arrow, and Ball. Black was following them as fast as he could, but it was obvious the man was suffering from his own injuries.

Turning his back on the military members standing around, Meat started toward his friends.

Gray was the first to reach him, and he engulfed him in an embrace without an ounce of self-consciousness. Meat’s ribs protested the movement, but he barely felt the pain.

The others joined their huddle immediately after, and Meat had never felt more relieved in his life. For a while he hadn’t been sure he’d ever see these men again.

And once more, thoughts of Zara snuck into his consciousness. How she’d probably dreamed of this exact kind of reunion with her own relatives, but had been denied. It made him all the more determined to bring her back to the loving embrace of the family that had to have been in agony, wondering where she was all these years.